Wilson Family

A LOOOOONG FOUR DAYS!

2011-02-06T14:07:00.008-06:00

WOW-what can I say about last week in the Wilson household. First of all it was supposed to be the busiest weeks for me personally that I have had in a long time. I was scheduled to begin working with the women's ministry at my church on Tuesday; Wednesday morning we were to have our Women's Bible Study and then I was immediately leaving to drive to Houston to speak at the women's meeting at Lakewood Church; on Friday our best friends Shon & Tina Shelton were supposed to come for a soccer game and we were going to renew the tradition of Friday night dinner between the Shelton's & the Wilson's; then on Saturday I was to teach part of the Vision class for our church. Needless to say, NONE of those events happen. Not a single one.

All of the sudden on Monday evening the weather forecasters begin to say we have misjudged the storm coming in. It is going to be a major storm and we will get a lot of ice. I quickly made a phone call to Jackie Garner, my old boss at Lakewood, to inform here that would be a "small" chance that I may not be able to make it on Wednesday. We all went to bed Monday night wondering what Tuesday would hold. At 4:50 am they made the announcement that Frisco ISD was closed for Tuesday. I immediately knew my trip to the church office in Southlake was off. So Tuesday we were iced in with below 0 wind chills. Because of Joel's asthma, I wouldn't allow him to go outside and the other two boys really weren't interested in the ice. Craig of course was home sleeping all day and I felt like I spent most of the day telling the boys to be quite, stop running, stop fighting and doing more refereeing than I ever wanted to do!

Tuesday afternoon I received word that we were cancelling our women's bible study for the next morning. Then about 10 minutes later Christian hollered down that school was cancelled again for Wednesday. I was like our you kidding me...I knew at that point I wouldn't be driving to Houston. I called and cancelled with Jackie who was so gracious. She is one of the most gracious women I have ever met. She truly trust that nothing catches God off guard and he has a plan. My outlook for day two in the house was not looking pretty!

Wednesday morning arrived with another cancellation -no youth for Wednesday night. As was becoming the norm I felt like life was revolving around the 4 o'clock news. At 4 o'clock we would know if there would be school on Thursday or not. At 4 they announced Dallas ISD was closed, I knew that our school closure was only a few minutes away. Sure enough shortly thereafter they announced Friso ISD would be closed for Thursday as well.

Thursday was day 3 of being totally iced in. We had not gone anywhere in 3 whole days! My expectations of this wonderful week I was going to have where quickly ending. I now knew that the odds of our friends coming in to play soccer on Friday were quickly vanishing. We kept busy by cleaning the house most of the morning. Like I predicted Tina called around 2 to say the soccer game had been cancelled.

All week they had talked about a chance of snow for Friday. However the forecasters kept saying we would only get a trace to maybe an inch of snow. I felt completely confident that the kids would go back to school on Friday. Forget the fact that if I looked out the front door my whole street was a complete block of ice, or the fact that Craig had driven to work and knew first hand how bad the roads were, I SO NEEDED the boys to go back to school for all of our sanity.

I was glued to the 4 o'clock news Thursday afternoon as I ran on my treadmill. Sure enough around 4:15 they announced Frisco ISD along with 60 other school districts would cancel again on Friday. I thought are you kidding me...I then quickly decided that Christian and I would grocery shop Friday!!

Friday morning we woke up covered in snow. I was like this is WAY more than a dusting or even 1 inch. Sure enough due to a "slight" shift in the weather we got 6 inches of snow. 6 inches of snow on top of 3 inches of ice that had not melted because are temperatures had not been above freezing all week. I decided we were breaking out. Craig agreed to drive Christian and I to Wal-Mart. We did our "big" grocery shopping and they had everything I needed except for milk. There was not a gallon of milk in all of Wal-Mart. We then talked Craig into stopping by Ci'Ci's for some pizza on the way home and at Wal-greens for a gallon of milk. We were a totally different family with some time out of the house and of course some GROCERIES!!

Friday afternoon I received the last cancellation notice of no Vision Class for Saturday - YUCK! Saturday dawned with a gorgeous sun rise, temps above freezing, and the majority of the snow/ice starting to melt. It was an eager Wilson group who got ready for church that afternoon. We were ALL ready early for church. It was great getting out, seeing people, worshipping God and finally eating some Mexican food.

If the winter storm they are predicting for Wednesday comes in, we may be looking at a repeat of no school for next week. At least I will make sure my food supplies are packed and work on having a better attitude!!

(I only took two pictures of this storm. I think that shows how "not into it" I was!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-24T16:02:00.005-06:00

We had a very busy Christmas season. We ended up having a total of 4 Christmas'!! It involved a lot of cooking/cleaning on my part. I finally added up and over a 7 day period I had fed a little over 50 people -that is a lot for the woman who doesn't cook, isn't a good cook and doesn't have the gift of hospitality. However, I think a great time was had been all!!

Something we did new this year was to take sweets to the Fire Department across the street from us. I really do want to instill in my kids a spirit of giving and was wondering with our schedule and family dynamics how I could best implement that. When we realized Craig would have to work Christmas eve I decided that was a perfect opportunity for us to do something. So Christmas Eve all 3 of the boys and I made cookies, white chocolate trash, and other sweets. We arranged them on a platter and took them across the street to the fire department. The fireman were so thankful. They gave the boys a short tour, took them in the kitchen, and immediately all dove into their goodies. The boys enjoyed it and hopefully it will be a tradition we do each year!

Never has Christmas vacation gone by so fast for me. I know it was because of all the activity we had in the house. For once NOBODY was ready to go back to school...but we did!!

Happy Birthday Christian!

2010-12-05T18:17:00.002-06:00

Today, Christian turns 14! Oh my goodness where has the time gone. It seems like once they start school the time just flies by.

Christian at 14 you LOVE to aggrivate anyone! Especially your mom and your brothers. You have a very quick witt and enjoy laughing! You love band and are hating Algebra this year. You just found out you made first chair All-Region Band and you were so excited. (Or as excited as you can get). You enjoy playing on the computer, listening to your Ipod and hanging out with your friends. You HATE having your picture taken or wearing jeans or a long sleeve shirt. You are content to go to school in shorts and a sweatshirt even if it is in the 20's!!

I am so proud of the man you are becoming. I love you so much! I know this next year will be a great year for you.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

2010-09-11T17:10:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was Caleb's 10th birthday. (I had every intention to post this "on" his birthday but I was sick!).

Caleb is not a morning person ESPECIALLY when he has to go to school, so it was so nice when all I had to do was call his name once and he jumped up! He got up to the surprise of donuts for breakfast and a movie that he had been wanting (Percy Jackson & The Olympian's). He left for school excited that it was Friday and feeling like he knew his spelling words!

Craig and I arrived at school in time to see Caleb perform with a 2nd grade class the constitution song. Then we headed back to his classroom with his teacher Mrs. Cizdziel. He picked a little boy named Boon to be his helper and so proudly passed out donuts to everyone. Once everyone had a donut they all sang to Caleb. Caleb REALLY does not like being the center of attention (unlike Joel) and he hung his head while they sang. He got to choose where we ate dinner and he had his favorite dessert of a M&M McFlurry from McDonalds.

Caleb at 10 years old you still don't like school very much, your favorite subject is Science, and you LOVE to play outside with anyone in the neighborhood. You are so kind to others and very sensitive to anyone who is hurting (except probably your brothers!). You are such a prayer - I love hearing you every night as you are in your bed praying. You always ask me, Mom can I pray for you about anything? My prayer for you is that you would see and understand how special you are and that you would be confident in who God has made you! God has great plans for you and just like Caleb in the Bible I believe that you will spy out the land and come back with the good report that with God nothing is impossible! I love you so much!

Happy Birthday Joel!

2010-09-06T08:14:00.005-05:00

Today is Joel's 8th birthday. I honestly can't believe that my youngest is turning 8 today. Time really does go by fast (especially after they start school).

A few thoughts about Joel this morning....Joel you are all about donuts and baseball! You love to smile, laugh, annoy your brothers, learn, read your bible, have your picture taken and do cannon balls in the water. You like school - reading and math and you said your favorite class is music! Out of your brothers your are the most competive, love to be the center of attention and love to win at anything-baseball, checkers, uno, video games, etc. Sometimes you put a lot of pressure on yourself rather than just relaxing and enjoying life.

As I type this blog you are laughing in my room while watching Tom & Jerry. I LOVE listening to you laugh-that loud, cackling laugh that dad and I alway think sounds like some who has smoked for years laughing! I love that you still want to hug me, hold my hand and just aren't embarassed to love on your mom! You also are a worshipper (your current favorite song is Jesus You Care for Me as well as past favorites of Friend of God; You Are Good and Let the Redeemed Say So).

You are such a joy to me and dad. You truly complete our family!

Love you so much!

Christmas!

2010-01-24T19:26:00.016-06:00

I guess since it was a month ago I should post something about Christmas!! Especially since it was soooo much better than last year. (If you missed last year's Christmas post check it out in the archive).

Since we moved into our house 2weeks before Christmas last year, this year I started decorating EARLY!! I always like to use the excuse that since we are gone at Thanksgiving and then the next weekend is Christian's birthday that we HAVE to put up our tree early. I put it up the weekend before Thanksgiving. Craig agreed to put out lights (not on the house but he did do the yard), for the first time I had a dinning room table to decorate, as well as my mantle and a new wreath for my door. I was so EXCITED... UNTIL, the tree was crooked, Craig accidentally broke the top of the tree and the tree topper and I couldn't find my manger scene. Luckily my mom came and rescued the day by wiring the top of the tree, creating a tree topper, helping to locate the missing manger scene and adding touches to the mantle. We were on our way!

Our first Christmas was with Randy & Sherri, Shannon & her boys (Shawn was out of town) and Angie & Jake at Angie's house in mid-December. We had a great evening and everyone was excited to spend their money and gift cards. Joel was very confused though that he had to go back to school and that Christmas was still about 2 weeks away!

Christmas Eve it began to snow. It snowed all day. That evening we went to our church's Christmas Eve service - what a wonderful time of worship and word as we prepared for Christmas Day. It had snowed heavily while we were at church and the roads were very slick on the way home.

Craig and I got up about 6:00 am in order to be ready and see the kids as they came downstairs. Before we were even completely ready we heard someone up. Surprisingly, it was Christian who was the first kid up that morning. He said he couldn't sleep!

It was probably an hour later before Caleb & Joel got up. It took my mom and dad awhile to get to my house (less than 2 miles) because of how slick the roads where. They arrived and the presents where opened. We had a traditional big breakfast that morning and later a very non-traditional but favorite lunch! The time with family, the snow on the ground, made it a very memorable Christmas Day!

The day after Christmas all of my family came. My brother and Leanna with their kids, my parents, my granny, and my aunt and her daughter. I was able to use my dinning room table for the first time (I bought it last April) and it was great to all be able to sit down to a great meal. Everyone stayed the night and we ate leftovers and visited that next day as well. Last year we got some great family pictures...this year we barely got one! The kids weren't real into it. In fact Joel is missing from this picture because he was upstairs sleeping!!

Lastly, Billy & Jo came New Year's weekend and we had Christmas with them. The boys loved their cash and immediately decided to put their money together and purchase a motorized scooter.

Christmas 2009 was GREAT! (Way better than 2008-ha. ha)!! But the best part came a week ago. Joel's teacher sent home a paper they had written the first day back from Christmas vacation. They were asked what was the best thing about Christmas...Joel wrote that he loved the presents but the best part was worshipping God! I was SHOCKED especially since he slept threw most of the Christmas Eve service (ha. ha)!! But, something must have made an impression on him - God is good!!

(More pics - Nicole (Kyle's daughter) kissing my dad through the stairs. My dinning room table ready for family meal. Kid's table. Present opening. Austin and his "guns" courtesey of Uncle Craig & Aunt Adana.)

15th Wedding Anniversary!

2010-01-07T12:37:00.006-06:00

I realize I have not even blogged about Christmas and here I am blogging about my anniversary! I will blog about Christmas but my anniversary is foremost in my mind today.

Today, January 7, 1995 at 11:00 am Craig and I got married. We married on his 22nd birthday and I was 20. I remember getting up so early that morning in order for my sister-in-law Shannon to fix my hair. Whew the girl spent hours getting my hair just right, doing my makeup, plucking my eyebrows and even then she had to borrow rollers to fix her own hair on the way to the church.

I remember driving to the church with my friend Gwen with my hair fixed and the veil in place. We had so many people honk and wave at us on the way. Then sitting in the car waiting as they made sure I was not going to run into Craig before the ceremony. We were running a tad bit late and the mad rush to get into my dress and getting everything in place. Just in the nick of time Shannon came in finished my hair and hers and we were off for pictures.

I remember our photographer was a PERFECTIONIST! At the time it was a little annoying but once I got the pictures I was so thankful for his persistance. We took what felt like a TON of pictures before the ceremony. I remember waiting in the pastor's office for the bridesmaids to get back from taking pictures with Craig so I could hear how he was doing. The girls reported back that everytime the photographer said say "cheese" Craig would say "honeymoon". A few minutes before show time I HAD to go to the restroom and the look I got from my loving maid of honor and best friend Emily!!

I remember right before I walked down the aisle Matthew Warnock the ring bearer looking me dead in the eye and saying when I get on stage I am going to do a flip! I don't know where that came from but I calmly told him no he wouldn't since his dad was up there!! Walking down the aisle with my dad and crying. I remember thinking you better get it together or people are going to think you don't want to marry Craig! Finally making it to the top of the stairs. Pastor Chuck forgetting the rings and me having to remind him! Craig telling me as we were taking communion and kneeling at the kneeling bench that he had worn white socks and had to borrow black ones from Randy!

After the recessional crying with my mom and Shannon telling me to blot and not wipe my face (or I would wipe my makeup off)!! The many MORE pictures we took before we could finally leave the church and head to the reception. Riding to the reception in my first limo and Craig informing me had had not finished packing and we would have to go by his apartment before we left!

After being introduced at the reception Craig's family broke out singing Happy Birthday to him! (Remember we got married ON his birthday). A very full house at the reception and trying to speak to everyone. I remember all of the sudden realizing that I hadn't seen Craig in a while. Throwing the bouquet and it hitting the ceiling! Changing our clothes to leave and realizing I hadn't eaten other than a bite of wedding cake!

Putting toilet paper in our ears so that bird seed didn't get lodged in them. Craig's brother-in-law Shawn holding Craig and pouring a huge cup of bird seed down him. Leaving in the limo and realizing I had not seen nor said good bye to my dad. The limo driver offering to turn around and go back so I could say bye. Then the limo driver getting out and hollering for the father of the bride and that hug goodbye with my dad.

Craig making me stand outside on the patio as the "lookout" as he finished packing because he was scared someone would come get our car. (We had left in a limo that took us to where my car was hidden. Craig had done a JOB on Shawn's car when he and Shannon got married and he was fearful of revenge!)

Finally our wonderful honeymoon in the Pocono's mountain. We have been through so much these last 15 years. Some really great times and some raelly low times. But as I reflect back today I am thankful for it all. It has changed both Craig and I into who we are today. Hopefully a lot more wiser, a lot more mature in Christ and I know more in love then when we said "I Do."

Babe, I am so glad you choose me and if I had to do it all over again I would always choose you! Happy Birthday & Anniversary. I Love you!

Christian Matthew Wilson

2009-12-11T07:48:00.007-06:00

Christian celebrated his 13th birthday this past Sunday (December 6th). I can't believe my oldest is now officially a teenager!!

We found out we were pregnant on Good Friday in 1996 and that Christian was due December 18th. My dad hoped he would be born on Christmas Day but I was very, very thankful that did not happen. As with all of my boys labor does not progress quickly for me. I was in labor (contractions every 3 minutes) for 40 1/2 hours with Christian. My Dr. was wonderful and really worked with me because I was scared to death to have a C-section and we didn't have to! When Christian was finally born he was not breathing. At some point as he came down the birth canal the chord wrapped around his neck. I remember waiting those long minutes to hear him cry. He finally did and we were on our way!

Christian has my personality but gets his intelligence from his dad. He likes school, band and his youth group. He didn't like football and is still on the fence about basketball. He is very athletically gifted but UNLIKE his mother is not very competitive. School comes very easily to him. He is in all AP classes and loves Math. Band is his favorite! He has excelled at band with a 1+ last year at Solo & Ensemble competition along with a special recommendation and this year he was 1 of 15 from his band to make All Region.

Christian received his first "spanking (wasn't really a spanking just swatted his hand)" at 8 months old over the computer. He would crawl over to the computer in our apartment and try to turn it off. EIGHT times over and over he would crawl over, turn it off, I would spank his hand, put him on the opposite side of the room, he would cry and do it ALL again!! That was my first look at his determination! When he was little and he and Craig were riding in the car, Christian said, "Dad what color of truck will Jesus drive when he comes back to get us!" Ha. ha. One day when Caleb & Joel were little and we were all in the car both of them were crying. From the very back Christian hollered, "Mom, what were ya'll thinking having another baby!"

Happy Birthday to my first born son! I am so proud of the young man you are becoming. I can't wait to see all God has for you in the future. I love you!

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-30T19:48:00.019-06:00

To say that we were ready for a break from school is an understatement. ALL of us were ready for some time off and thankfully the kids were out all week! I still had BSF leadership meeting and class but that was all that was on the to-do-list!

On Monday Craig took Christian to meet Grandpa Billy for their great "hunting" week! Christian was really excited..I don't know if it was to hunt or if it was simply that he was excited to be away from his brothers for a couple of days! Needless to say (and really not to our surprise) he really wasn't that in to hunting!! The other two boys enjoyed playing outside with their friends and having one less person to "share" with. It is always amazing to me the difference in the noise level of just having one gone. It was really quite!!

