Fresh Hair

The other night Goober and I were talking about a haircut for him for summer and he started touching my hair. He said " mom, I wish I had fresh hair like yours, like soft hair". I responded back with the same comment " well I wish I had those tight little curls that grow up all over your hair". He just smiled and said " well you could lay out and get a tan to look more like me :)"

In other news (not for the faint of heart) Baby Boy has developed a new talent. Its called lets poop in the tub right after mom gives me a bath. Then lets see just how fast and grossed out I can make my sister as she high steps it out of the tub trying to avoid his "jelly poops". Then as mom is trying to grab me out and clean up the mess I decided to poke it down the drain as far as I can (thus creating a smell that knocks mom out)!!! He only does it on nights when I have the kids by myself too....its fantastic. Wet, smelly, "jelly poop" that covers my already clean children and bath.

Baby Boy is also climbing off the couch by himself...feet first, scaring the snot out of me!!! He is saying " HOT" and blowing on all things that may look HOT! He says " ball" CONSTANTLY. He tells everyone around him "buh bye" and gives them kisses when anyone else picks him up. He signs "all done" and Adam is slowly teaching him the sign for "sit" which he needs to know if he is going to crawl on the couch and run around like a mad men. He also says "baby" when he sees a baby or himself in the mirror. He plays soccer ALL THE TIME. He will kick a ball from one end of the house to the other, at a jog, consistently kicking it in front of him. I may be a little biased but I think he is leagues ahead of where he should be!!!

At our church we have been participating in a 6 week scripture challenge as a family. We learn the verse as a family and then make a video of us saying it to show in sunday schhool. Our videos have won 2 of the 4 times....we like to have a theme and make it fun for the kids. Goober ALWAYS knows it before the rest of us and therefore leads it most of the time.

Summer countdown is 13 days, with 2 of those being 1/2 days and 1 of those days being a field trip for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy!!

On a roll.

My kids are on a roll lately....turning me and Adam into two crazy parents who are drooling from laughing so hard at their comments.

Ribbit (as she makes her hand into a gun shape and points it across the room) "Daddy this is my PEWHER"
We all just stop and stare at her for a minute.
Ribbit (points and shoots).."see, PEWH, PEWH,...PEWH (imagine the sweetest little pewh while she shoots)

Mommy--"ribbit who do you look more like?..mommy or daddy?
Ribbit----"ummm, like me!" "and mommy, cuz we both big girls and we are best friends and we love chothers (each other)"

Last night we were watching A cartoon where a little girl and her pet dragon always clean up her room before their next adventure....I said " look Ribbit, she cleans her room all the time". Without missing a beat, Ribbit said " but she has a dragon to help her so you have to help me clean my room Mommy".

Goober announced to everyone this morning that he had a made a big decision...he wants contacts. Geesh. 

Here are some pictures from our latest trip to the zoo!

Ready to go!! It was such a beautiful day...first one in a long time!

 The day was sponsored by a Foster Care Organization so our whole day was free. Right as you went into the zoo they had this painting where the kids could stick their head through. We had fun doing every animal with EACH kid....here are the best 3 :)

A typical family portrait.....some of us paying attention, some of us in our own world completely oblivious to what our mommy and daddy are asking us to do. Oh well, at least she was ignoring us for giraffes this time :)

 Playing with the elephant statue...no clue what made Goob pose this way :)

Such a good big brother...we watched so many animals that day..they were all out playing and we were in no rush.

My Big Boys!!!

Watching animals. At the point in the day Baby Boy was done with the stroller, Ribbit had turned her necklace into a belt and Goober was in the mood to pose as much as possible.

Riding the train to head back for lunch.

Not sure what was bothering Ribbit, probably the fact that I wouldn't let her sit on the edge and reach out to touch every leaf she possibly could.

The day was also sponsored by Bikers Against Child Abuse. These men and women were awesome...they let the kids sit on their bikes, served us food, played with the kids and talked to them about what they stand for. Of course my kids wanted to sit on every bike and immediately told them all about their Papa who drives a Harley and lets them play on his too :)

This is their creed and one of them read it to us and got choked up. I was very moved by how much they loved on our kids and the stand they take for children everywhere.    Adam looks stoked.

We took this picture right before the meltdowns started and we headed home. Shoes were off, whining was starting to happen and the temperature was going up. Overall though a great day of actually observing the animals and getting to all hang out together!

The next day we won a Steak and Shake giftcard (for family bible memory) and we went straight there for lunch. Look at my handsome little man rocking the hat :). He shared a milkshake with Mommy and Daddy and then told everyone inside Hi and BuhBye!!

