Tuscaloosa

We pass through Tuscaloosa every time we go to Mississippi to see family. When the tornado touched down last month, I knew I wanted to do something. We got friends from MOPS, church and work involved and started with this:

 Next, I made over 35 beauty kits with nail polish and other goodies. We also had toys, toiletries, a birthday party kit (ready to go with a candle, disposable camera and decorations) and gift cards. Our friend Jill Bender suggested that we take things to the Salvation Army at McFarland Mall, and they were happy to receive our donations.

 On a short drive through town, we took some photos (all from the car, some are a little blurry). CVS pharmacy is open, working out of a trailer.

 Check out the tree on the right.

 It's a very sad day when you cannot get to Hobby Lobby! (Stacy Nowell will appreciate this!). Seriously, the devastation was amazing. One side of the street, by University Mall, was fine and across the way it was a mangled mess.

 A sidewalk on the main drag. One month later, there is still debris everywhere because there was so much of it. Our prayers go to those working to rebuild Tuscaloosa!

Check out www.RecoverTuscaloosa.com.

Preschool Graduation

Brayden graduated from preschool on Friday! We love our daycare and he's going to miss his teachers: Natasha, Dana and Luke. The kids sang some adorable songs, got diplomas, and we had a pot-luck lunch. Kindergarten, here we come!

13 weeks old

3 months old

 Bristol is 3 months old and we celebrated her Baby Dedication at church this weekend.

 

3 sweet babies, all with the middle name of Grace! Our church has had a baby boom lately- 11 babies due/born between December and June after almost a year without any newborns. I'm looking forward to watching Bristol grow up with all of these new little friends.

Not happy about the weekly photo session, but looking adorable in a hat from my friend Alissa

 

She looks so grown up in this picture!

 

Fun Outside

Fun at the park with melting ice cream cones

 Fun at a spring festival in the bounce house with a slide

 Fun sharing a hamburger and kettle corn

 Fun riding in our first horse-pulled wagon ride (we're used to a tractor)

 Fun in a canoe with Daddy

 Fun being super cute

 Fun with friends

We've been having so much fun outside!

The Best Proposal Ever!

I heard on the radio last week about the "best proposal ever" where a guy made a fake movie trailer that was shown at the movie theater. Yes, that's lovely and sweet. But, actually I had the best proposal ever!

Kenny and I met at MSU Dance Marathon my freshman year when I was 18. He was dating someone else at the time and I stalked him waited patiently until they broke up and he asked me out. We had our first date at Old Venice and dated for two years before we ere engaged.

Kenny was working at MSU in the skyboxes and I was a student worker there as well. He had gone to Atlanta to work the SEC tournament and was supposed to be home that day in December. I was in the skybox office in the Humphrey Coliseum working and he called to tell me he had to stay an extra day. He said there were some great pictures of the event on this website and gave me an address. When I pulled it up there was a picture of him on the phone, asking me to marry him! It said "if yes, click here" and then showed him at the center of the basketball court and said "come find me." I turned around to find his co-workers, our friend Robyn and Jill, with camera and video camera in hand, following me as I tried not to fall down the stairs. When I got down to where he was, he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said "yes!"

He had done all of this work in advance getting the photos, creating a website, organizing for our friends to document it. Everything was perfect!

We were married just over a year later, January 4, 2003.

Splish Splash

Today we went to the park and had such fun playing in the water! At first, Brayden didn't even want to walk in water to cross a small puddle to get to the playground. Then he spied the lake-sized puddle and asked if we could walk through it. We rolled up our pants legs, took off our shoes and waded on it. They had such fun and ended up completely soaked!

Tonight we saw a beautiful rainbow and talked about how God promised never to flood the whole earth again by giving us the rainbow.

This is my real, ordinary, busy life.

I got an email from my sorority sister today and she told me that she enjoyed catching up on our family with my blog. She said it was refreshing to see some pictures of real life (like Brayden playing Wii drums with toys all over the place in the background) instead of perfect, clean house pictures with posed, clean-faced children. This is exactly what I was talking about in my last post about being a good-enough mother! At this stage of our life and child-raising, I would much rather enjoy Family Book Night (we had that tonight after dinner and baths) and playing with my kids, and worry about the dishes and the dusting later. I want to soak up the snuggles while I can because I know that in a blink my kids will not want to snuggle with their mommy.