On Wednesday after my Bible study, we loaded up and drove to Grandpa Billy's. The traffic was a little heavy but we made good time in getting there. The boys immediately jumped on the "gators" and raced off! Grandpa Billy's is a boys heaven! We then went fishing. Christian caught the first catfish and then I caught 4. Unfortunately no one else caught any. When I caught the last one Joel was the only one fishing. I felt bad for him because he was being so patient and so when I hooked it I asked him if he wanted to reel it in. He of course said yes and said can it be mine! So we took his picture with it!

Thanksgiving morning we got up early and waited for the rest of the 44 people to arrive! There was a total of 53 people at Thanksgiving. The boys had a great time playing with all of the cousins and Craig and I enjoyed catching up with his family.

We had to come home Thanksgiving night so that Craig could work on Friday night. But we still had a great time.

Joel's class did a Thanksgiving play called Arthur's Thanksgiving. Here is the link to his class blog. If you want to just hear him you can fast forward it to his part 1:30-3:01. He is one of the narrator in Scene 2. The blog address is www.robertson1stgrade.blogspot.com.

We have a busy week this week. We are back into 6:30 am basketball practice! Christian has his Christmas Band Concert Thursday night and then he is having some boys spend the night for his birthday on Friday night. I can't believe he will be 13 on Sunday!

It's Been Awhile!

2009-10-27T12:19:00.021-05:00

I can't believe I have not blogged in almost 2 months. I guess that shows how truly busy we have been in the Wilson household!

Since my last post both Caleb & Joel had their birthday parties. We had them on the same day at our neighborhood park & pool. Caleb's was at 10:00 am and Joel's was at 2:00 pm. Due to some confusion Caleb's group did not get to swim but Joel's friends did (which in the end because Caleb was at Joel's party he got to swim making it all good). Both had great turnouts but it was interesting Caleb had all boys and one girl at his party and Joel had all girls and one boy at his. We had a lot of family attend as well which makes it really special. The boys both got new Nintendo DS, cash, gift cards and toys. They LOVED it!

We then dove head first into school and football season. Christian has been playing football every Tuesday night. Since, we live in a large school district we don't have to travel to play other teams we simply play other middle schools within our district. (Thank you Jesus!). Christian plays both offense (center) and defense (middle linebacker). He does pretty good but he really doesn't enjoy it and says he is not going to play next year! He has however decided that he is going to try out for the basketball team. So football season ends on November 9th and tryouts for basketball are November 11th. If he makes the team they play in a tournament the following weekend!! However, the games don't start officially until after the first of the year on Thursday nights. I am assuming we would still have 6:30 am practices!! The head football coach for the middle school has a blog with video links to most of the games. (The link is https://wiki.friscoisd.org/users/olsont). If you watch the video Christian is #71 and is in each one.

Joel also started fall baseball. He moved up into the coach pitch league and is really enjoying it. Due to the excessive amount of rain we have had there have been a lot of practices and games rained out. Joel's team has done really, really well only losing 2 games (one of which we had to forfeit). Joel has also done well hitting the ball and making some defensive stops. He LOVES baseball and LOVES the attention he gets from it. He always waves at us when he goes up to bat; out to play a position or especially if he scores!! I really enjoy his team and coaches this year so we will stick with this team in the spring as well.

Caleb decided he didn't want to play a sport this go around. He has found some neighborhood boys to play with and most days after homework he is outside riding bikes and playing with the kids. He has a lot of homework this year (at least an hour each day) which doesn't make him happy but he is holding his own so far! He is counting the days until Thanksgiving because we get the whole week off!

Finally, as if we aren't busy enough, we added a DOG! As most of you knew we had to get rid of our dog Bullet in Sugar Land because when we moved here we lived in an apartment while our house was being built. Needless to say Bullet was not an apartment dog!! The boys were very upset to have to get rid of him and have been on us for a year now to get a dog. Of course I was always the hold up! For several months now I have casually been looking through Craig's List and the Frisco Humane Society looking for dogs. This past Sunday I was again searching through Craig's List and came across a dog of interest. See we had a few requirements: small, hypoallergenic, cute, potty trained and cheap!! Ha. ha. This dog was a white Bichon Friece and he fit all of the requirements (was even assured he was potty trained but we have had several accidents the last few days). The couple was being relocated to Pensacola, Fl and were going to have to live in a condo while they looked for a house. Their complex did not allow pets! I so related with their plight and we set up a time to meet. Buddy was an immediate hit and we got him that evening. However, Buddy didn't adjust very well to the Wilson household and after 5 days we were looking for him a home. Being a male he really liked to mark his territory in my house. Needless to say, Buddy went to a "new" home yesterday. I found a lady who is very familiar with the breed and was excited to get him!!

I was feeling so guilty about having to give him away that we immediately went and got Caleb some fish!! I am more of a fish type of person-ha. ha. Caleb really loved both Buddy & Bullet and was such a trooper both times we had to get rid of them that I couldn't help myself. So he is the proud owner of TWO rainbow shark fish! (He likes the Shark part!!)

Today the kids wore the costumes to church for their Fall Harvest Day. They both picked out the same costumes-Darth Vader! We of course have a plethora of swords to accessorize their costumes!

So, we are gearing up for another week!

Happy 9th Birthday Caleb!

2009-09-05T19:24:00.012-05:00

Today is Caleb's 9th birthday. (Yep, he and Joel are two years and 4 days apart!). We joyfully welcomed Caleb Aaron Wilson on Sunday, September 10, 2000 at 8:32 pm.

Caleb's pregnancy was fun because there was a lot of us pregnant at the same time at church. In fact I was working for our Children's Pastor and his wife was pregnant as well. (Poor Clayton a pregnant wife and secretary at the same time. Addison and Caleb are only 6 weeks apart.) I wasn't as sick as I was with Christian or Joel so that made it easier. I of course thought I was for sure having a girl and was so surprised that it was another boy. I went into pre-term labor at 34 weeks with Caleb. They stopped the contractions and put me on bed rest for the next 3 weeks. I had Caleb on a Sunday and it was the first day of football season. I remember before I had my epidural there were so many people in my room and I was hurting pretty bad, all of the men were at one end watching the Cowboys play and a nurse came in and made them all leave, ha. ha. Caleb was a good baby as well.

One thing I will never forget was an incident that happened when Caleb was 2 weeks old. Craig was working and my aunt was getting married. I sat Christian who was 4 down in front of the TV to watch the Olympics. I laid Caleb on the couch with the boppy around him and I went to get dressed. While I was curling my hair I could hear Christian just cracking up, I mean laughing loudly. I was thinking I don't think the Olympics are that funny. I came into the living room and Christian was rolling Caleb down the couch, saying roll Caleb roll. I was MORTIFIED. I mean not only was Caleb so little but Christian could have accidentally suffocated him or something. Needless to say he stayed with me from then on!!

Caleb - if anyone is going to get hurt it will be Caleb. He has put his hand through a window; hand through a glass door; ran straight into a barbed wire fence (still has that scar down his face); has a scar down his back from hitting a nail; you name it he has done it. He has gotten into more stuff than I can even remember. One day when Joel was an infant Caleb wanted to play outside. So I let him go in the backyard and kept the back door open so I could see him while I was feeding Joel. All of the sudden I hear him screaming here kitty, kitty, here kitty, kitty (and we didn't have a cat). The next thing I know he is in the house with an animal by the neck with blood coming down his arm and he is shaking it and hollering look mommy, look at my kitty. Thank goodness I had the wisdom to not over react. I calmly put Joel down and told Caleb to stay where he was. When I got closer to him I realized he had a squirrel by the neck and it had been injured, thus the blood. I again calmly told him to go back outside and put it down. He kept saying but mom it is my kitty. Animal control came and got the squirrel to make sure he didn't have rabies - thank goodness he didn't but I will NEVER forget it. Another time he and Christian were playing hide and seek and he climbed into the dryer!

Caleb is not really into school but he LOVES being around kids. He likes being outside riding his bike or scotter or playing with the neighborhood kids. He LOVES to swim and would swim all day everyday if we would let him. He likes all kinds of sports and has played soccer, baseball and flag football. He is the most sensitive of my children and the most DRAMATIC. He can have melt downs about anything - school work, homework, the heat, not getting something he wants!! He LOVES Jesus. I heard him praying the other night after I had tucked everyone into bed. He was so cute in the middle of praying he says Hold on a minute; then he says okay God I'm back, I had dropped my car and had to pick it up; then he says I hope that was okay and not rude to tell you to hold on; if it was rude I am sorry!!!

Happy Birthday Caleb, I love you so much. I am excited to see the success you will have this year in school and the years to come. I know God has great plans in store for you and can't wait to see how you grew and change into a Godly young man!

Happy 7th Birthday Joel!

2009-09-04T07:16:00.022-05:00

Today my "baby" turns 7! Where does the time go? This week I have been remembering when I found out I was pregnant with Joel. Most of you know that Joel was a "surprise" (a BIG surprise) to us. We weren't planning on having any more children and definitely not at that time.

Caleb was 14 months old when I found out I was pregnant with Joel. Craig & I had just come through the hardest year of our life financially. Due to the struggles Craig had just decided that he would go back to school to get his Bachelor's degree. We had a dishwasher leak in our house and an inspector came in and said we had black mold - he had ripped up all of the carpet in our living and dining rooms and the hallway. (We didn't have black mold and ended up getting new carpet, new kitchen countertops and cabinets!). So my house was in total disarray, our finances were not good, I had a young toddler, my husband fixing to go back to school and how do we make all of that work and find a job that will work around his schedule, and now guess what your PREGNANT. Needless to say I did not handle the news very well. As the months passed and things settled down we of course got excited and I of course was hoping for a girl!! Although, I wasn't real surprised when for the third time the sonogram lady typed b-o-y!

We embarked on the difficult journey of thinking of a name. I refused to have another "c" name. I just was too hard with Craig, Christian & Caleb to add another one! I don't really remember how we agreed on Joel. I know Craig really liked it. So the waiting began. It was a pretty uneventful pregnancy. In the early stages I was so nauseated and because I had Caleb to take care of I couldn't take phenegran (it totally knocks me out)! So I took a drug that they give chemo patients during the day and then took phenegran at night. It was very busy time with Craig starting school, a new job and all of us adjusting to that schedule.

I was early with both Christian & Caleb so I naturally assumed this would be the case - WRONG. I actually had him on my due date. My mom and dad where in town that day (something I had prayed for since they had moved to Houston by then). I remember calling my mom at 7:30 that morning saying I am having contractions. I was determined to not go to the hospital too early and be told to go home and come back later (as I had done with the first two) and so by about 12:30 pm I was really hurting. We called Craig at work and then dropped off Caleb at the babysitters and arranged for a friend of mine to get Christian from school. We got to the hospital around 1:20 and I had him at 6:32 pm (which for me is very fast!!). He was such a great baby. He slept through the night at 3 days old!!

He has continued to be such a blessing to us. He is such a combination of Christian & Caleb's personalities. He is very analytical in his thinking (like Christian) but very sensitive especially to me (like Caleb). He truly is a momma's boy which I LOVE!! God knew exactly what he was doing. I do remember a time when I had all three in the car and both Caleb & Joel were crying. From the backseat Christian hollered, "Mom what were ya'll thinking having another baby!" I said Christian take it up with God! Ha.ha.

Joel loves school, loves baseball and LOVES his video games. A lot of nights he will sit on the couch with me and root for the Astros! He is the only one of my children who will order a salad (and LOVE it) and is not really into chocolate. However, he is known as the donut expert in our family. That boy loves him some donuts! (This is a picture from Friday - he wanted me to take donuts to school for his birthday rather than cupcakes).

So Happy Birthday to my youngest. I can't wait to see you grow more and more and develop a deeper and deeper relationship with Jesus. Leaning on him and his guidance and direction for your life. I love you Joel! (Picture-after Tina took our family pics in Florida, Joel wanted one of just me and him - did I mention he is a momma's boy!)

First Week of School!

2009-08-30T18:54:00.019-05:00

Like most of Texas we started school this past Monday. Two out of the three boys were excited (bet you can't tell from the picture who was not excited) Ha. ha. We had meet the teacher the Friday before school started for the two little ones. Joel is in Miss Guy's class and he had 3 kids from his kindergarten class in his room. Caleb has Mrs. Labry and he doesn't have anyone from his class last year.

I was SHOCKED when Caleb came home after the first day very excited. He said, "Mom, mom guess what? We won't have any homework for the first two weeks!" If no homework could be a love language that would be Caleb's. I don't know how he will respond once the homework starts but so far this week he had a good week. The mornings are a little rough for him (he is simply not a morning person)something is always too tight - first morning it was his shoes were to tight; second morning it was his shorts were too tight; third morning his socks were too tight - you get the picture. But when I pick him up in the afternoon he is excited to share with me what he has learned especially if it is about Science. There has been much prayer going into this year since this will start TAKS testing so I am hoping this great start is a sign for the rest of the year!!

Joel loves school and this year is no different. He loves his teacher and the fact that they do more "work" than in kindergarten. I have been amazed at the things he has come home telling me each day. Books they have read, projects they are doing, new concepts he is learning it has been great. Joel has also started baseball again (I thought I was being smart in only letting him play and not both he and Caleb but I had not factored in Christian's football so we are BUSY). He practices on Monday nights and games will start every Saturday in two weeks. He loves baseball though and that makes it easier.

Christian started 7th grade and the big change this year is he is playing football. Football practice started the 2nd day of school and he has to be there by 6:30 am. (Yes, 6:30 am!). It has been a HUGE adjustment for him and me! I am getting up very early in order to exercise before I take him to school and then come home and get the other two up and ready for school. So far he really doesn't like football. His first practice in full pads was this past Saturday. That means they started "hitting". He has decided that he does not like getting HIT!! Ha. ha. As most of you know since Christian quit playing baseball he hasn't done any physical activity so all of the running and playing made for a very sore boy all week!! He right now is playing wide receiver and defensive end. (He prefers defensive end -again I think because he doesn't want to be hit!). Anyway, we told him that if he committed he needed to finish out the season so we will see. Craig encouraged him that playing in a game is totally different than practice and he may love it. (I am not holding my breath but we will see). Games start next Tuesday, September 8th - it will be INTERESTING. So, we continue this week with 6:30 am practices!

Last weekend before school started Grandpa Billky & Jo came and delivered my birthday present. He had asked me a couple of months ago if I would like him to build me something for my birthday and I said YESSSSSSSSSS! I asked for a desk for my office. He sent me pictures along the way and I loved it. Then when they got here he surprised me with not only a desk but bookcases that match as well!! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH. I LOVE them! One of the things I most wanted when we built was a study/office. A place where I could have all of my books with easy access so this was a dream come true.

We traveled to Tyler yesterday to celebrate Alicia's birthday. Her and Joel are 4 days apart (although she was due after Joel-no fair)! Christian and Craig stayed home since Christian had football but Caleb and Joel had a great time (as I am sure you can tell in the pictures). They have missed not having a diving board to jump off of and LOVED the slide.

So, we start another week. I am going to try and nail down a plan for both Caleb & Joel's birthday parties this week so I will send that out along with the baseball and football schedule soon! Enjoy the rest of the pics!

Vacation!

2009-08-15T13:37:00.028-05:00

We had the great opportunity to once again go with our very best friends the Shelton's (see pic) on vacation to Panama City Beach, Florida. We went with them 3 years ago and were very excited to go again! We left on Friday to go to Longview and pick up Joel (he had been having his week stay with Memaw & Papaw). After enjoying dinner at Papapcita's (of course there is no better way to start vacation than a trip to Papacita's) and seeing Randy & Sherri's new house we decided to get to bed.

We met the Shelton's at 4:10 am Saturday morning on the side of Interstate 20 to start the 12 hour drive to Florida. The first couple of hours were tough until the sun came up (see pic) but overall it was not a bad trip there (trip home not as fun-but that is for later). Of course with a total of 11 people and 6 of them being kids we did a lot of stopping. Here was the first stop where Shon was checking his roof luggage...then the very next stop Craig was up checking ours! I think we stopped about every two hours and had an interesting lunch stop at Burger King (think Bon-qui-qui on Utube). The kids excitement helped the time past and we didn't hit any construction or traffic.

We made it to the Condo around 4:30 where we promptly unloaded and Tina and I headed out to Wal-Mart to buy food for the week. Listen I am an expert Wal-Mart shopper but you have never seen crazy Wal-Mart shoppers until you have shopped at the Panama City Beach Wal-mart. Because the majority of the condos turn over on Saturday then you have 1000's of people looking for the same things -milk, bread, chips, cereal, lunch meat! It is crazy! But we finally got it all done and made it back to the condo to rest. (This is a pic from our room looking down to the ocean).

Sunday morning we were up early and ready to go. We blew up all the floats and headed out to ride the waves. The current was very strong and kept pushing us away from the area in front of the condo so we would get out and walk back down the beach and get back in. On one of these occurences a huge wave came up dumping Craig and taking his glasses with it. All 5 of us made a mad dash to try and locate his glasses. Just when we were about to give up hope Joel found them - YEAH!!! We spent all of Sunday and Monday at the beach. The condo sits right on the beach and our room was on the 4th floor, so we would just walk down 3 flights of stairs and be on the beach - it was wonderful!! Of course we also made the customary trip to the arcade where the kids played a lot of video games (Tina & I did a pretty good job of making high scores on Ms. PacMan) and rode the go carts.