Artsy Fartsy

Well, we wore them children out today!

Once again we went to a free event for Adoptive/Foster Families put on by a local church. It was outside and the weather couldn't have been better. They had at least 8 bounce houses, free hot dogs, brownies, cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn and drinks. They had face painting, nail painting, games, picture booths and music :). The best and sweetest part is that they had valet parking and they washed our car while we went and had fun. All three kids bounced for 3 straight hours...and all 3 kids had tons of sugar :). Then we went to Central Market and got some veggies to make us feel like better parents :). After dinner we went to a baseball field where Adam and Goober practiced batting while Mommy and the two little ones found sand pit and had fun! They are all CONKED out and we may get to sleep in until 7:30!!!!....this morning Adam let me sleep in since I was up most of the night and at 7:45 Ribbit got in my face and said "WHAT DAY ARE YOU GOING TO WAKE UP?"....hahahahahhahaha.

Here are some more pictures of my fabulous kiddos artwork from this past year. I am slowly sending it all home now that competition season is over and I wanted to document it for future ideas and because I'm pretty dern proud of these sweet boys and girls!

Now, teachers don't have favorites....but this girl ranks pretty dagum high!! She wrote me a note as a 6th grader that is just the most sweet and encouraging words to a teacher ever. I carry it in my purse to read on those days when teaching kinda stinks (which isn't very many :). Now she is a 7th grader and a very talented one at that. This is her "Pointillism" painting and her clay mandala. We couldn't decided on which one to enter into the competition so I took this picture and let a 3rd party decide :)

This is by a sweet 7th grade girl who loves all things camo and including archery.

Momma and Baby Narwhal. As you can tell we talked about gradations with colors before as well and they had to do one in the background of their painting. They then applied all other paint with a Q-tip.

Isn't this one awesome? She is a new student this year but has TONS of talent!!!

This owl is one of my favorites, not because of the technical skill but because of just how much it reminds me of the sweet 7th grade girl who made it :)

These "finding Nemos" were done by a cute little 7th grade boy who has all the little girls wrapped around his finger :)

I'm not sure how to flip this one...computer slow I know....but this is done by one of my students who picks up any medium and creates a MASTERPIECE. All of his siblings are the same way and most of the time they win our in-house art competitions!

This is done by one of the wittiest 7th grade boys I know. He doesn't talk much but when he does its always a zing. He took 1st place with this painting at our in-house competition on Gallery Night!

Moving onto our clay mandalas. We discussed how mandalas are usually narrative and tell a story. They had to create one out of clay and show a story or tell a cycle. This first one CRACKS me up....I had no idea what this student was doing when she started by making a clay toilet...but now you can totally see its the life cycle of a fish :).

Can you see the lifecycle of a bird? ...overlook my dirty desk!!

Life cycle of a turtle.

AND this by far is the best piece of artwork EVER. Ribbit made this for his teacher's daughter who just had surgery on her ACL. He walked out of his room with this and I about cried...its just so sweet, with Jesus healing her leg!

20 more days

We are COUNTING DOWN...we have around 20ish days left of school. The reason its not a solid # is because of 1/2 days and field trips. The point is that the end is in sight!!!!  I don't think I would be counting down this soon if we started school at 9....just sayin :).

I just spent the last 3 days in Art Teacher Heaven. Monday was Gallery Night where we celebrate all of our students achievements over the past year and display TONS of artwork!!! Its also an in house competition.

Tuesday and today we were a part of the ACSI competition. We took 39 students from our school and 20 of them places 1st thru 3rd in their category. We are some proud art teachers!!! ....However, I gotta hit the ground running tomorrow...there are piles ...LIKE HUGE PILES of sketchbooks on my desk waiting to be graded, and tons of pieces of artwork that need to be passed out to go home to mom and dad :).

Here at home we are busy planning our summer. The older kids are going to be doing some sports camps, princess camps (thru ballet school) and some city camps. We are also heading to see grandparents for a good chunk of time in Alabama. To top it all off we have rented a beach home for the week of the 4th of July.....its looks amazing, has a zero entry pool and is close to the beach/lagoon/nature reserve and grandparents :).

Goober has been busy working on his first large project...a diorama, written material and a speech. Every night we do a little bit more...however, now that he is learning cursive its hard to convince him to do anything but. He has filled up pages upon pages of cursive writing with pictures to go along with it.

Ribbit has decided that she is too big for momma to walk her all the way to her classroom every morning. I get to follow her, make sure she is in there, turn around to walk away and then she yells "mommy, 1 more kiss". We meet 1/2 way, kiss and then I am allowed to leave :).