This blog is about my
real
    ordinary
        busy
             life.
And juggling
   a full-time job
       a house full of kids
          finding time to spend with my husband
             and finding a little time for me once in a while
             (for the good stuff like showering, People magazine and chocolate!)

I hope you enjoy it!

Good-Enough Mother

While perusing the shelves at Dollar Tree with my kids a few months ago, I found a book by Rene Syler called "Good Enough Mother." She's a busy, working mom with 2 kids and I loved her personal stories and what she calls good enough mothering. Here are some highlights:

"You know you're a good-enough mother (GEM) when, like me, you have:
-bought something from the local grocery store, removed the plastic wrapping, and passed it off as your own at the school bake sale
-used a stapler to hem your daughter's pants as she's walking out the door to school
-realized that you haven't had a good night's sleep since the last baby was born because your mind is so busy with keeping your work and home life running smoothly, connecting with your kids' teachers, not missing the first day of gymnastics that you scheduled two months before, managing your husband's schedule- all the while trying desperately to remember and retain some of the person you were before all of these people came crashing into your life!"

"The entire premise of this book is about admitting that it's okay to be imperfect, to be good enough. In fact, you should be imperfect for your children, because you don't want them to grow up in a world where everything seems perfect. What kind of world is that?"

"When she was a little girl, I'd buy Casey [daughter] cute little outfits from Target, and then watch in dismay as she toddled over to the closet, ignored them, and pulled out what she wanted to wear. Like, duh! It finally dawned on me that my kids were people, not projects, and they had a right to their opinions, whether about the color of a shirt or the pattern on a pair of pants. It wasn't the end of the world if their tastes weren't mine and they preferred clash to cute. Besides, children are so powerless when it comes to most of the choices in their lives. They can't choose their school or their teachers or the food you cook for them or the size of their house. Heck, they can't even choose their parents. Allowing them to have the final say about their clothing choices empowers them and shows them that you have confidence in their decisions and trust them to make decent ones. It spares you the War of the Morning Dress and frees you up to concentrate on other, more important issues."

After reading this book, I went back to Dollar Tree to buy some more copies to give to some friends, but there were none left. This book is funny and honest, and I recommend it to any mom!

11 weeks old

It's been busy around our house lately! I started back to work two days a week a couple of weeks ago. Bristol has been at her grandparents' house and did well on day one, but has not done well with the bottle since then, which is stressful for everyone. It seems like there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs to be done! After surviving my first outing alone with all three kids, we are now pretty mobile. We go to the children's museum, library and park in some combination every day that I'm home with them. We have a number of awesome parks really close to our house and have enjoyed exploring our new little town. Here's a family picture from Mother's Day and you can see the beautiful necklace that Brayden made me! Brinley made handprint art for me, both projects done at school.

 This is Bristol's preferred method of self-soothing. Unlike the older two, she rarely takes a binky. She sticks tow fingers in her mouth and holds one had with the other. So cute!

 Rocking out with the Wii

 We love our neighborhood! We have this great cul-de-sac on our end where the kids can play and ride bikes and the other end is also a cul-de-sac. We recently met more neighbors, including our next door neighbors with a baby a week older than Bristol.

Our greatest success lately has been with Brinley and potty training. She's been dabbling with it forever it seems and it's safe to say that she is potty trained now! She is even out of Pull Ups at night and hasn't had any night accidents. This, of course, after we just bought a case of Pull Ups at Costco instead of the usual small pack at a time.

Easter...Part 2

We postponed our family Easter celebration this year a few weeks until Grandpa was feeling better. We celebrated it and Mother's Day with brunch at Bob Evans, an egg hunt at Nana & Grandpa's, grilling dinner at our house and ice cream from JJ's. What a great day!

 Bristol's first picture with the Bunny...we take one of the kids with it each year.

 Brayden's bunny pictures....2006

 2007

 2008

 2009

 

2010

 

Brinley's bunny pictures....2008

 2009

 2010