On Tuesday we did what is my favorite part of whole trip - we rented a pontoon boat and take it out in the bay. As we were headed out to Shell Island we chased dolphins. We had a dolphin come right up to our boat. He was so close and would just roll over and like he was waiting on us to feed him. It was AWESOME to see one so up close in its natural habitat. It played with us for a good 5 minutes before swimming off. When we got to Shell Island we walked across to the other side and snorkeled. We saw a HUGE sting ray swim between us and another group of people. That was really, really cool. As the kids were snorkeling Christian came up with a jelly fish in his net. Talk about clearing the water quickly. Caleb (who was stung last year) hit the beach like his hair was on fire. Ms. Tina came to our rescue and threw the jelly fish far out but we all swam a litle closer to the beach after that! We got back into the boat and went out a ways and decided to try and let the kids fish. We had never fished before and wasn't really for sure what bait to use but Craig had picked up some shrimp and that is what we used. We fished forever with not one bite and the kids where ready to give up. I took a pole and fished for a little while and got the first bite. I didn't catch anything but the bite excited the kids and they started fishing again. All of the sudden Lance (Shon & Tina's son) started hollering and he had a fish. He reeled and reeled and reeeled some more - what we could see of the fish we could tell it was big, just as he got it to the boat the fish broke the line and swam off. We were so dissapointed for him but that re-excited the kids and they were back with gusto to catch something. Once again Lance start hollering and he had another big one. This time again before we got it to the boat the fish broke the line and swam off. (At least we now know that shrimp works and next year they will need stronger line!). Around this time we started noticing that Joel wasn't feeling real well. He had been coughing since Saturday but nothing series. Craig called him over and started talking to him and realized that he was wheezing as he was breathing. We really did not know what to do so we prayed for him and decided we would re-evaluate him after lunch. However within about 5 minutes he progressivly got worse. Craig made the decision that we needed to go back so that he could take Joel to the Dr. Now we were about an hour from shore and if you have ever been on a pontoon boat you know it does not go very fast! All of the kids slept as we traveled back and let them off. Joel really got bad by the time Craig found a clinic and got him in. This was the 3rd time he had had this kind of asthmatic attack and although he has never been diagnosed with Asthma that is what this Dr. diagnosed him with. They gave him a couple of breathing treatments while there. I have a nebulizer but since this is not a regular occurence for us I had not packed it. Luckily late that night Craig found one really cheap and we were able to treat him the rest of the week! Back on the boat we struck we went back out to anchor somewhere and eat lunch. We ate our lunch and the kids snorkled again. We just snorkled and swam the rest of the afternoon. Emily (Shon & Tina's oldest daughter) found a star fish (see picture - it wouldn't open up for us) and that was realy cool. We also so another sting ray and Shon & Tina spotted a sea turtle as well. This is always one of the highlights of our trip and I was so sad that Craig & Joel missed it but it couldn't be helped. We are alwasy EXHAUSTED after the boat trip so it was a very quite evening.

Our plans for Wednesday were to take the kids to the water park. But we changed those plans due to Joel. He just was not well enough to go to a water park and we figured our kids could use a day out of the sun. They spent all day in the condo playing games. I tried to go down to the beach several times that day to just lay on the chairs and read but everytime I went down it would rain. I finally gave up and stayed inside. One of my biggest hopes of the trip was to get a good family picture. The kids really aren't the problem with family pictures it is me. I just don't take good pictures so we don't have a lot of us all together. Since it had been overcast and sprinkling that day it was cooler and I decided we would take our pics that night. The thing I didn't figure in was the wind. So in a lot of the pics my hair is completely blown over to the side. But thanks to Ms. Tina's perserverance we did get some that I really, really like and look forward to blowing up and framing. That night was the adults night out!! Tina's mom goes every year and she agreed to stay with the kids so that all of the adults could go out. We had such a great time and had the best shrimp I have ever eaten in my life. It was lightly battered (not fried) in a creaming white sauce and it was AWESOME. Unfortantely, Craig & Shon had ordered it so I just stole them from Craig when he wasn't looking but it was really, really, good. After dinner we just sat down on some benches and talked. I love this couple so much and we NEVER run out of things to talk about and laugh about. We truly have a great time together.

Thursday was once again a beach day. We played really hard in the morning and then decided to be done around 2:00. Later that afternoon we took all of the kids to the Dollar Store to buy sourveniours. We then came back and all of the girls went shopping and the boys stayed at the condo and played games. I LOVED going with the GIRLS to shop (not having any girls I don't get to do that often)! We had a great time and tasted some very intersting combinations of popcorn!! We had decided on Thursday to go ahead and leave on Friday rather than waiting till Saturday. So Thursday night was spent packing up, cleaning and getting ready to go home.

We left around 9:30 am on Friday and we got back to Dallas around 11:30 pm. It was a LONG drive home and not nearly as fun as the trip down. The kids were really bored and antsy on the way home which translates into a lot of: are we there yet and hitting and aggrivating each other. Regardless we were so glad we got to go and really LOVED being there with our friends! (Here are some extra pics)

4th of July!

2009-07-05T16:13:00.011-05:00

The kids (especially Joel) have really been looking forward to the 4th of July. I think because last year in Sugar Land Craig bought a big packet of fireworks. Because we lived out of the city limits and our house was in a cul-de-sac we had a perfect place to shoot them. We had sparklers, black jacks, roman candles and more. The boys had a BLAST. So this year they were expeting the same thing. I began noticing about 3 weeks ago these signs going up around Friso saying it is ILLEGAL to do fireworks in the city limits. I thought interesting but no big deal because we are technically in Little Elm and I had not seen ANY signs up regarding fireworks. However, I checked out the Little Elm city webiste and they had a big banner on it saying it was ILLEGAL to shoot fireworks (including sparklers) and that you would be fined $2,000. I thought OH NO what are we going to do. I mean I am serious when I say they had been counting down the days till the 4th to shoot fireworks. So I didn't say anything and thought we will deal with it on the 4th.

The kids wanted to go swimming so we all went to the pool. This was the first time that Craig went with the boys and they had a blast. They LOVE having dad to to help gang up and tackle Christian, through them in the water, and someone to climb all over (their mother normally only gets in the water to cool off - definently not to tackle anyone or get her hair wet-ha, ha).

We came home showered and changed and went in search of fireworks. We had decided we would just get some sparklers for the kids and hope we wouldn't get caught!! Since it was illegal in Frisco & Little Elm we had to drive around looking for a firework stand to purhase some (of course in Sugar Land & Longview there are fireworks stands on every corner!). We finally found a place and it was PACKED. Much to Joel's dismay we only bought some sparklers. To make it up to them Craig got them all chocalote shakes from Wendys!

We went over to my mom and dad's new house to shoot the sparklers and watch the fireworks. Due to the wind we had a hard time getting the sparklers lit and we did catch the grass on fire in one place but the kids had fun! Their house was the perfect place to watch fireworks because we could see the fireworks from Little Elm and other surrounding cities coming up over the lake.

No big plans for this upcoming week but in the next couple of weeks all three are going to Grandpa Billy's & Jo's. Their house is a little boys heaven with huge acreage, fishing, cows, guns, etc. They can not wait!!!

2 Weeks Down - 9 more to Go!!!

2009-06-21T16:22:00.008-05:00

I am of course referring to the fact that school has been out for 2 weeks and 9 more until school starts again!! The first week Caleb spent with Memaw & Papaw (Randy & Sherri). I can't tell you the difference there is when just one of them is gone! The noise level is drastically less and there is so much less fighting! I think this is one of the only times that Caleb has gone somewhere by his self and he had a BLAST. It was he and his cousin Connor and they ruled the roost for that week. One of the highlights of the week was Caleb catching 19 (yes 19) fish at Randy & Sherri's house. He was so excited to have caught more fish then anyone else in our family! Bless his heart he cried when I picked him up! He said he was going to miss Memaw and Papaw and that it had been so nice not having his brothers annoy him!! Joel & Christian enjoyed being the only 2 home. Joel made a double play last week at his baseball game. He caught a fly ball playing 2nd base and then ran off and touched first base!! He was EXTREMELY excited. (Of course he thinks he can coach the team his self so this reinforced to him that he is awesome!)

This past week was the first week with all 3 home! Monday was AWFUL. They all three fought and fought! I was at my wits end thinking how could it get any worse and then it did! I don't know what was wrong with Joel but he broke my lamp in the living room and then decided to play dodge ball in the media room and broke a window in there. By the time Craig got home I was ready to sale all 3 of them on Craig's list. Thankfully Craig had a little more grace with them then I did. Luckily we have double pane windows and he didn't break both panes so there isn't any heat or bugs coming in. That was such a blessing since they had to order the glass and it won't be fixed until tomorrow.

Tuesday afternoon I was getting ready for Caleb's last baseball game when Craig came downstairs with Joel and said he has fever. He had 101.6 and said his throat was hurting. He had just had strep throat 12 days before and had finished his antibotic on Sunday. I took him back to the Dr. and sure enough he still had strep throat. Craig took Caleb to his game and I got Joel's antibotic. (It explained a little bit why he was so bad the day before, usually when he is so mean it is because he is sick.) Caleb's team lost their last game but he had a good game! I think he is very glad baseball is over and he now says he doesn't want to play again!

On Wednesday Christian started band camp. He LOVES band and this is a camp that is put on by his band directors. They meet once a week for 2 hours, learning new songs, and trying different things that they can't do during the school year.

On Friday we kept a friend of mine's little boy named Micah. Micah is a year and half and he is so sweet. The boys (especially Joel) love him and love to play with him. I am going to start keeping him two days a week for July, August, & September and they are very excited. He truly is one of the most laid back little boys I have ever been around. We took him to the pool (we spend about 4 days out of the week at the pool) along with 2 other families and had a great time!

Saturday was Joel's last baseball game. He played catcher the first inning and while he didn't get any outs he really looked CUTE in his gear. For the 2nd inning he played second base and got two of the three outs for that inning. He came into the dugout and hollered at Craig and said dad I got the first out and the third out. (Again did I mention how much he loves baseball!). Whenever he gets an out he pumps his fist up and high fives the coach (and sometimes the other teams coach if they are near). He definently wants to play baseball again in the fall! I LOVE baseball but I am glad the season is over for now. It is simply to HOT!

I love my kids and they say the funniest things. Like Joel recently said - "I didn't know I had to brush my teeth since it was summer vacation and I didn't realize we still went to church during summer vacation." (I guess since this is the first time he has been out of school he thinks everything stops for summer vacation.) He was repeating his Bible story to me about Abraham having to move his whole family in obedience to God. So I asked him Joel where did Abraham move to and he said "God told Abraham to move from Texas to Oklahoma." Today I asked Caleb about his lesson at church and he said we learned about John the Baptism man!! They are so funny!!

Craig found out Friday afternoon that they settled the lawsuit against the hospital he worked for in Houston so he does not have to go and testify this week. He was VERY, VERY relieved and glad. I was glad for him as well because I know how much he wasn't looking forward to it but I was a little disappointed because I was going to go with him and I was looking forward to getting away without the kids and staying in a free hotel room - ha. ha!!

So I now think we are all caught up!

Last Day of School - Great is thy Faithfulness!

2009-06-04T11:09:00.015-05:00

I just had to blog today -the last day of school! This school year was anticipated with much anxiety, prayers and yes even some tears and the fact that today is the last day is so significant to me! As all of you know one of the hardest issue with our moving was the fact that Christian would have to change schools as he was going into sixth grade. One of Craig and I's main prayer requests during this transition was that Christian would go to school with the same kids that he goes to church with and that the transition to middle school would be easy. God quickly and completely answered that prayer. The first Sunday that we were all in church Tracy Hook introduced herself and her family to us. Tracy & Jeff have a sixth grade boy named Hayden who was going to the same middle school as Christian. Hayden & Christian are the best of friends and that connection is one of the many reasons his sixth grade year has gone so smoothly. Hayden and Christian attend the weekly Jr. High youth meeting at church, play in the band at school and are families are close friends. I thank God for his faithfulness to send us the Hook's as friends!

Although Caleb has had a rough year (does anyone remember the great spelling meltdown ) - he finished very strong. He was awarded the Science award for his class and finished reading on grade level!! He is very much looking forward to the summer and a little bit looking forward to being a 3rd grader!

The last huge transition was sending Joel to kindergarten. I was so sad and yet so excited to see him start school. It has been VERY NICE not having any children at home during the day but it was VERY SAD as well that he was growing older. He (like Christian) loves school and has enjoyed kindergarten. He is very attached to his teacher Mrs. Hodges and he doesn't understand that she will not be his teacher next year. He however declared this morning that he was no longer a baby since he is going to be a first grader tomorrow!!

I have always known that God is faithful. But I think most of you would agree that when it comes to your children seeing God's faithfulness to them means so much more. So, if you are struggling with something in your life and your wondering will God come through - GOD IS ALWAYS FAITHFUL! Lamentations 3:22-24 "The faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercies never ceases, GREAT IS HIS FAITHFULNESS, his mercies begin a fresh every morning, I will say to myself the Lord is my inheritance therefore I WILL HOPE IN HIM. The Lord is close to those who depend on him and to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord." God is sovereign and he is truly working all things together for your good!

*The first picture is the picture I took on the first day of school this year. The next two are from this morning. The third picture is of Joel with his teacher Mrs. Hodges and the final 3 are of Caleb and his friends at his end of the school party and doing the limbo!

A Big Week for Caleb

2009-05-30T19:48:00.008-05:00

Before I share all of Caleb's news, just wanted to share some of the week's happenings. We went to Randy & Sherri's over Memorial Day Weekend. It was the first weekend in a while that Craig was off and we had NO baseball games. It is SOOOO nice to only drive 2 1/2 hours rather than 4 to see family! We started out with lunch with the Shelton's at our very favorite Mexican food place of all time - Papacitas! Really it is my all time favorite place but I have brainwashed the kids into thinking it is there's as well. We then spent the rest of the afternoon with them! Can't wait for vacation!! Then it was off to Memaw & Papaw's. The kids had a great time fishing on Sunday. Our hooks were to big for the massive size of the fish (just kidding if you notice Craig & Christian's large catch!) so catching those little perch was HARD. But the kids had a great time. We enjoyed wonderful steaks and baked potatoes and just had a great time.

Then on Tuesday Joel talked Craig into shaving his hair. Joel HATES to have to fix his hair every morning so Craig told him this was the only way to change that. I was a little nervous but Craig did a great job. I don't know if you can really tell by the pictures just how short it is but it is VERY SHORT. Joel however LOVES IT!!

Now on to Caleb. Caleb is playing his 4th season of baseball. This year has really been hard for him. He is now in kid pitch and it isn't an easy transition to make. He has spent most of the season in left field and seen very little action. (Which if you know Caleb at all he NEEDS action!). Anyway on Tuesday at practice his coach asked him if he would like to pitch and Caleb said yes. The coach worked with him on Tuesday and encouraged us to work with Caleb at home. Christian practiced with him a little big on Wednesday before his game. The whole way to the game Caleb kept saying, "I really, really hope I get to pitch tonight." I was thinking I don't think there is anyway you will get to pitch with only one practice and I hope not because your dad is working. Sure enough bottom of the first and out to the mound he goes. He was SO excited at first. He did really well for the first 3 batters. They all got hits and he threw strikes to each batter. The bad thing was the defense behind him was sleeping so the bases were loaded with no outs. He then started to struggle - really struggle. The more he struggled the more upset and frustrated he became with his self which means the more bad pitches he made. The coach left him in and he pitched the entire first inning. Caleb was distraught by the time he got to the dugout. He kept saying he had been a horrible pitcher (his words not mine)! I really encouraged him that he had done a great job with only 1 practice under his belt. By the end of the game he seemed better and I think was proud of his self. I was certainly proud of him and the job he did pitching for the first time.

Earlier this week I got a call from his 2nd grade teacher informing me that Caleb was going to receive the Science award for his class. I was so excited on Thursday for me and Craig along with my parents to get to see him receive the award. He had no idea and I think was surprised. He stood up and got his award and sat down so fast I couldn't even get a picture until afterwards. I have shared many times how much Caleb does not like school and can struggle in specific areas so we were so proud of him to receive the award.

This is our last week of school - YEAH!! I think we are all ready for a break (and I an sure about week 2 I will be ready for them to go back - LOL)! They have big plans for the summer: 1) to spend a week with each of the grandparents (Billy & Jo and Mom & Dad I am sure you haven't heard of this plan since it was just discussed in the car today on the way home from the pool because they already are going to Randy & Sherri's so they think they should go to everybody's), 2) Caleb & Joel have free tickets to Six Flags so that is in the plans and 3) our vacation to Florida!

Week in the life of the Wilson's

2009-05-16T11:06:00.017-05:00

As school is "winding" down it seems that our activity level is "speeding" up. This week was no exception. I am teaching/hosting a Bible Study every Monday night here at the house. I am really enjoying it but it does mean we have to get "creative" with what we do with the boys especially if Craig is working. This past Monday he was off so they left - which was great!! Then early around 3 am Tuesday morning Joel got up with a stomach bug. So far (thank you Lord) he is the only one who has had it.

Wednesday night was Christian's Spring Band Concert. He was very excited and participated in 4 of the songs. He played 2 songs with the jazz band and 2 songs with the beginner band. He was recognized for receiving a "1-Superior" at the Solo & Ensemble Competition. He also received a special recognition because he received a Judges Award. Out of 86 soloists only 6 received a Judges Award and he was one of them. He really loves playing and is very good at it (I guess he gets that from his Uncle Kyle). He is going to continue to play next year! (Sorry the pictures aren't very good - the lighting was really bad in the auditorium).