Baby Boy is doing so many new things....almost running, like very close...its a little ridiculous how fast he is. He understands everything we say.."pick up your toys, shut the door, do not stand on the couch". He is sooo smart and is going to give both of our older two a run for their money. He will chase them, steal from them, yell at them, mock them and tackle them both. One of the cutest things he does is tell EVERYONE "hi" and "bye bye"...he yells it at you until you respond and then he continues to yell it at you until he can't see you anymore. He also hunts down balls like nobody's business. He can spot a ball from a mile away. He also thinks that the minute I pick him up he needs to find "DATY" and tell him bye bye :)...I love that he is ready to hit the road with me whenever I pick him up :). He walks into his room whenever Adam tells him its time for a night night or time for a diaper change or time to get on shoes to go outside. I am telling you, he is a genius, not even 14 months yet!!!

Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Disney On Ice.

"Mommy, we come to de Princesses with chothers (each other) and de big boyz had to stay at home because they are not big girls like us. Yeah, we love chothers. "--direct quote before we walked in :)

We got 6th row tickets...THANK YOU LEWIS FAMILY!!!

We had to get a crown and some cotton candy...no girls day is complete without it!

Being a princess is hard work....

Zoo Day

This weekend we went to "Adoption Day" at the zoo. It's just another way that Post Adoption Services continues to bless our family. They teamed up with "Bikers Against Child Abuse" and made our whole day wonderful. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was nice to be outside for a loonnngg time.

Baby Boy took in EVERYTHING. He spotted every animal before we did, pointing and making all kinds of sounds. He said "tweet tweet", "roooaarrr" and spotted all the balls in that place!!!He couldn't stop pointing and talking!!

Ribbit overheard the song " its all about the money, money, money" and started singing " Winnie de Pooh eats honey, honey, honey"....hahahah!!! She was super stoked about seeing elephants and birds and watching the monkeys who she said kept "showing their booties" to her.

Goober HAD to see the rhinos. He is going a report on them in school and wanted to see them in real life. He got to hold a horn, see a rhino skull and look at one up close.

Since we got to the zoo so early the animals were at their best, eating breakfast, playing, chasing each other, fighting. It really was a great day.

I'll post those pictures soon....but I wanted to post some pictures of my students and there best pieces from Art. Gallery Night is Monday night at our school. Each student has 2 to 3 pieces in the show and its an in house competition. It was hard for a lot of my students to pick just 2 to 3 pieces as many of them are sooo talented and have several pieces that they wanted to submit. I LOVE MY JOB AND I LOVE THESE 9th GRADE STUDENTS!!!

I was a little obsessed with the skeleton this year.....just how fascinating our bodies are and how specifically God designed them. This was a mixed media piece...oil pastels and watercolors....aren't they great!!!

These two are showing off their "iphrase" projects. I wanted to move towards more graphic design oriented projects. So we talked about the apple ads and how they use silhouettes to communicate actions or phrases. So each student chose an "iphrase" and an "imove" to capture that phrase. We covered kaolin boards with india ink. Scratched off the negative space, painted it with ink/paint and then scratched back through to show the white kaolin clay letters.   " I Rangers" and "I love".

These 3 are showing off their paper relief projects. We made bisque tiles with deep grooves in them...most of them using architectural themes. We them made pulp and pushed it into this bisque tiles, let them dry and removed them to reveal a low relief! Aren't they beautiful!!!

These 5 are putting in their AMAZING linoleum prints. I LOVE printmaking and try to instill that in my students each year. This is my 2nd time to have this group of kiddos, once in 7th and now...therefore, their printmaking skills were pretty mature and we were able to do 2 projects....one based on Warhols' Pop Culture prints and in the another one I allowed them to make a social comment on any issue that they had a personal opinion about. From left to right...breast cancer, the hunger games theme, gossip, verbal abuse, television and Texas Rangers....you can tell our school is in DFW area by all the Ranger themed art I get :)

These three chose to put in their Expressive self portraits. They were to focus on the lines of a face, how a thin or thick line can create a different meaning. They painted their background in colors that they felt expressed their personality and then composed their self portrait based on that background. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the young man's portrait. He left off an eye and nose because of how concentrated his background is in that space. I call him "Martha Stewart" because he incorporates yarn and glitter glue in a lot of his work...hehehe, he is such a sweet, loving, polite christian young man!!