Friday was field day for both Caleb & Joel. They were both participating at the same time so I spent a lot of time running back and forth around the entire school. Unlike when I was young and did field day there day is a little different. They don't compete against other classes just against their own class and they do not receive ribbons or anything. The kids have a great time but I kind of miss the sack races, relay races, and a tug of war amongst classes. Anyway, they did have a tug of war between 2 classes and that was the kids FAVORITE event. In a close 2nd was something called "Jump the River" where they had to jump over 2 jump ropes laying in the grass. If they miss and land in between the ropes it is called the river. They also had several games of trying to "put" the golf ball into a hole, throwing noodles a certain distance, racing on scooters and carrying pingpong balls on a paddle. Luckily the weather was perfect- overcast and windy (the afternoon classes weren't so lucky!). (Pics of are both Joel's class and Caleb's class doing the tug-of-war)

Speaking of Friday afternoon we had received word that the pool in our subdivision that is closeset to our house would open on Friday. My kids are pool addicts. With 3 kids we spend A LOT of time at our pools within our subdivision because they are free and convenient. Believe me when we decided to build in our subdivision here in Dallas high on our list was how many pools do they have! Our subdivision has a total of 4 pools and the largest is the nearest to us! I decided yesterday to take the kids after school. I know that we had a chance of rain in the forecast for today (Saturday) and wanted to make sure they got to swim this weekend. The water of course was FREEZING but they didn't seem to mind and all 3 of them swam for two hours before we left. They had a great time and I enjoyed getting some sun and reading (it is so nice now that all 3 can swim and I don't have to worry so much about them)!

So today (Saturday) Joel was scheduled to play baseball. But the forecast was right and so far it has rained since about 4:00 am. Therefore baseball has been canceled and I am home with 3 boys who can't go outside and a husband who is sleeping from working 12 hours last night. So we have so far made 2 trips to Game Stop! They "pooled" their money and bought a used game - which of course didn't work -thus the 2nd trip back to Game Stop! My hope is that they will quietly play this game the rest of the afternoon - I don't really believe that will happen but I can hope anyway - right!! My plans are to continue reading the book I started yesterday, listen to the rain, drink some Diet Dr. Pepper and watch the Astros (who are playing the Cubs which is never a good ending for the Astros but again - I can hope!)!! (Pics - Caleb: jumping the river; Joel: jumping the river; Joel putting; Caleb putting & making a whole in one; more swimming).

2009-04-26T20:26:00.016-05:00

This has been a very BUSY week for the Wilson household. It all started last Saturday when the boys and I (Craig worked Friday night so he was sleeping)traveled to Canton to celebrate Austin Kyle Duran's 2nd birthday. Kyle & Leeana had his party at Leeana's parents house in Canton so that it would be close enough for all of the family to attend! My entire family was there along with Leana's parents & grandparents to celebrate. The day started off with storms but by lunch time the sun had come out. The boys really enjoyed all of the open land and riding the 4-wheeler. They played baseball, blew bubbles, fished and just had a great time.
(Pics-Kyle & Leeana along with Autin & my boys; Austin feeding his self his birthday cake - notice all of the cake already on him; My boys, Austin and my cousin Alicia running and playing once the sun came out).
On Tuesday my mom and I left to go to Houston so that I could speak at Lakewood's Women's meeting on Wednesday night. Because of Craig's work schedule we were able to go on Tuesday and leave Thursday morning, this made it a little more enjoyable. Mom was able to spend some time with her sister and I spent all day Wednesday preparing for Wednesday night. I had so much a fun time teaching and seeing all of my friends from Lakewood! We left by noon on Thursday to be back for Caleb's program Thursday night.

Caleb's second grade program was all about Animals. Caleb's class was the laughing hyenas. It was a really cute program and the kids seemed to really enjoy doing it. Although Caleb doesn't like being the center of attention (like Joel does) he performed all of the movements and sang every song! He really seemed to enjoy his self.

Saturday we had two baseball games along with Christian's Solo & Ensemble competition. Randy & Sherri joined us for Joel's game at 10:15 am. Joel is so funny. He seems to really love baseball. He played first base the entire game. He made 2 outs and didn't let one ball get by him. He also did great hitting. We left Joel's game and grabbed some lunch. Then it was off to Caleb's game. Caleb's game was delayed by 40 minutes so after being there 30 minutes early (total of 70 minutes waiting) we were REALLY READY for the game to get started. Caleb played a good game. He was EXTREMELY frustrated at not getting a hit but it is just all apart of the "kid pitch" experience. During Caleb's game Christian was scheduled for his Solo & Ensemble competition with his trumpet. Craig who again had worked Friday night got up after only 4 hours of sleep and took him to his competition. Christian scored a "1" Superior rating which is the highest you can score. Then today (Monday) we received an email from his band teacher. The teacher said that the judges had a choice to recognize up to 12 students for outstanding solo performances. They only awarded this recognition to 6 students. Out of the 86 students who performed Christian was one of the 6 who received this special recognition! We are so very proud of him! (Pics-Caleb catching and Joel playing first base.)

Sunday was busy as well. I have been asked to lead a Women's Bible Study (YEAH) and Sunday was our "Groups Expo" of all of the new groups. I had a great time meeting new women and answering everyone's questions. We are going to meet every Monday night for six weeks here at the house. I am quickly writing and developing the outline for the group and can't wait to see what God does in all of us.

This week is full already! Christian has TAKS testing Tuesday & Wednesday. (He came home on Friday explaining to me that he MUST have a balanced breakfast on Tuesday & Wednesday so... I needed to take him early both days so he can get 2 sausage biscuits each morning from McDonald's - his idea of balanced!). Joel has a make up game on Tuesday, both he and Caleb have practice on Thursday then Caleb has a makeup game on Friday. (Of course it is supposed to rain all week in Dallas and will probably rain out our make up games!) Then on Saturday we are off to the Wilson Family Reunion. (More Pics - me and my niece Nicole at the party; Christian "helping" Austin play baseball; Gift time).

Baseball & Easter

2009-04-13T15:05:00.010-05:00

So our baseball season is well under way. Both Caleb & Joel are playing (Christian didn't want to and that is a good thing because I don't know that we could have done three at the same time). This is Joel's first season ever to play baseball so he is in coach pitch/tball. Caleb has played before and he is in a modified kid pitch - where if the kid pitcher walks you then a coach comes in and finishes pitching.

Opening weekend they both had games and team pictures. Craig missed Caleb's game because it coincided with Joel's pictures. I made most of Caleb's game and then drove over for Joel's game. My mom and dad stayed at Caleb's game until it ended and then brought him to me.

Caleb has only played one game so far (he plays again this Wednesday night) and he had a really good game. It was very cold that morning but like most kids he didn't seem to mind. He popped up to the pitcher both times at bat which made him really upset. But considering the majority of the players didn't even get a hit I tried to encourage him. He played outfield the whole game and made some great back up stops. They were winning 2-0 with 1 minute left on the time (they played 65 minute games) and although they were home team because there was a minute left they had to go ahead and let the other team bat. Well you guessed it the other team scored 2 runs and we ended up ending the game in a tie. (I don't know why but all of the pictures I took of Caleb is batting - none fielding but here is some of him hitting).

Joel has played 2 games. His first game the very first inning he played pitcher. He had a blast and through out 2 batters to first base. He was so excited about getting those outs. He would jump up and down, throw his fist in the air AND high five the other team's coach who was on the mound with him! The next inning he played in the outfield where he dug in the dirt! The third inning had him back at short stop but he didn't get any action. He hit the ball and got on base both times. This past Wednesday night he played his 2nd game. They started him out at 1st base where he caught all 3 balls for all 3 outs. Craig said he was PUMPED. The next inning he was back at short stop with no action. The third inning he was once again on the pitchers mound. He kept throwing the ball to the first baseman who kept missing the ball. Finally the 4th ball Joel caught he just ran the runner down and tagged him out before he got to first base. (They are not supposed to tag the runner out they are supposed to throw the ball to get them out). So Joel's coach came over to talk to him about throwing the ball rather than tagging the runner out. Joel explained to the coach that if the boy on first base would catch the ball he would throw it but since he kept missing the ball he needed to tag the guy out - YIKES. The coach explained to him again that he needed to throw the kid out but Joel obeyed but didn't agree with his reasoning. Two days later he was still talking about the issue! (Pictures of Joel are at pitcher and hitting).

We didn't have any games this weekend due to Easter. We had a real laid back weekend which was nice. The boys had a great time at church with an Easter egg hunt and a petting zoo. It was storming Easter morning but by the afternoon it was a really pretty day to celebrate what Jesus did for us!

The Lawnmower!

2009-04-06T16:37:00.008-05:00

For the last 2 years Christian has had the job of mowing the front and backyard. Craig does pay him to do it but Christian HATES it. In fact it was so funny while we were looking for a house in Frisco besides Christian's room the most important thing to him was the size of the yard! Our yard in Sugar Land was very large! We looked at one house where the subdivision mowed your front yard for you and Christian was all for that house!! Anyway as the mowing season started coming around Caleb informed Craig that he would really like to mow the yard. Craig and I debated if Caleb was old enough and decided that as long as one of us were outside with him he would probably do okay. So on a very windy Saturday (about 2 weeks ago) the mowing commenced!

Craig at first mowed a square around the back yard so that Caleb would know how to follow. Then he talked and showed Caleb how to follow the pattern. Caleb did an okay job. He had a very hard time pushing the lawn mower but once he got it going he was fine. The other hard time he had was turning. He had a hard time lifting the wheels up and making the turn. The only other difficulty he had was staying along a straight line. He did have to go back over a couple of rows where he had "missed" some weeds.

I was so proud of him for not giving up! He pushed through and finished the whole backyard. He was very tired and had blisters on his hands but wants to do it again!

Spring Break!

2009-03-23T14:41:00.016-05:00

Well my kids were so looking forward to Spring Break. We started the week off with Craig having a rare day off on Monday. The kids requested to go fishing at the lakes in our subdivision. It was a little slow going but finally the fish started biting. We were getting ready to go when all of the sudden Joel caught 2 fish right in a row. Now Christian had been very patiently waiting to catch some fish and when Joel caught those two he was like Joel I am going to beat you. Thus the competition ensued. At that time the count was Joel 2 Christian 1. Christian said the first one to 5 wins. Joel quickly caught another one and was up by 2. Then Christian started coming back and the score was Joel 4, Christian 3. Joel landed a fish and headed it toward the shore. The rule was you had to get it up on the bank. Joel lost his fish right before it hit the bank. That renewed Christian's energy but Joel quickly caught and got in 2 more fish winning the competition 5-3. Joel REALLY enjoyed beating his older brother. Caleb caught 2 fish and I caught 2. Poor Craig spent the whole time bating hooks and taking fish off that I didn't think he had a chance to catch any! (My battery in my camera died so that is why I only have the 2 pictures.)

On Tuesday I took the kids to Rowlett to see Sherri who is staying with her mom (Gran Reba) while she is recovering from pneumonia. Aunt Diane's house is fully equipped with a pool table, 2 computers a Wii and a PlayStation so they had a great time.

Wednesday they stayed around the house and played with some neighborhood kids in a field next to our house. While Joel took a huge spill on his scooter that produced a lot of skint up skin but no real blood - Thank goodness!

Thursday I decided with Christian's help I would take all 3 of them back fishing. Boy was that a nightmare! Christian hooked Caleb in the back, Joel hooked Caleb in the foot and we had one fishing pole totally DESTROYED! Needless to say I will NEVER take them back without Craig. I was the only one who caught anything and after about an hour we came home! (Needless to say I have no pictures of this adventure!)

I did our taxes this year for the first time in our 14 year marriage. Craig said if I would do them and if we got any money back I could have it. Wellll I did them, we got money back and I bought a dining room table last Saturday! The table was delivered on Wednesday and I LOVE it! Craig also got my pictures hung in the dining room as well so that once totally empty room is now FULL!

We start Baseball in full swing this week. Caleb plays in a tournament beginning on Wednesday and Joel's first ever baseball game is Saturday. Caleb's tournament is single elimination so he may only play on Wednesday or could play Wednesday - Saturday depending on their win streak. We play baseball from March 25th - June 20th! LONG SEASON. I am sure the blog will be full of pictures and updates as the season goes on.

So we started back to school this morning with a lot of complaints. Mainly from Joel who wanted to know why he couldn't be someone else and not have to go to school - we had a LONG discussion about how God made him special and had a plan for his life that only Joel can fulfill ALL before leaving for school. Of course they were in good moods when I picked them up this afternoon!

Open House

2009-03-13T09:00:00.006-05:00

As all schools do last night was Caleb & Joel's Elementary School's Open House. Now Thursday nights we normally have baseball practice for Joel but due to the heavy rain it was canceled. So Caleb said, "Mom can we PLEEEEASE go to Open House." I was like Caleb I really, really do not want to go to open house. I had a horrible headache and the thought of fighting the traffic and all of those kids was not my idea of fun for a Thursday night PLUS I felt like I had been set free since we weren't having baseball. Caleb dropped his little head in sadness so I said okay I will take ya'll.

I am glad we went. The kids had some really cute posters and projects in their room. I LOVED this wanted poster for Joel that his teacher made. She said she just thought of each kid and things they told her and then made them. It fit him to a tea! Obviously Joel's class was focused on Texas History and all of his work had a "Texas" flair to it.

Caleb had done a slide show presentation for his Possum project. I HATED that project. I looked forever for a plastic possum to use for his diaraoma and ended up finding a rat and painting it to look like a possum. He did the power point presentation at school and did a great job. He had really cool effects on all of his typed out facts!

The kids are out on Spring Break next week and they can not wait!!

Things that start with S......

2009-03-03T07:25:00.011-06:00

Sickness. My prayer is that this is the LAST time for a LONG time that I start a post about sickness. But Caleb finally got the flu last Sunday evening. He was out of school Monday - Wednesday and was very mad to have to go back on Thursday!! (Remember school is not his favorite past time). He had it just like everyone else - high fever, coughing and just wanting to sleep. So since all 3 boys have had it I feel like we are done with the flu!

Shelton. My great friend Tina Shelton had a birthday yesterday. Since this is the first year in a LONG time that we have been close enough to get together I just HAD to see her for her birthday. I ended up driving to Canton on Friday and we spent the day at 1st Monday. We did a lot of shopping, eating and TALKING. I just love spending time with her and we never run out of things to talk about. She is such a special friend and I thank God for her regularly! My mom jumped in and picked up the boys from school so that I didn't have to rush home. Joel ended up spending the night with them on Friday night and as he says when we go to Grammy's we get to do WHATEVER we want! Which for him means ice cream, donuts and a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese.

STARS. Randy and Sherri were already coming into town this past weekend for David's tennis tournament. Randy called a friend of his and got ALL of the family box seats at the STARS ice hockey game on Saturday. Christian was the only one who had ever been to an ice hockey game - my dad had taken him while we were in Houston - so everyone was very excited. Craig and Christian really liked the game. Caleb was really in to it at first and then was done. Joel NEVER got into it...he watched cartoons on the TV in the box pretty much the whole game. It was not my favorite sport simply because I do not understand the game, plus I did not make the connection about how cold it would be. Thankfully they had blankets that you could use in the box. We all had a great time though and really appreciated the chance to attend in such style!

We are off on another week. The first week in over a month that I have not had some one sick at home! The kids are looking forward to Spring Break coming up and the start of baseball games as well.

Sickness, Lost Tooth, & Baseball

2009-02-16T16:15:00.008-06:00

Since I last posted we have had much more sickness occur. Ten days after Joel had strep-throat and an ear infection, Christian came down with strep throat. Then two days after that we discovered he had the flu. He ran really high fever and was just laid out for 5 days. (As the picture indicates.) I always know he is sick when he doesn't want to go to school!! We finally got him back on the mend when Caleb started coughing. I watch him like a hawk checking him every morning for fever and convinced on some days that I would probably have to go get him again from school. But he has made it - so far he hasn't caught either strep throat or the flu. Joel on the other hand started running fever again yesterday. Craig took him to the Dr. while Christian, Caleb & I went to church. He has and ear infection in the other ear..in fact it had ruptured. The curious thing is that Joel never runs fever with his ear infection and despite being on the antibiotic for 24 hours hour he is still running a fever...soooo I am thinking he probably has the flu as well. He has laid around most of the day and took a long nap this afternoon. (This is him sleeping on the stairs today). It is time like this that I want to get down about everyone being sick and then I re-focus. We have some friends of ours who has a son in ICU in Longview fighting for his life...puts everything else in focus!

On a happy note Joel lost his first tooth!! A week ago Saturday he realized it was loose. He was so funny immediately that night he went and got a sandwhich bag. We were like Joel what is up with the sandwhich bag and he said it is for when my tooth falls out tonight. He didn't understand (or probably more correct didn't WANT to understand) that it would not fall out immediately. In fact later on that night when he was supossed to be sleeping he came and said what if my tooth falls out while I am sleeping and I swallow it and die. Only Joel would have this line of thinking. To him it was such a major event even though I assured him people lost teeth everyday and I had never heard of anyone dying from it!! Of course on Sunday he HAD to let his Sunday School teacher know and couldn't wait to tell Mrs. Hodges at school on Monday. He worked and worked that tooth and lost it Wednesday at school. He came home so excited. As you may or may not know the Wilson tooth fairy is not very good at all. She probably needs to be fired as she is so forgetful. The only thing she is consistent about is forgetting and she came through again!! When he got up Thursday morning he said mom my tooth is still here - OOPS. I quickly laid some money out by his breakfast plate and told him the tooth fairy must have wanted him to keep his first tooth so she left his money at the breakfast table. He then said wellll I am going to leave it under my pillow again tonight and get more money - whose child is this??? While laughing I informed him that plan would not worked...then I made a note on my to do list to get rid of the tooth!

We have also started baseball. Can I tell you I really wasn't looking forward to it. Although baseball is my favorite sport, it sure was nice when they played flag football on the same team in the fall and only had one game a week. In baseball of course they play on 2 different teams - which means 2 different practices and at least 2 different games each week. Joel is practicing twice a week while Caleb practices on Saturday so we don't have any conflicts - which is WONDERFUL! They practice a really long time before the start games and then there games are FOREVER! I am lucky that Christian is satisfied with not playing sports right now because I don't think I could do 3!!!

Craig is so far had plenty of work. He has been approached several times about coming on staff at the hospital he mostly works but he has turned them down. As long as he can work agency making his own schedule and getting more money per hour he is going to do that. I am continuing to love my Bible Study Fellowship class I am taking on Wednesday mornings. Plus this past week I was asked to help with our church's upcoming Women's Bible Study where I will have a chance to lead one night. In addition I will be going back to Lakewood to speak at the Women's Meeting there in April. I am VERY excited about both opportunities!!!

The Great Icestorm of 2009 & Other Wilson Happenings!

2009-02-02T10:55:00.008-06:00

I stole that title (The Great Icestorm of 2009) from our local news here. I thought it was so funny that they kept using that title as they talked about the ice we got here last week. But before I go there let me catch you up on some other happenings.

Way back on Friday, Jan 23rd Christian finally got to have his sleep over for his birthday. We had 4 sixth grade boys join us from 4:00 pm on Friday until 11:30 am on Saturday. This was the easiest birthday party I have ever hosted. As long as the kitchen was open and full of food they were happy!! I had gotten 3 large pizzas, several different chips and dip, couple of bags of cookies, and an ice cream cake and basically said here you go. No rules except you can't take any food out of the kitchen!! Seriously I went to bed around 10:00 pm and never heard a word from them. Craig came to bed around midnight and said the same thing. They said they all stayed up until 4:00 am playing rock band, video games and on the computer. By the time I came out of my room on Saturday morning Christian had already cooked them cinnamon rolls. He had a great time and WHEW we are done with birthdays for awhile.

We started last week with Joel being sick. I took him to the Dr. on Monday and he had an ear infection AND strep throat. The sore throat is what was bothering him the most and thankfully because we caught the ear infection before the ear drum ruptured he didn't have to have the dreaded ear drops!

Tuesday Joel & I sat by the TV all day waiting on them to cancel school early. I was convinced they would let the kids out early although no precipitation was falling at the time. Our subdivision is divided right down the middle with 2 different school districts. One did not have classes on Tuesday but ours did. I wasted most of that day because they NEVER did let school out early. They did cancel Christians band concert that night but that was it.

We anxiously awaited Craigs arrival home that night from work because by that time a lot of North Dallas was seeing ice. He made it home and just said that the bridges were a little slick but that was all. About 8:30 that night I began to hear the ice hit the windows. My ONLY concern was when our electricity started blinking. I was praying that the electricity would not go out - and it didn't!!

We got up Wednesday morning to an ice covered scene. Craig was off on Wednesday and of course school was canceled so we had a great time here all together! Joel and Caleb ventured out into the ice but it was too hard and not enough to really make snowballs so it didn't hold their attention very long!

Thursday EVERYBODY went back to school - YEAH! And we once again braved the Elementary School fundraiser night at McDonald's. This is where your whole school (K-5th grade) show up at the designated McDonald's to watch your teachers serve. Can I just tell you that there were MORE kids than I could count running and screaming through that McDonald's. We ordered, eat and LEFT!! And even with that quick time I still had a headache when we left!

We went to a Superbowl party on Sunday night and had a good time. The boys had a blast playing with all the kids and Craig and I enjoyed some awesome fajitas! Unfortunately the kids were not ready to go back to school this morning and Craig didn't want to work either!

A Day With Caleb

2009-01-18T18:06:00.007-06:00

Out of all 3 boys - Caleb is the least demanding. Christian is not really demanding but because he is older it is easier to do more things with him and there is more opportunity because of his school events, etc. Joel is demanding so he REQUIRES a lot of attention. But Caleb is so laid back and easy going that sometimes I think he might got overlooked.

So this week when Tina came in we went to IKEA. We didn't realize that you would need HOURS to go through the store. It is very contemporary, which is not my style, but they have a lot of great ideas that you can use no matter what. So while we were there I got quite a few things for Joel's room but did not find anything for Caleb's room. Joel's room is done in cars and primary colors so it is pretty easy to get stuff for his room. Caleb's room is done in camouflage and finding wall art and accessories is a little more difficult.

So Caleb kept asking me, mom when are you going to find some stuff for my room. So, since they were off on Friday from school I asked him if he wanted to go with me to look for stuff for his room. His eyes lit up and he said YES, I want to go.

I decided that he and I would spend the day together. And spend the day is what we did! We left at 10:00 am and didn't get home until 4:30pm!! He was VERY TIRED and at one point he said, "Mom I am DONE with shopping!" Ha, ha.

I thought there was an Army, Navy Store in Frisco and we drove up and down highway looking for it before I called information and they said there wasn't one in Frisco. We went to Target where we found new curtain for Joel's room (oops!) and NOTHING for Caleb's. We went to a couple of small stores that had nothing camouflage, the Mall and ate lunch, when I finally said let's try this Wal-Mart. We found him a pillow, small blanket and 3 pictures at Wal-Mart. Feeling like we had struck gold I said lets drive back to our Wal-Mart in Frisco and see if we can find some more pictures! But our Wal-Mart didn't have any more. After getting him some ice cream from Sonic I talked him into one more store. Our final stop was Hobby Lobby where I bought 2 pictures for the game room and Caleb's favorite purchase of the day - a camouflage tank!! Sherri brought me a shelf yesterday that he really likes so we have that up. We still have one huge blank wall but it is looking better and I think more importantly he enjoyed a day all to his self!

Christmas - Let's try again!

2009-01-03T11:18:00.009-06:00

Wellll, if you read the below post you know that our Christmas didn't quite go according to plan. The virus was a nasty bug that took most of us almost 7 days to get completely over. As you know we had planned to have Christmas with my mom and dad, brother and his family, my grandmother, and my aunt and her daughter the day after Christmas. That had to be postponed due to the sickness.

So on Tuesday of this past week my brother and Austin came back to visit. They needed to get my old refrigerator before the 1st so we didn't have to pay another month of storage. New Year's Eve Craig was off and we all had a great day just hanging out, installing a new kitchen faucet, and the three adults all went out to eat that night. None of us stayed up past 10:30 to "ring" in the new year but we had a great day!

New Year's Day Craig had to work but it was also my dad's 60th birthday party. We decided with all of the kids it was easier for mom and dad to come to my house. We had chick-fil-a for lunch, cake and gifts. Everyone had a great day!

Friday I geared up to clean my house and start cooking for Saturday when everyone would return for Christmas. Craig was scheduled to work and ended up canceling his shift - which in the end was a HUGE blessing. As I was in the middle of cleaning I got a phone call around 10:00 am from my mom that my great uncle in Henderson had passed away the night before and the funeral was (yep you guessed it) Saturday at 2:00 pm (which was right in the middle of our Christmas celebration). I thought okay we are not supposed to celebrate Christmas this year! We decided since Craig was off we would go ahead and have it on Friday. So what ensued was a lot of mad dashing as I cleaned and cooked. Thank goodness my husband was off and actually cleaned the entire 2nd floor as well as peeled potatoes and made a quick dash to Wal-Mart when the mixer wouldn't work!! (THANKS HONEY!)

Everyone (minus Leanna & Baby Nicole) arrived around 4:30 pm. Leanna was driving in from Austin and due to Nicole being fussy the whole way didn't get here until around 8:30pm. We eat A LOT (my granny makes a mean roast), opened gifts and laughed so hard I had tears running down my face! (Mainly thanks to Austin! Christian had a project for band where he had to play 5 songs for 5 different people and have them sign a program before they go back to school. Every time he started playing Austin would start singing loudly!! He is not 2 yet so he doesn't really form any words so it just sounded like a bunch of hollering but it was HYSTERICAL)!

Everyone left by 9:30 in order to get up early Saturday morning and travel to Henderson for the funeral. Despite all of the changes in plans I think everyone had a great time. One thing is for sure we will NEVER forget Christmas 2008!

A Very "Sickly" Christmas!

2008-12-28T14:25:00.006-06:00

As I was getting ready to type this post I realized as I looked at the date that one year ago today Joel asked Jesus to be the "boss" of his life. It was such a testimony to me of God's faithfulness. I had asked the Lord at the beginning of 2007 for 2 main things - for Christian to be baptized and for Joel to be saved. Christian was baptized in May and then with only 3 days left in the year - Joel was saved. A true testament to the faithfulness of a loving God.

Now, here is our sad Christmas story. This Christmas has had a "different" feeling from the get go. I chalked it up to the fact that we moved 2 weeks before Christmas and I had not been able to really decorate and enjoy the season like years past. As I made my last trip to the Dollar Store on Christmas Eve I was beginning to get very excited. Christian was spending the night with my mom and dad and would arrive early Christmas morning with them. So Joel, Caleb and I anxiously awaited for Craig to get off work and come home. We had been planning to go look at Christmas lights as soon as he got home. As soon as he got here Joel came down the stairs an said his stomach hurt. I thought "oh no"! We had some guests at the house earlier in the week whose children had been sick with a stomach bug. I sent up a plea to the Lord that he would not get sick. We all loaded in Craig's car and headed out. About 30 minutes into seeing lights (10 minutes of which we spent getting gas) we had heard enough of Joel complaining about his stomach and headed home. We pulled up in the driveway, got out of the car, and Joel began vomiting. YUCK!

My next big dilemma was where to let him sleep. I didn't want him way upstairs with all of that carpet between us so I decided to make him a pallet in my bedroom with towels leading to my bathroom. He was so sick. He vomited or dry heaved EVERY 15 minutes from 8:30 pm until 6:45 am Christmas morning. As I came out of the bedroom to text my mom and dad that he was sick (remember Christian had spent the night with them and they always come over very early Christmas morning to be with the kids) I noticed I had a text. Curious I checked it first and it was from my dad at midnight. It said Christian & your mom vomiting. YIKES. I text back that Joel had been up sick all night and wondered what we needed to do.

Craig drove the 2 hour round trip drive to pick Christian up from my moms and around 11:00 am a very "subdue" group minus my mom and dad decided to open presents. We opened presents then Joel went to sleep, Christian went to sleep and I tried to sleep. It was not a very fun day. As we went to bed that night I asked the Lord to please let me have a full nights sleep after being up the previous night with Joel. I slept good until around 7:30 am when I got up and got sick. Craig came into the bedroom and informed me that he had been up all night sick. I was sick ALL day the day after Christmas. As I took my first sip of water around 7:15 pm that night Craig came in to tell me that Caleb was now vomiting. I thought well thank God he is at least the last one in this household who could get it.

We postponed our Christmas with my mom and dad, my brother and his family, my grandmother and my aunt until next Saturday so hopefully all was not lost. We will ALWAYS remember Christmas 2008!

Maybe New Year's will be better.

WELLL, were moving on up!!!

2008-12-17T17:22:00.007-06:00

We made it!! For those who don't want all of the gory details of the closing/moving process just skip down to the end and enjoy the pictures. For those of you who do..stay tune!!

As most of you know we were scheduled to close at 9:00 am on Friday, December 12th. Now, Craig and I have NEVER had a closing go smoothly and much prayer had been sent up that we would break that streak. PLUS, Craig was actually working on Friday so I was going to be signing all of the paperwork using power of attorney. My mom graciously came on Thursday and helped me back the apartment and then was going to go with me to the closing early Friday morning. The first hing of problems came around noon on Thursday when they called from the school for me to come get Joel who was sick. Have you ever tried to pack (and throw away) items with a 6 year old - not fun!! Then, on Thursday around 3:30 pm I received a phone call that due to some computer problems our closing was going to have to be moved to 2:00 on Friday. I was getting nervous. Friday morning I call the title company at 10:00 am to get the final amount of money I needed to bring to the closing. They said they did not have my paperwork - YIKES. After several calls back and forth the paperwork arrived at the title company but because of their backup that day they didn't call me until 1:00 and let me know the amount. So, I headed off to the bank to get a cashier's check from our savings account. The bank very sweetly informed me that my name was not on the savings account and I could not withdraw ANY money. I was like you don't understand I HAVE to close on my house in 1 hour and I HAVE to have this money. I made a frantic call to the hospital and had Craig paged. He was able to transfer the money from savings to checking so that I could get the check. We arrived at the closing and was told that some of the paperwork still had not arrived. Finally we were able to go in and start signing. Every piece of paper I had to sign my name and initial and then for Craig's name I had to sign Craig Wilson by his agent and attorney-in-fact Adana Wilson and then for his intial part I had to write CW by AW, AIF. Can I just tell you it took forever!!! We knew going in that we could not get our keys until the house funded. As I was signing the lady said funding could take anywhere from 2-4 hours or until the next business day (which would have been Monday). We prayed and told her to please do everything they could to get it funded. As soon as I was done signing I called my mortgage lady and they stayed on top of the Title Company to get it funded. I also don't think it hurt that my mom and I sat in the lobby believing God that it would fund on Friday. At 5:02 pm on Friday the lady came into the lobby with my KEYS!! Oh, happy day. My mom and I felt like we had run a marathon that day.

We rushed back to the apartment picked up the boys and her truck and headed to the house. We had packed the back of the expedition and her truck FULL of things that we could unload in the house. I had, had my final walk through with the construction manager on Thursday at 4:30 pm and everything was PERFECT. They had fixed all of the paint nicks and had shampooed the carpet. When I walked in Friday night at 5:30 pm it was a different story. Someone had come in during those 24 hours and had re-textured over 58 places in the house. There was texture on the floors, tile, bathtubs, etc. If you can imagine after the day I had had trying to get the house closed and was expecting the immaculate, perfect house I had seen the night before to walk in and see that mess was devastating. I immediately called the salesman and he informed me he didn't know what had happened and they would take care of it but he would have to talk to the construction manager who doesn't answer his phone nor work on the weekend. I was NOT A HAPPY CAMPER. We unpacked our cars and headed back for our last night in the apartment.

Saturday looked brighter after a day of rest and realizing we were LEAVING the apartment. The movers we had were AWESOME. They had been recommended to us by our Children's Pastor at Northstar because all of their leadership had used them. They did a fabulous job. My mom and dad came early with us and while mom lined shelves and unloaded my kitchen my dad HUNG most of my decorative pictures and other odds and ends. WHAT A HUGE BLESSING TO HAVE THEIR HELP. My house would not look anywhere near as good as it does now if it had not been for them!!! The dish guy showed up to hook us up to dish. (You may recall we tried to get dish in the apartment so we could watch the Astros and they couldn't do it and in the meantime I bought rabbit ears to watch the olympics.) Wellllll, the dish guy couldn't get it connected because of a bad line so guess what - thank goodness for those rabbit ears!!!!

Sunday morning I put all of the closets together, finished organizing the kitchen, and the boys rooms and unpacked the last box (YES - the last box; Mom and I worked really hard the day before). They came back over and finished hanging pictures. After lunch I headed to clean out the apartment. My mom had cleaned ALL of the baseboards, ceiling fans, oven while she was there on Thursday. I was so tired that if she hadn't done that I think I would have just let them keep the deposit. But because all I had to do was clean the bathrooms, kitchen, mop and vacuum we left the apartment in great condition!! I collapsed on Sunday night and we got ready for the new week!

Monday morning brought the construction manager and answers to all of the previous problems. Somehow the texture guy had got the wrong house. In came the painters to fix all of the spots and then they had a cleaning crew come in yesterday and clean the house for us!! After almost 4 hours the dish guy gut us satellite TV and then after 3 days dealing with internet problems Craig got the internet working this afternoon - YEAH.

So, we are loving the house. Settled in and looking forward to spending Christmas here. Thank you to everyone who prayed us through this process (it has been long) but as always I can now say it was worth it!!

Craig and I have new cell phone numbers for the Dallas area. They are Craig: 214-901-8843; Adana: 214-901-8842. Our new address is 2313 Evening Song Drive; Little Elm, TX 75068

Happy 12th Birthday Christian!

2008-12-06T10:09:00.005-06:00

Today is Christian's birthday. WOW - 12 years. It is very hard to believe. Christian was a very, very, very long (40 1/2 hours) and hard delivery and then when I finally had him he was not breathing because the chord had been wrapped around his neck. Not a very "easy" entrance into the world. But despite a hard beginning he hasn't let anything stop him. He is a very good brother, helps me when I need it, is an excellent A student and we are learning is a very talented trumpet player. He really enjoys school and LOVES band. I know the recent transition of moving was harder on him then he ever admitted to any of us and yet he has adjusted very well. Both Craig and I are extremely proud of him.

Due to the fact that we are still in the apartment we had to alter his birthday plans. He wants to have some of his friends come over and spend the night so we will do that in a couple of weeks when we have moved into the house. Yesterday morning I had sent in a birthday request to our Christian radio station here KLTY. So on his way to school they announced his birthday on the radio. Although he acted embarrassed I know he really liked it!! We got up this morning to go eat breakfast together before Craig had to go to work. He had requested for everyone to give him money for his birthday but I had already started buying him stuff. A couple of months ago he said he wished he would have done his room in Longhorns rather than Astros. Shortly after that I found Longhorn bedding on sale and marked down drastically. On a whim (which is not me) I went ahead and bought him the Longhorn bedding and sheets. Then Grandpa Billy & Jo got him the accessories. I don't think he was quite so excited about the bedding but he did get some cash from his other grandparents and that made him HAPPY. I think once we get into the new house and we decorate his room he will enjoy it all a little more!!

Keep us all in your prayers - baring no unforeseen circumstances we are to do our walk through on Monday and close on our house on Friday, Dec. 12th. We will then move one week from today - YEAH!! We appreciate prayers that the closing and moving would all go smoothly.

Lord did you really mean to give me boys??

2008-12-01T21:54:00.005-06:00

My friend Tina is always telling me to write down all these crazy things that my boys do and say. (Like - what color truck does Jesus drive; how do airplanes see; how come God did not choose my dad to be Noah!) I started writing some of them down in a book but I think that book is in storage somewhere. But I was thinking tonight - Lord did you really mean to give me boys. I mean WHY is bodily noises so much fun, and funny and ALWAYS have to turn into a competition. Why must they constantly be hitting, kicking, jumping and wrestling? Why must EVERYTHING be a competition - first one to the car, last one to the car...? Why must we CONSTANTLY annoy each other on purpose???? Why does their bathroom have to smell like a bathroom in a convenience store?!! I read a devotional this morning and it said God is working everything out for our benefit - so I know God has to be working on me somehow -ha. ha.

Here is a few examples of the craziness that is part of our normal routine here. For instance on Saturday as I was in returning the key to our salesman after looking at our house, I am barely out of the door when I hear Joel screaming in the car. Only to find out that he has somehow gotten trapped in the seatbelt. I worked on and worked all the while as he was screaming and could not get him free. I don't know how he did it but this is the SECOND time he has done this. The first time was a couple of years ago and he was in Grandpa Billy's truck. He had to wait until I got home to the apartment and LOCATE the scissors to get him out. Yep, I had to cut right through the seatbelt to get him out. (Don't even want to try to figure out how much that costs to replace).

Sunday as we drove to church Joel is hollering at Caleb to stop. Finally after listening to this several times I said Joel what is Caleb doing to you? Joel replies in a very frustrated voice - Caleb is breathing! I was like breathing - Joel , Caleb has to breathe. Joel said but it is annoying me!!

Lastly, Craig has been working some 11 am - 11 pm shifts recently. This has caused me to flashback to the years when he worked nights and it is causing the boys to revert back to bad behavior of fighting mom at bedtime. So tonight after finally getting Joel asleep, I could hear Caleb talking (now remember they all are sharing the master bedroom in the apartment. They have Christian's full size mattress and Joel's twin size to sleep in so getting them all to sleep takes a miracle!). So anyway I hear Caleb talking, I holler down the hallway Caleb stop talking. He was silent for a minute and said mom I wasn't talking ... I was PRAYING. Oops - I said okay keep praying and add mom to that list as well!!

So although they can't seem to get along when they are all awake - they certainly don't mind all sleeping together!!! As I reflect the fact that Christian will be 12 on Saturday - I see how all 3 of them complete our family and I love them very much!

Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T21:27:00.013-06:00

Be ware this is a long post!
We began our Thanksgiving holiday with Joel's first ever kindergarten program. It was the "A B C's of Thanksgiving". Joel was an Indian (even though he didn't want to be one). He did a great job and wasn't intimidated at all.

We had a couple of long days in the apartment (which just continues to make us more thankful for our new house) before leaving Thanksgiving morning for Stephenville to have Thanksgiving with Craig's family. It was so wonderful to travel only 2 hours to Grandpa Billy & Jo's rather than the 5 that it used to take us to get there from Sugar Land. The boys absolutely LOVE going to Grandpa Billy's. It is a little boys heaven with tons of acreage, cows, donkey's, ponds, and a green gator to travel all around on. Grandpa Billy had MADE marshmallow guns for all of the kids. You insert a mini marshmallow in the end and then shoot it out by blowing as hard as you can through the tube. Oh my goodness all of the boys had a blast using them. I don't think Joel ever put his gun down, in fact I think he ate as many marshmallows as he shot. After surveying the dessert table he said no mom, I will just eat marshmallows for dessert! Of course we were the first ones to arrive so the rest of the guests had to navigate through the garage carrying their food and avoiding getting pelted with mini-marshmallows!! We had to have Michael pick up some refill marshmallows on his way in.
Christian spent most of his day playing chess. He played Craig and one of his cousins. He really enjoys playing and the challenge of the game. Christian got to stay the rest of the weekend with Grandpa Billy. He really wanted to go hunting. I haven't heard from them so I don't know if any hunting was done today but I know he was very excited for the opportunity. He is at the age that anytime he can go anywhere without his brothers he is very HAPPY!
We left around 5:15 or so to come home. Unlike last year there were no major life altering discussions on the way home (it was on the way home from Billy's house last Thanksgiving when Craig told me I think we need to move to Dallas - who knew it would be almost a full year before that happened). Caleb & Joel were asleep before we even got to the main road.

Since Christian got to stay with Grandpa Billy then Caleb & Joel wanted to stay with Memaw & Papaw. I met them today along with Sherri's sister and cousin so they could see the house. The house now has carpet, interior lighting, electricity, water, sprinkler systems, landscaping and a stained front door! The only thing left is touch up painting, the correct entryway light and appliances for the kitchen. Our tentative closing date is December 12th. We ALL are very excited to see the end in sight! Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

First Campout, Last Football Game & a House

2008-11-17T13:05:00.008-06:00

Like most of you, we had a very busy weekend! Christian went on his first campout with the church youth group. I had scrambled to find him a sleeping bag (we have one it is just in storage!), borrowed one from a friend and then had to make a quick trip to purchase pajamas, warm up pants and a flashlight (yes we have flashlights they just must be in STORAGE!). Dallas had a cold front BLOW in on Friday and I mean BLOW. The wind was gusting around 40 miles per hour and it was in the 50's when they left! They went to a state park and camped out in tents with a bonfire and the whole nine yards. He had an absolute blast!! (I don't have any pictures because like most pre-teens he does not want his picture taken - I did ask!).

Saturday morning was our last green-gator flag football game. Unfortunately, Joel got up coughing that morning and after watching him Craig decided he did not need to play in the freezing cold that morning. In fact by the time the game started that morning he was wheezing. Caleb did play and had a GREAT game. We had several players missing so Caleb got to play both offense and defense most of the game. He got several flags and even caught a pass for a few yards! The gators WON!! It was a great ending to a good season. (I took the picture of them in the car since Joel wasn't playing and also because it was SO COLD!)

As the day progressed Joel got worse. Craig took him to a Care Now center and they diagnosed him with asthmatic bronchitis. (He does not have asthma and has only had one other experienced where he did the same thing when we lived in Sugar Land. He will start wheezing and starts having trouble breathing.) They prescribed him breathing treatments and a steroid. I made several phone calls trying to locate a nebulizer (yes I have one but it was guess where - STORAGE). A night in shining armor went with me and crawled all through storage and FOUND it in the very back in the box with the blender!! Joel is doing much better after 2 days of treatments.

We made our usual trip to see the house on Saturday after the green gator game but we couldn't get in because they were painting!!! YEAH. Craig and I went back on Sunday and took these pictures. We really like the paint, the cabinets, the stairs and EVERYTHING and are getting really, really, excited to see a finish in the future! (The first picture is looking from the living room into the kitchen - the cabinets where covered because of them painting. The second picture is looking up from the living room - the stairs are covered as well because of the paint.)

This week is just as busy - Joel is home with me today so we could get him some more breathing treatments but much to his dismay he will go back to school tomorrow. Caleb has a field trip on Wednesday and I am leaving to go to Houston to teach for the Wednesday Womem's Workshop at Lakewood (my old job!). I will be back on Thursday just in time for Joel's first ever school program Thursday night! Then the kids are really looking forward to being off for the whole week of Thanksgiving and traveling to Grandpa Billy & Jo's!

Brick House!

2008-11-06T18:55:00.004-06:00

A lot has happened on the house this week. As I mentioned we had our pre-drywall meeting last Saturday. And today the house was completely sheet rocked!! Also, the brick was actually delivered a day early so by tomorrow the house will be completely bricked - we LOVE progress! Craig and I are a little disappointed in the brick. It doesn't look anything like we thought it would. Craig really likes a "red" brick. We thought when we picked it out it had a lot more red in it then it actually does. It is very hard to pick out brick from a small sample (The 2nd picture is what we picked out at the design center the brick, trim color and stain for the front door - it looked good then). Hopefully once the landscape is in we will like it better but oh well too late now!!!

Awards, Halloween & Football!

2008-11-03T12:57:00.006-06:00

We have had a busy weekend - just like most of you I am sure.

Joel was awarded the Star Student of the Month for the month of October. He was honored at an assembly this past Friday afternoon. It is given to students who work hard in class and are kind and courteous to other students. He really enjoys school and helping others so it was a true honor for him. He also LOVES attention and having his picture made so it was not a problem for him to go up in front of the whole school! (Caleb would have been mortified but not Joel!). The school announces their name, has the come up and stand on the stage and then they get to lead the "cha cha slide!" Joel is all into that dance so he had a great time! (Couldn't get any pictures because they were moving to fast!).

Friday night was of course Halloween. Grandpa Billy & Jo came in to see the Green Gator's play and see our house so they joined us as we went around our soon to be neighborhood. Joel was a ninja and Caleb was the incredible hulk! Christian decided he was to old to dress up so he just rode his ripstick along with us. Joel told me right before we left that this was going to be Caleb's best day ever. I said really why Joel and he said because Caleb loves candy and I really don't so I am going to give him all of my candy!!! Wellllllllll, there has not been any distribution of the candy yet but Joel really doesn't like candy he is much more into donuts, ice cream, honey buns and that sort of thing!

Saturday morning was busy as well. We had our pre-drywall meeting with the construction manager. He took us through the whole house explaining what all of the wires and lines were for. After giving our approval they should start sheet rocking the house this week! Yeah!! They are projecting a move in date of December 19th but we could possibly close on the 12th. Please pray with us that we would be able to close on the 12th!! I really, really want to close 2 weeks before Christmas.

After that meeting we headed to the Green Gator game!! We were joined by my grandmother from Kilgore. My mom went and picked her up on Friday and she spent the weekend with her and my dad. She recently had shoulder surgery and was such a trooper through the whole day.

We were a little late to the game because of the meeting. Therefore both Joel & Caleb were on offense (not Caleb's favorite). Joel was the center and hiked the ball the whole half (don't know if you can tell but in the picture Joel is hiking to Caleb). The second half they played defense (Caleb's favorite). Caleb was able to get one flag while he played defense. The green gators WON!! They only have 2 games remaining!

Christian gets his first piece of music today from band! He is very excited as they prepare for their Winter Concert. Look for more pictures through the week of the house!

It's beginning to look a lot like a - HOUSE!

2008-10-26T15:31:00.005-05:00

I was going to say it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas because that is how I feel as the house continues to progress. While we are very thankful to have found an apartment, apartment living with 3 boys is getting OLD very FAST!! We still make daily visits to the house (sometimes 2x a day) and this past Saturday walked all through it as they have finished the electrical, duct work, framing, roof, and window installation. It finally has enough shape that we can start to think and dream about where we will put things and all of the room we will have. The boys are also loving watching it go up and deciding which rooms will be there and where they will put their stuff, etc. We haven't heard if our completion date has been moved up any or not but we are hopeful!!!

The green gators continue to play weekly. The lost again this week but as always had fun playing. Joel spent most of the first half as the center. He doesn't care where he plays as long as he has a "job" to do. Caleb spent the majority of the game on defense which is what he loves. He didn't get any flags this week but played really hard. (I didn't blog last weekend about the game but Caleb got 4 flags on defense and made 2 complete passes - one for a touchdown as the quarterback last week; Joel had the opportunity last week to carry the ball twice.)
Christian is working hard in school and is LOVING band. He recently passed the test to become a Super Master of the alphabet in band. In my limited knowledge it has to do with memorizing the alphabet of music notes and knowing their order forward and backward. He worked really, really hard on it and he is one of only a handful of students who accomplished it. The band is preparing for their first Christmas Concert in December. Along with Caleb & Joel, Christian is looking forward to having his own room again. Plus Christian will have his own bathroom and not have to share! Craig made it home from Houston and his deposition this week. We are ALL (especially him) glad that is over and he is done unless the case goes to trial.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Very Busy Week!

2008-10-17T09:19:00.009-05:00

The Wilson's have had a very busy week this week. Last Saturday the green gators took the field again! Caleb still enjoys playing defense the best and Joel really doesn't care - he just likes to be on the field. After a hard fought game they ended up LOSING but they had a fabulous time! (The picture is of them saying the pledge of allegiance before the game). Tomorrow they have a double header so it is sure to be fun.

On Tuesday they poured the slab for our house!! YEAH. They had put the plumbing in last Friday and we were waiting for the inspection to happen before they could pour the slab. We were so excited to see some progress and as Christian says it is finally more than just a patch of dirt.

On Wednesday Christian had his first band concert. It was an event for the whole family. Each student in the beginner band HAD to bring a parent with them. They then took their parent and taught them a simple song. The parent then had to perform the song for the entire group. I volunteered Craig for this wonderful experience (ha. ha.) Craig actually played the trumpet for a couple of years so it was not completely foreign to him. All of the parents attempted to play their song and then the students played what it should have sounded like. Everyone had a great time.

On Thursday Joel had his FIRST field trip. It was actually my first field trip as well (since becoming an adult)! Because of working I had never had an opportunity to go on any of the kids field trips. All 5 of the kindergarten classes traveled to a near by Pumpkin Patch Farm. They were able to feed cows and goats through the fence, ride on a hayride and of course pick their very own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. We also enjoyed a picnic lunch by the lake. It was COLD here yesterday and the wind was blowing very hard so the parents were a little miserable but I don't think the kids noticed much! I was in charge of 4 kids for the day (3 boys including Joel and 1 little girl). It wasn't easy keeping track of all of them with so many other kids there (there was another school their, plus 2 day cares and we had over 100 kids just from our school) but I didn't lose anyone. (Yes, one of the chaperone's lost one of their children but she was shortly found by another parent). Joel had a great time!!

Christian and I have added a drive by the house to our morning routine of killing time between dropping off the little kids at school and time for him to go. We were SHOCKED to come around the corner this morning and see half of the house framed. We had just driven by yesterday morning and it was still just the concrete so to see half of the house framed up was VERY EXCITING. I am hoping as I drive by this afternoon that maybe they will have the rest done. Progress is always encouraging!!

I will update next week after the green gator double header tomorrow. I am sure it will be very exciting!

Green Gator Flag Football!

2008-10-06T14:13:00.010-05:00

Caleb & Joel had their FIRST flag football game this past Saturday. There team name is the Green Gators. They did a GREAT job! They had only had 2 practices with a grand total of 2 hours in practice before the game. It was very funny as the coach tried to explain to them if they were playing offense or defense.

The first half Joel played offense and Caleb played defense. Caleb started off slowly but when he realized that as soon as the ball was snapped he could try to get the other person's flag he was "on it!". I think between the first and second half he grabbed 5 or 6 flags stopping the play. He loved defense so much that when the second half began rather than going to offense he asked the coach to stay on defense. The coach allowed him to play both for most of the second half - but he really likes defense the best!
(The picture here where he has his fists clamped is right after he got a flag. He was so pumped up & yes the guy with the Mohawk was our referee!)

Joel played offense the first half. He was used to "hike" the ball(which really in flag football they just hand it to the person behind them). He said he liked doing that but late in the 2nd half they had him as the quarterback and they hiked the ball to him and he immediately handed it off to someone else. He said that was his favorite! Joel is the youngest on the team but that doesn't stop him from playing any role he can. This is also his first time to play on a sport's team. He was so cute asking all of his questions (so Joel) and paying close attention to what was going on.

So, it was a TIE 13-13!! YIPPEE! The boys had a great time as well as all of the adults! Enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Birthday Parties

2008-10-01T17:29:00.014-05:00

Well, after the dilemma and search to find a place to hold birthday parties for both Caleb & Joel - we had HUGE SUCCESS! On Saturday morning we surprised the kids when they came home (they had spent Friday night with Grandpa Billy & Jo at the hotel!) with a Play Station 2. (I know most of you are saying are you kidding - why feed the addiction - to which I can say talk to my husband!!!) Although it was a refurbished system and used games the kids were SO excited and loved it!! (As you can tell from the picture).

Now for the parties - we started with Caleb. We had his party at a park that had a spray park and a playground beside each other. He wanted a "Transformers" theme complete with a Transformer's Pinata! (I don't know why because he doesn't own a transformer nor has he seen the movie but that is what he wanted!) The only "hiccup" we had was when we got there the water was not on. Now I had researched and new that the water was supposed to be on until September 30th and we had the party on the 20th. After several attempts to get it to turn on, I hollered at Craig and he found a number and called the city. Now we had a spray park in Sugar Land and you rubbed the post to get the water to come on - but in Frisco you just hold your hand down on the post and sure enough the water comes on - YEAH. The kids had a great time in the water, playing in the park, and with the pinata! Caleb had 10 kids come (8 boys and 2 girls) which we thought was an EXCELLENT turn out since we had only been in Frisco 5 weeks and only in school for 3. (Poor Christian was not allowed a hit because he demolished Joel's pinata last year with one swing! But he was a GREAT help at both parties!).

We then headed over to McDonald's for Joel's party. We had a little harder time there because our party was scheduled for 5:00 but when we got there at 4:50 there was still a party going on. The management said oh they will be out in 5 minutes. But at 5:00 we saw the cake and ice cream go back so we knew it wasn't going to be over real soon. (It really bothered me because when I booked the party they said 5:00 was the earliest we could book a party on Saturdays.) But the staff came through and cleaned another area and got us going. Joel had the majority of his class come to his party. He was very confused that his teacher Mrs. Hodges was not there since most of his class was! I tactfully explained to him that Mrs. Hodges could not attend all 18 of their birthday parties plus she has a family of her own. I don't think he liked it but he FINALLY quit asking why she wasn't there. This was Joel's first kid party (not just a family party) so he had a GREAT TIME!

It was a VERY LONG day for the adults and the kids as well as you can see from this picture of Joel sleeping on the way home!

Stay tune we have our first Green Gator Flag Football game this Saturday so I am sure I will have many great pictures and FUNNY stories to tell!

These are just some additional pictures. (I love this one of my mom and Joel swinging - Christian took it and I think it is cool how you can see their shadows as well.)

Geneva Katherine Hughes

2008-09-24T17:44:00.006-05:00

November 13, 1923 - September 12, 2008

We had the funeral for my grandmother on Monday. Yes, thanks to Hurricane Ike it was 10 days after she passed. I had the awesome honor and privilege to share at her funeral service. I have had several people ask me for the notes I used so I thought I would post them for anyone who wanted them.

Good morning, I have been asked to share with you by the family. You know you can learn a lot about what brings someone comfort as they are walking through hard times by looking to see what they keep near them. My grandmother had a devotional book given to her by her daughter Laura. There were several prayers in the book that were specifically marked.

One particular prayer was not only marked but also had the books’ ribbon marking the page. I would like to read that specific prayer: When I Need Greater Faith – Lord, I need the faith to believe that I can be victorious over everything that opposes me. Give me faith that does not fear death at all because I know that You will be the first face I see in heaven. Help me to believe without doubt that You are my healer and deliverer. Help me to have faith that You will never leave me or forsake me. My faith in You has saved me for eternity. May my faith in you be big enough to save me from myself now.

We wanted to share that specific prayer with you because we know this prayer brought her much comfort and hope as she battled terminal cancer. We also believe that on Saturday, September 6th my grandmother had an experience with Jesus where everything she was praying for was fulfilled.

That morning Laura witnessed my grandmother singing and praising Jesus. The nurse asked her Mrs. Hughes do you know where you are and she smiled and said yes, I am in Heaven. Laura asked her what does it look like and she said it is so beautiful, the flowers are beautiful, Jesus is so beautiful and he has such a bright light around him. Laura asked her momma are you afraid and she said no I am not afraid Jesus loves me so much.
A couple of minutes later Laura asked her where she was she said I am sitting at a table with Jesus and Jesus loves me so much. The rest of that day her face was glowing and she was radiant. Later on that day my mom Darlene asked her about what she experienced in heaven. Grandmother once again talked about how beautiful it was and that she had seen my grandfather Harry there. Grandma became very emotional and said it is so hard to describe to you in words how beautiful heaven is. Grandma said again I saw Jesus and he told me how very much he loves me and that he is waiting on me.

Several days later the Dr. came in and told her that she could not with stand any more radiation treatments. The final step was to call in Hospice or transfer her to their clinic they used for terminal patients. When the Dr. left my mom Darlene put her hands on grandma’s knees and said I love you momma. Grandma held my mom and began praying. She said, Jesus this is a dark time but I know because You are with me I can get through this and then she prayed that her kids would be strong during this time. At the end of the prayer she looked at my mom and said you know honey it is all about forgiveness. Shortly after that she quickly went downhill becoming non-responsive and eventually going to meet Jesus.

We wanted to share that with you for a couple of reasons – everything that she had been praying in those prayers were fulfilled in that encounter. By seeing Jesus he gave her the peace that she had prayed for; she knew that HE was with her, that he was waiting on her and that he was her healer and deliverer. And the most important part was she knew how much Jesus loved her and how important forgiveness is.

I think if she were with us right now she would want to remind us of these 2 main things:
1. First, is forgiveness. She knew that through salvation Jesus had forgiven her and more importantly she knew through the experiences she had with him on that Saturday morning that he wanted her to walk in forgiveness. I encourage you today right now that if you have un-forgiveness toward someone – to forgive them. When we refuse to forgive someone it only keeps us hurting and bound up, it keeps us walking in anger – it really does not affect the person we haven’t forgiven. I know that she would want each and everyone of us to forgive - you know one of those other prayers she had marked was about letting go of anger and forgiving. In honor of her do that today – forgive anyone that you have held anger toward. Release them it doesn’t mean that what they did to you was right but don’t hold un-forgiveness toward them. Make a decision today in honor of Geneva Katherine Hughes that you are going to forgive them and release them.
2. Secondly, we believe she would want everyone here to know that Jesus loves you so much. The Bible says in Romans 8:38-39 –“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Whether you have ever accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior or not does not change the fact that he loves you so much. I know that Grandma would say – accept Jesus today make Him your Lord and Savior. Accept the person who loves you unconditionally, who doesn’t make you get everything “right” in our life before we come to him. The Bible says in Romans 5:8 that while we were lost in our sins Christ died for us. She would say accept that free gift of salvation today. She would not want you to miss out on the wonderful relationship with Jesus that she had here on this earth and that she is now experiencing in heaven. No amount of cards, flowers or money could honor her life more than giving your life to Jesus today.

And for those of us who have made Jesus our Lord to understand there is nothing we have done in our past that can separate us from God’s love. No amount of sin or wrongdoing can separate us from God’s love. God loves you so much and she would want you to know that today – that you can walk out of here knowing the vastness of God loves for you, that he is for you, he wants to be a part of your life and he has a great plan for you.

Lastly, she would want us to know that she is truly finally HOME. That on September 12th Jesus met Geneva Katherine Hughes face to face and that she is now enjoying the peace and beauty of heaven. Thank you.

God is so good. Through the experience she had with him she was able to be at peace those last few days PLUS it gave us the family peace as well. God did not allow her to suffer with the pain for months on end - he took her quickly and peacefully. I will miss her immensely but am so thankful she is in heaven free of pain and worshiping her savior.

Spelling Meltdown

2008-09-17T17:13:00.003-05:00

I know most of you know how much Caleb LOVES school (of course I am being sarcastic). And since he LOVES school so much you would think he would LOVE homework equally as well (again being sarcastic). So as you can imagine homework time in the Wilson household is not a fun time (unless you are Joel who positively LOVES school and WANTS to do homework everyday). For Caleb homework time is torture - for mom as well. So today we had math homework AND spelling words. Yep, 2 different homework assignments which means double the torture!! So, we got through our math paper with minimal amounts of tears UNTIL mom checked it and found 4 wrong. (Which I thought was great since it was a sheet of 20 problems). However Caleb doesn't think like the rest of us and then to have to correct 4 wrong problems was you guessed it TORTURE for him & me complete with tears (him not me although I was tempted -ha ha).
Okay, so wise mom decides lets take a break and then do spelling words. That was a great idea until break time was over and we had to do spelling words. Complete meltdown as you can see from the picture of him broke down in the kitchen!! Pray for us....ha. ha....this to shall pass - right?!!!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

2008-09-10T20:27:00.005-05:00

Caleb turned eight today! It was a low key day since his birthday fell in the middle of the week. We did take cupcakes to school and his classmates sang to him.

Caleb is our adventurer! He has no fear in him whatsoever. He is always up for pretty much anything (except school - ha. ha). Out of all of the boys he physically looks the most like Craig with his dark hair and brown eyes. He is very compassionate and friendly. He has no problem making friends and enjoys being in a group of kids. He tends to become discouraged easily and doesn't have a lot of confidence but we are working on those ares! We named him Caleb after Caleb in the Bible where it says in Numbers that Caleb had a different spirit than them all. (The story of Caleb & Joshua spying out the land and coming back with a good report). Caleb does have a different spirit and I can not wait to see all that God does through and with him. I asked him on the way home from school if he felt older today and he said not really but that being 8 means he gets to do a lot more things than he could at 7. I said oh really, like what? He replied like pack my own lunch and put whatever I want into it - ha. ha. He is really looking forward to playing flag football and to his birthday party next weekend!

Happy Birthday Joel!

2008-09-07T20:14:00.010-05:00

Joel turned 6 on Saturday (9-6) so most of this post is about him! I am sure most of you remember that finding out I was pregnant with Joel was a HUGE surprise to Craig and I. Craig had just decided to go back to school, our house was without flooring because of a water problem and Caleb was still a baby. I remember thinking God what am I going to do and maybe it will be a girl!! From the get go he was our easiest baby; sleeping through the night at 3 days old, very content, and just not an added burden. Plus out of all of the boys Joel is a true "momma's boy" which I love. He WON't go anywhere or let me go anywhere without a hug and a kiss from mom! He is so intelligent and an "out of the box" thinker who can ask the craziest and most thought provoking questions!! God knew exactly what he was doing (as always)! We are so thankful for him and very thankful he was not a girl! Ha. ha.
We began the celebration on Friday when I took cupcakes up to his kindergarten class. The kids all sang Happy Birthday to him and REALLY enjoyed the cupcakes. Saturday morning when he got up we told him he could have WHATEVER he wanted for breakfast. He first said donuts and then the other kids were like donuts Joel lets go to IHOP so then he changed his mind. I finally said Joel you think about where you want to go while we get ready and then tell us when it is time to go. You pick where you would like to go....which means we had DONUTS! For those of you who don't know Joel is a true donut expert. He LOVES donuts!! So I decided let's got to Krispy Kreme. There is one near our apartment and we didn't have one near us in Sugar Land or Longview. This Krispy Kreme was open where you could see the donuts being fried and glazed on a conveyor belt. This was true heaven for Joel! However when we sat down to eat our donuts he took one bite and said these are gross. I don't like these donuts, I like the donuts we had near our house in Sugar Land...oh boy! We left the donut shop and met up with Randy & Sherrie and Craig's sisters and their family. We all attended David's (Shannon's son) tennis match. We then went back to ee Craig's grandmother and visit with their family. It was a great day. Of course he couldn't quite figure out why he had to wait until his party (on the 20th)to open presents but I said this way you get another great day!!

Side Note - My brother and Leanna made a quick trip to Canton (where her family lives) on Thursday/Friday. Kyle called me on Friday afternoon and said they were going to come to Frisco and see where we were building and let my boys see Nicole. (They had never seen her because they of course weren't allowed in the NICU.) I was so excited and so appreciated. First, Frisco is certainly not "on the way" home to Austin PLUS they are traveling with 2 kids under the age of 2 - NOT EASY! My kids were SO excited to get to meet Nicole and I had a great time showing them where we are building. We ate dinner before they headed home to Austin. *Thanks Uncle Kyle & Aunt Leanna we LOVE our new niece/cousin and can't get enough of our nephew!! (Pics - me holding Nicole; Joel holding Nicole and doesn't she look SCARED!; Caleb holding Nicole; the last picture Nicole was really asleep with her arms behind her head so the boys had to lay down beside her!)

Prayer Request - for those of you who are aware please continue to pray for my grandmother. She is back in the hospital and we thought she may have been headed to heaven on Saturday morning but she has since rallied and is coherent and doing well. My mom is back in Houston and is staying with her for now. Also please pray that the permit on our house would come through. They can not start building until the permit goes through and we are "knocking" already on the door for them to hit the projected completion date of November. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to be in the home by Christmas.

Great Weekend!

2008-08-31T17:49:00.005-05:00

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!

2008-08-27T16:40:00.005-05:00

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!!!!

2008-08-26T20:23:00.004-05:00

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!

2008-08-25T13:06:00.010-05:00

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!

2008-08-14T15:06:00.001-05:00

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!

2008-08-10T17:06:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-08-07T16:01:00.004-05:00

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!

Home Sweet Home ....in about 4 months!

2008-07-28T19:30:00.012-05:00

Here is a picture of the home we are building. It is a picture of their model home so ours will not have the 3rd garage and where the double set of french doors are that is where our garage will be. Also the front will be all brick. I have also put in the floor plans. The only change we made is we added a media room on the second floor that will be directly over the master bedroom. This truly is my ideal/dream home and I am very excited to begin to see it take shape.

In the meantime we are frantically packing to close on our house here in Sugar Land. We close this Friday but the movers are coming on Thursday to load us because all the movers were booked on Friday! I am trying not to stress myself out planning and packing what needs to go to storage and what we may possibly need in the apartment. (because who wants to be trying to search through a storage building for something you need!!!)- we will just say some days are better than others - ha. ha! The kids are going to go to Randy & Sherri's (YIPEE!) so I can have everything finished by Thursday morning.

Of course one thing around here has not changed and that is swimming!! Caleb & Joel have taught themselves how to dive off the diving board and I wanted to share those pictures. (The first 2 pictures are Joel and the last one is Caleb). I have also attached some pictures of Nicole's first few days at home. She went to the Dr. today and had a great report. She is doing remarkably well!

Going Home & Looking for a Home

2008-07-25T15:54:00.004-05:00

It is official at 3:50 pm today Nicole Grace Duran FINALLY went home! Kyle, Leanna and Austin are very excited to have her home 1 week and 3 days before her due date. Please continue to remember everyone in prayer as they all adjust.

On another note - we are closing ONE WEEK EARLY here in Sugar Land (next Friday, August 1st). While we are extremely excited to have our house here in Sugar Land sold we still do not have a house to go to in Frisco! We are on our 3rd house which happens to be a foreclosure and are still waiting to hear. So, we wait - seems to be a theme of this transition period! I will update the blog when we know something.

For now we rejoice in the homecoming of Nicole!
**Update - we found out about 5:30 pm today that we did not get the foreclosure. The journey continues... We are going to go back and pursue possibly building a house we both like again. Just need some favor!!!

Houston we have a Contract!

2008-07-09T20:14:00.006-05:00

6 months, 3 days, 91 showings and 3 offers later we have a CONTRACT!

We received a call this evening from our Realtor with a FULL PRICE offer the only thing the couple wants is a home warranty and to close August 8th!! Thank you Jesus! We are so very excited to finally continue this transition and covet your prayers through the 10 day option period and as we travel to Frisco this coming week to look for us a house (we are going to go up on Sunday because Craig is working Friday & Saturday). I will say it again THANK YOU JESUS!

**Side note - the boys have been requesting to each have a "special day". Which means a day where they can go anywhere and do whatever they want to ALONE! Caleb went with Craig today and all he wanted was to eat at Joe's Crab Shack and go swimming. They ate lunch but unfortunately when Craig dropped him off at the pool with me and the other kids it was raining so he didn't get to swim but here is a picture of his favorite part - the DESSERT!!

***One other side note - since I sent out the prayer request for Nicole and her problems with Apnea (where she stops breathing) she has not had ANOTHER EPISODE! Thank you Jesus. In the last 2 days they have moved her out of the "warming bed" into a normal bed, upped her to 4 bottle/breast feedings and are saying she possibly could go home in the next 2 weeks. Here is a picture Kyle sent me of her this past week.

Summer Days!

2008-07-05T10:47:00.018-05:00

We are now fully into summer at the Wilson household. When school let out in June we went that very day to Austin to the Lake and then a week later got on the boat for the cruise so we have just now really gotten into summer days off! Which translates into boredom and fighting! Now not hitting although that does happen sometimes but mostly where the kids determine lets pick on and aggravate some one. Joel against Christian; Caleb against Joel; Christian against the other two - seems like it is always someone!! Also this is the very first summer in all of their lives that I am not working at least part-time so that has some adjustments as well (more probably for me than for them). All of this translates into a lot of time at the pool!! It is FREE, we have 4 to choose from and we have had very little rain to hinder our plans. So, if you are looking for any of the Wilsons sometime between 1 and 5 during the day we are probably at the POOL!

Since the early arrival of Nicole Grace I did not get an opportunity to share some of the pictures from our Lake trip in June so I wanted to share them with you in this post. Also my digital camera was damaged on our cruise and looks like I will have to replace it because that would be cheaper than repairing it - so until that happens the pictures may be fewer but for now enjoy the ones from Lake Travis in Austin and I have some other new ones that I will use later.

In June we went to Kyle and Leanna on a Thursday and spent the day and night hanging out with them and then on Friday went to the Lake. So some of the pictures are of the kids with Austin and some are at the Lake. It is also amazing to me that Nicole was born the very next week!!! (Pics - I took several of the boys with Austin; Christian actually took the picture of Austin in the jungle gym that I thought was awesome; Leanna and I had the idea to try to get all 4 of them holding hands - it was a trial with a 1 year old but we finally got this shot; Caleb and I were with Austin in his room early on Friday morning and I don't remember how Caleb got him to laugh so hard but it was so cute!; Craig riding the jet ski, he also wake-boarded that day, got up on his first try - I don't know why I don't have any pictures of him wake-boarding but he LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to jet ski; me wake-boarding - did better this trip and finally felt more comfortable; Austin with Kyle swimming in the Lake and then yes he is asleep - he had stayed up the whole day all 6 hours on the lake and finally as we were swimming before going to dinner he passed out. *We realized at the end of the day that we never got the tube for the kids to ride on so that is why there aren't any pictures of them but they had a great time swimming in the lake and riding in the boat!)

Cruise!

2008-06-23T16:32:00.028-05:00

As many of you know Papaw & MeMaw (aka Randy & Sherri Skipper) took the WHOLE family on a 4 day cruise out of Galveston. We left on Thursday and came home on Monday. We had a fabulous time but with all Wilson family events it was not without some mishaps!!

Immediately when we arrived on the ship on Thursday the kids wanted to swim. They loved the slide that fed directly into the pool. Everyone except Joel who was not tall enough to slide - boy was that a HUGE disappointment for him. He FINALLY got over it (about the 3rd day of the trip) and just swam. The pool is not very large because of course it is on top of the boat. But kids never mind if the pool is packed so they had a great time!

We also had a life saving drill. You can see from the pictures the joy the kids had to be participating in the drill. And as always it opened up many interesting questions about if the boat sank what would happen and if sharks could eat through the life boats, etc....

We went back to our room that evening to get ready for dinner. Joel LOVED that our room had 2 bunk beds that folded out from the wall (as he is showing in the picture)! The window was also a big hit as they all loved to look out of it.

We ate dinner in the dinning room that night. My kids were so funny with all of the silverware and glassware that was on the table. They had NEVER seen so much stuff! (Of course when you always drink out of plastic cups and eat most of your meals on paper plates I am sure the abundance of glass ware was a shock!) We ended up eating all 4 nights in the dinning room because it was easier to be served then to have to go back and forth to the buffet with the kids!

Friday was a day at sea and low and behold their was a miniature golf course on the top deck of the boat. We played A LOT of miniature golf over those 4 days but had a great time!! After miniature golf it was back to the pool to swim and then eat lunch.

After lunch we went through a BIG rain storm that lasted about 2 hours (when Craig and I cruised with my mom and dad we never had any rain but where not so lucky this trip!) This is a picture of the rain against the windows and of us hanging out with MeMaw waiting on the rain to pass!!

That night we took a family picture together. We got one great shot and I know MeMaw and Papaw were pleased with it.

Saturday morning we ported in Cozumel, Mexico. That morning when I got up it felt like the boat was rocking from side to side. Despite the fact that I had a seasickness patch on I became very nauseated. Later on before we got off the boat Caleb complained about being nauseated as well so we both took a Dramamine. We decided to just do a beach excursion and it ended up that everyone did it together. We arrived at the beach where they had tons of lounge chairs, beach umbrellas, paddle boats, canoes, a water trampoline, and a inflatable mountain out in the ocean. We all ran to get "good" lounge chairs where we could see the kids swimming and then Craig and Papaw went to get the beach umbrellas and put their wallets, etc in a locker. While Memaw and I got in the water with the kids. I had only proceeded about ankle deep when Caleb who was about 5 feet from me began to SCREAM. I mean SCREAM loud and crying saying something was stinging him. I ran over and dragged him out of the water where he just laid down on the ground and continued to scream and cry. I did not know what to do - Craig was still finding a locker - and we were drawing a HUGE crowd but I didn't see anything on Caleb. A lifeguard ran up and asked me what was wrong. So I told him and we pulled Caleb's swim suit down and he had 6 large whelps on his lower stomach/groin area. The life guard got on the radio and began calling for a paramedic. He kept saying a paramedic is on the way. In the meantime I was really getting nervous because Caleb was screaming, I had a life guard who spoke very little English and I did not know what I would be facing with the paramedic. I was desperately looking for Craig. The paramedic arrived and asked us to come with him. So he took Caleb and examined him. He had been stung by a jelly fish 6 times. He began cleaning the whelps with antispectic the other thing that happened was he began to break out in hives. So he received a dose of Benadryl. Because of the Benadryl and the earlier Dramamine he slept most of the day at the beach. Luckily the beach place had a swimming pool as well so the rest of the kids spent the day at the pool. He finally felt better late that evening! (Because of the craziness with Caleb I did not get any pictures of the excursion and then I realized that night my camera screen had cracked and didn't take any more pictures the rest of the trip).

Sunday we were back at sea. Did the same thing as we did on Friday - putt, putt, swimming and the arcade! We also went through another rain storm that afternoon which caused everyone to come inside. Everyone was tired at dinner but had a great day.

Monday it was the process of getting off the boat, going through customs, getting loaded up and heading home. Then it was lawn mowing and laundry - vacation is over!

Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

Nicole Grace Duran

2008-06-13T15:08:00.007-05:00

As some of you may or may not know Leanna had an emergency c-section yesterday (Thursday, June 12th) and gave birth to Nicole Grace Duran at 3:19pm. Nicole is 4lbs 4 oz and 8 weeks early. She is perfect for being 8 weeks early. She is almost independently breathing on her own, is stabilizing her temperature and is going to be getting a little bit of food today. She is very, very pretty and since Kyle and I peeked underneath her hat she has dark hair!!

Leanna began experiencing sever contractions around 1:00 yesterday. She had a friend drive her home from work but by the time she got home she was in severe pain. Kyle rushed her to the hospital where they discovered her placenta had pulled away and did an emergency c-section. Leanna is superwoman! She looks fabulous and is doing very, very, well.

They expect that Nicole will be in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for at least 4 weeks. Please keep everyone in prayer. That Nicole would continue to improve and develop despite her early arrival and that Leanna would heal very quickly. My brother was a champion through all of the stress and is holding up very well!!

Below are the best pictures I could get through the incubator. Enjoy!

Caleb

2008-06-07T19:24:00.004-05:00

We left for Austin on Thursday as soon as the kids got out of school (I will post those pictures later on this week). Thus, I didn't go through their end of school year stuff until today. In Caleb's report card was a CD that his teacher made. Just click on the link to play it and turn up your volume because it does have audio with it. It is a timeless keepsake that I so appreciate his teacher taking the time to do for us! Enjoy!

School Awards

2008-06-04T17:56:00.009-05:00

Since this is the last week of school we have attended 2 school award ceremony's! I wanted to share some pictures. On Monday we had Caleb's award ceremony. Caleb was so cute as he walked across the stage and got his folder that contained his certificates. Of course the one we are most proud of is his reading certificate for having completed the reading recovery program.

Then on Wednesday it was Christian's turn. Christian's was a Promotion/Award's ceremony. Because his Elementary school is K-5th grade it is a big deal for this school to lose kids that have been there for six years! Christian received the President's Education Award for outstanding academic excellence. It is based on their TAKS test scores plus their GPA from 4th and 5th grade. There were several students who received the award! After they handed out the awards the teacher's presented the kids with a DVD collection of pictures set to music from the whole year. The greatest part about that was each student gets their very own copy of the DVD!! They ended the ceremony with cake and punch and a very happy group of soon to be 6th graders. Enjoy the pictures!

Swim Time!

2008-05-24T17:34:00.006-05:00

One of the many "perks" of living in a large master planned community is the option to choose from 4 pools within the community. The boys really wanted to try out a new pool today since the one that is clossest to our house the diving board is broken. I said fine so we went. I didn't bring my camera but captured these shots with my cell phone - for some reason today I had really great timing especially with Christian's first picture. Here are all three of them. The last picture is the first one I tried to take of Christian doing a flip - I missed it but check out those FEET!

New Bike

2008-05-18T16:09:00.003-05:00

Caleb has been needing a bike now for several weeks. Craig had originally planned to surprise him last Saturday morning by taking him out to breakfast and then to pick out a bike - unfortunately that was the morning we discovered the chicken pox!!! So, we changed our plans to this Saturday. Caleb was so excited. After two stores they finally picked this one. It is burnt orange and as Caleb says has really cool tires! He will be arriving to school in style tomorrow!

It All Started with a Text!

2008-05-10T14:58:00.016-05:00

On Thursday morning I was out running errands when that familiar beep goes off that I have a text message on my phone. It was from my brother (Kyle). He said take your kids out of school tomorrow (Friday) and come meet us at the lake. I immediately called him and said you know what my kids are out of school tomorrow for staff development day. (Background information - my mom and dad were already planning to be in Austin Thursday night and Friday (Kyle's day off)to go to the lake in Kyle's brand new boat and so Kyle could see my mom for Mother's Day.) As I thought about it I decided I would go ahead and surprise my mom and dad and drive up to Austin on Friday. Craig could not go because he was working his LAST NIGHT SHIFT on Thursday - he starts days this Sunday - YEAH. So I came home that afternoon, talked with Craig, made a mad dash to Wal-Mart for flip-flops, water, snacks, sunblock, gas, came home did all of the laundry and tried to get 3 boys to go to bed (they were so excited!!).

We left Friday morning at 7:40 am. Kyle had let it slip that morning to my dad that we were coming but my mom had no idea. She called that morning when I was about 30 minutes away. I didn't answer my phone because I knew she would be able to tell that we were all 4 in the car and I couldn't think of an excuse to tell her what we were doing! We rang the doorbell and walked in and she was VERY surprised and EXCITED to see us!!

We drove out to Lake Travis where Kyle keeps his boat. First let me give a shout out to my brother!! He had a total of 8 people he was trying to please - including 4 boys ages (11, 7, 5, & 1)!! He was so great for everything and I know he was EXHAUSTED - he had gotten up with Austin at 4:30 am that morning and he had also wake boarded all the day before and was blistered - but you would never know it because he never complained with everything he had to do!!

We did a quick tour of Lake Travis which is beautiful and then went to a cove where the water was like glass!! All of the boys (including Kyle and PawPaw) immediately jumped into the cold water and started swimming!! Leeana and I "eased" our way into the water but we did both eventually totally get in and swam with all of the kids. Grammy stayed in the boat with Austin (she never did get in the water!).

I decided that if I was going to ski or wake board I wanted to go first because I probably would NOT get back into that cold water!! So I decided to slalom first. Leanna (who is 6 months pregnant had to "assist" me to get the ski boot fastened!) I haven't water skied in over 10 years and you forget how much energy and strength it takes to get up on one ski. After several unsuccessful attempts I told Kyle I was done - he said you can't get in until you try to wake board. He carefully and skillfully explained the aspects of wakeboarding!! I did get up on the first try and for the next 3 times. The problem was staying up! I had one very successful ride until I decided to take one hand off the rope and adjust my swimsuit - big MISTAKE with a glorious FALL! Wake boarding is A LOT easier to get up on then a slalom ski but it is VERY DIFFERENT once you get up to control. (Pictures - I told Christian if I got up to hurry and take my picture - and he did!)

Next Christian wanted to try. Since the wake board was out and not the ski's we talked him into trying the wake board first. (Remember we had 8 people in the boat and getting the skis out and putting them up was an event in itself!) Christian got up the very first time but then fell. We had the wake board boot to tight and Christian hurt his foot when he fell so he was done. But he did say he would like to try again when we go back! (Here he is getting ready - the only picture I got!)

Caleb just wanted to tube! We had forgotten the tube at the dock and Kyle so graciously took us all the way back across the lake to get the tube. The first tube wouldn't inflate so he HIKED back up to the truck and got a SECOND tube came back down and inflated it for us!! (THANK YOU UNCLE KYLE). For those of you who know Joel you know that we put him on the tube and as soon as the motor cranked he FREAKED OUT and demanded to get back into the boat. He said I didn't know you were going to move the boat -ha. ha. So Christian and Caleb rode the tube for quite a while and then Caleb wanted to ride by his self. Caleb rode for several miles - he was so funny - he had his feet crossed and arms behind his head like he was on a recliner!

After 5 hours on the lake we were HUNGRY! So we docked at a GREAT restaurant on the water and ate dinners. It was such a GREAT DAY - and I am so glade he sent the text message! Enjoy the pictures - Austin rode the whole 5 hours. He was so good, here he is getting MORE sunblock and enjoying a "siesta". Caleb was chosen as Bullfrog of the week for next week (now he won't be there see side note below). Part of that privledge is you get to take home the class frog for the weekend, take him everywhere you go and write a story about what he did, and attach a picture!

Side Note - I noticed yesterday while we were at the lake that Caleb had these red spots on him. My mom thought he may have just gotten into some chiggers. We'll when he got up this morning those bumps were everywhere! Craig said I think he has chicken pox. So I immediately called the Dr. and got him in and of course he has a "perfect" case of the Chicken Pox including bumps on his head!! (Yes he had the vaccine but that doesn't guarantee you won't get them!) He is VERY upset - not about any discomfort and of course not about missing school but he is UPSET about not being able to play with his friends and most importantly our pool opened today in our subdivision and he wants to SWIM!! - Maybe a long 5 days!

Wilson Family Reunion

2008-05-04T20:42:00.021-05:00

(Scroll down to the end for more pictures) We traveled this weekend to the big, thriving metropolis of Eastland, TX. (Don't worry if you haven't heard of it but it is a small town about 40 miles east of Abilene - and a very long way from Sugar Land!!!). Eastland is Craig's birthplace and home of one of his aunt & uncle - Joan & Larry Gerhardt who hosted this year's reunion. Craig's dad Billy is one of 13 siblings!!! This year all of the siblings attended the reunion (hasn't happened in several years) add to that their children, grandchildren and in some cases great grandchildren and there were close to 75 Wilson's at this year's event. Someone said that the remaining siblings span over 26 years between them! That is a BIG family. Of course with all of this children comes lots and lots of little children!! My boys had the best time playing in the sand, playing baseball, kickball and just generally "playing" from 8:00 am - 9:30 pm on Saturday.

We started the morning fishing. Now when we left Sugar Land on Friday it was 88 degrees with 87% humidity. When we got up in Eastland on Saturday morning it was 44 degrees and the wind was gusting upwards off 20 miles an hour!! Joan graciously handout sweatshirts, jackets and anything else she could find out of her own closet to help warm us all up while Michael (another uncle) traveled to the local Wal-Mart and bought out their school sweatshirt supplies. Did I mention it was cold and the wind was GUSTING not perfect conditions to be fishing. Craig, Joel and I quickly went back and sat in Grandpa Billy's truck. (Caleb just ran around and played) But Christian and Grandpa Billy stuck it out and Christian caught 2 fish. This is a picture of this largest one!!!

We then traveled back to Joan's for the remainder of the day just to visit and enjoy each other. Craig has quite a few cousins that are all around the same age. Not only did they have a great time growing up together but that also provides our kids with plenty of cousins to play with around their age at the reunion!

We had a fabulous fajitas lunch and for dinner Grandpa Billy fried up catfish and striper. Our resident food critic - Joel says no one can cook fish like Grandpa Billy!! (He also says that no one can make mashed potatoes like Me Maw and don't get me started on his critique of the continental breakfast that morning at the hotel - not favorable at all).

The kids were so tired this morning that I woke them up at 9:00 am (never happened before)!! Here is a picture of all 3 of them in the bed at the hotel. Grandpa Billy & Jo offered for one of them to come sleep in their extra bed so that they didn't all 3 have to sleep in the 1 double bed but for some strange reason they declined!

We had a very LONG but uneventful ride home - very glad that we got to go and equally glad to be home!

Here are some pictures of the day! Kids playing in the sand. A picture of the surviving siblings (Billy is the last one on the right), picture of the grandkids (Craig has his UT shirt on), and just some fun shots!!

Haircuts, Contacts & Baseball

2008-04-20T20:50:00.006-05:00

This is what our Saturday consisted of. First ALL of the male members in the Wilson Household needed haircuts. So as we hurried to leave for our house to show (no we haven't heard anything but we do know this was a 2nd showing and they did want all of our disclosures we are hopeful that we might possibly get an offer)we met up at Sport's Clips for hair cuts. Now Christian who is 11 is in a stage where he wants his hair to be long. His mother likes for boys to have short hair. Thus his dad had to settle it. He decided that for now Christian could keep his long hair. So the picture you see is AFTER everyone had a hair cut even though Christian doesn't look like it!

Our second goal of the day was to make an eye appointment for Christian. After having glasses for 3 years now he asked Craig and I if he could get contacts. We tried to get him to get contacts last year because it would have been easier with baseball but he wasn't interested so we were very surprised when he approached us. Since he was almost due for his next eye appointment I took him on Saturday. (It was a good thing that we didn't wait the full year because his eyes had really changed again) So she fitted him for contacts. He was frustrated at first at the Dr.'s because of how long it took him to get them in and then when he FINALLY got both in she said great, now let's learn how to take them out - he was ready to cry. But he has done really well and in less than 1 day is getting them in and out with no trouble at all!! (Notice in the picture as well that he isn't wearing his glasses.)

Lastly, Craig had received 4 free tickets to the Astro's game tonight. A man who works for Minute Maid Park had come into the ER several month's ago and was Craig's patient, when he found out Craig had 3 boys he said I want to give you guys some free tickets. The only "downside" was there are 5 in our family and even though all of the boys like baseball - MOM is one of the biggest Astro's fan's!! Joel is the least fan by far so we tried to find a babysitter for him so that the other 4 of us to go but couldn't fine one. So Christian and Caleb decided they would rather go to the game with dad than mom (big surprise) so Craig took them and Joel and I stayed home. (Side note - my husband knowing how much I love and enjoyed the games said he would stay home with Joel and I could take Christian and Caleb but I knew they really wanted to go with him). Joel and I had Chick-Fil-A, ice cream, played Candyland and read 4 books while they enjoyed the Astro's game (this is a picture Craig took from his seat). The Astro's lost but everyone had a fun night!

Next Friday I am traveling with my ex-boss Jackie Garner (Director of Women's Ministry for Lakewood) to a women's conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Although I won't be speaking I will have a chance to pray and minister to the women at all 3 sessions. I am really, really excited. I have really missed not having that opportunity since quiting my job and I am so excited to see how God changes the womens lives!

Austin Kyle Duran's 1st Birthday

2008-04-18T11:55:00.005-05:00

We all got up early this past Saturday and drove to Austin, TX for Austin Kyle's very special first birthday! I don't care what his parents say - this is the best baby ever!! He had a great time playing with all of his friends and family and as most 1 year old's really LOVED his cake! If everyone hasn't heard Austin will be getting a "sister" come August (YIPEE - the fist girl grandbaby on the Duran side after 4 consecutive boys!).

Back Up!

2008-04-08T18:38:00.002-05:00

We'll as most of you know I went to work full time last August and our last entry on the blog was September!!! It has been a world wind. From working full time to now not working at all - it has been a big transition! But my goal is to keep up to date with the blog in order to share more photos with everyone. Below is just some snapshots that I don't know if everyone has seen - ENJOY!

We will be traveling this weekend to Austin, Tx for Austin Kyle Duran's first birthday, so I will have more pictures to share after that.

Birthday's Galore!

2007-09-09T17:10:00.000-05:00

We celebrated Joel's 5th birthday and Caleb's 7th birthday this weekend. The party started Thursday morning with donuts for Joel and cupcakes for his class. As I reflected back I can't believe that my baby is 5! He repeatedly tells me not to call him my baby - but he will ALWAYS be my baby! Although he was a surprise to Craig and I he undoubtedly completes our family. We continued his party with family & friends on Friday night. All of the grandparents came along with Addison, Aubree, Ms. Ashlee, Sunni and our neighbor Salmen. We had pizza and spider man cupcakes along with a baseball pinata that was quickly broken with a powerful swing by Christian! The big surprise of the evening was the gift of a Nintendo Wii (given by MeMaw & Papaw) to all three of the boys. All three of them were very excited and have not stopped playing it!

Saturday morning it was Caleb's turn. We had his party at Chuck-E-Cheese were a total of 11 kids joined us! It was fun seeing Caleb in a different element with all of his friends. He is definetly the extrovert of the family and I loved seeing him interact and just play with everyone. He never meets a stranger! He has declared twice to me that now that he is 7 he can take care of his self. I am not for sure what that means but he really, really believes it! His actual birthday is tomorrow. It is also grandparents day at school so my mom and dad are going to go have lunch with him! Finally then the partying will be over!

Sunday was a day of rest! Hallelujah - now we gear up for soccer games to begin this weekend and baseball the next!