A lot of my students wanted to submit their ceramic piece so I divided them into girls and guys for the pictures. We did two ceramic projects this year. The handbuilt piece was, in short, giving an inanimate object life...or a personality. The second project was on the wheel...and basically was anything they could create since this is only their second 5 week time period on the wheel. So from left to right we have a cleat with rainbow showstrings (the spikes on the bottom are little feet), a flute conducting music, a coffee mug sleeping :), a very energetic coffee mug and an elephant bowl. I LOVE THESE SWEET YOUNG LADIES!!! See all that long hair? I play with each and every one of their hair as I make my laps around the class and critique....(my little girls hair is curly and doesn't allow for too much hair playing just yet)....some of them beg me to play with their hair longer every day :)

And my boys...from left to right; a bottle opener with buck teeth, a beautiful wheel thrown bowl, a bird vase and a sweating oven....HAHAHAHAHA. The same sweet boy who made the sweating oven decided to comment on drinking in his social comment print and made a large print that said " Drunky is Funky".

I'll post my other kiddos later...this was the only class that I got super organized in ;)

Uncle Chris

I'm going to post some of my facebook statuses over the past couple of days.

• Last night Ribbit followed me everywhere, as usual, so at one point I said " what are you doing here?" Without missing a beat she said "What do you mean, I live here!"
• While holding her barbie's computer Ribbit says " Um, I have to take my pooter to church tomorryo (yes thats how she says tomorrow), and then I have to pooter, because I need to pooter and when I am done pooting I will bring it back".
  I pray she never figures out the real word :)
•  Can anyone explain how my 13 month old found a granola bar covered in chocolate ( something I have never bought ) , stripped off the whole wrapper and was walking around the house eating it while leaving chocolate footprints?

So needless to say its been FUN!!!

I also wanted to post some pictures of our time with Uncle Chris....WE LOVE HIM TO PIECES!!!

After a late night run to get ice cream!...just the 3 of us :)

 Chilling with little man....for some reason he loved beating up all over Uncle Chris!

 We took little man to the mall one day...he only liked this shuttle when it was still.

 Look at me mommy, I'm a big boy!!!

 This seemed to happen A LOT!!!...Uncle Chris pile on the floor!

 I love how tight these two are holding onto one another :)

 Everyone at school knew that Ribbit's Uncle Chris was here...she made sure he came to see her everyday!!! The female teachers (my friends) didn't seem to mind :).

 Love Love Love my little brother!!!...Thank you for coming to see us and loving on our kiddos!!!

PLEASE DON'T GO UNCLE CHRIS....we have a bedroom just for you!!!

 Adam wanted to get on the Uncle Chris love too!!!! I am a blessed women to have a brother and husband who get along so well and are buds!

P.S.- Chris's girlfriend, Micah, was visiting her family here in Texas that same week. Of course we hung out with her some too, so when she came to eat dinner with us one night, Ribbit was NOT happy. I bathed both little ones and when we came out of the bathroom Micah and Chris were cuddled up on the couch. Ribbit said " hey what are you doing??"...she approached them both slowly, staring them down and then pretty much sat on top of Micah's head. She slowly warmed up to her but you could tell that she had claimed Uncle Chris as HER OWN PROPERTY!!!! 

Post Overload

Today is a good day. Today is the first day in the past several weeks that Adam and I have both been home together with the kids for more than 1 hour. No lie. He leaves for work the minute I get home and then we usually talk to each other for about 30 minutes before going to sleep. We do see each other at church on Wednesdays but we can't talk because that would be rude :). So, therefore, this mommy and daddy have been way too tired to blog. Until today!!! So with that being said I wanted to upload as many things as I could tonight since I know come Monday we will be back to our "not so my favorite" work schedule. Please join my in praying that Adam would get a DAY JOB. We are soooo pleased that God has blessed him with all these recent clients but working a full time job, plus doing dinner, bath, ballet lessons and bath time all by myself is not as much FUN as it sounds :). Here are some pictures from Easter!

The kids official picture...check out Baby Boy's black eye.It was still healing from surgery.
 
Please tell me that I am not the only mom who on the way home from church looks around the van and notices that everyone is still in their original clothes, without stains, is somewhat pleasant, realizes she already has lunch going in the crockpot and immediately proclaims " NO ONE GO INSIDE, DO NOT TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES, HEAD TO THE PORCH FOR A PICTURE". She then bargains with her husband "ill get the kids out of the car if you go grab the camera and tripod". They pull off a pretty stellar picture (Adam says we look like white trash with all those chairs on the front porch) and then you walk inside and realize you put all the food in the crockpot but never turned it on so you eat carrots, hard boiled eggs and bread for lunch and call it a TRADITIONAL EASTER LUNCH....true story.

Oh...and before I forget, Goober TRULY believes that they have installed cameras in our school bathroom. He saw them putting in more security cameras close to the bathroom and a friend convinced him that they are watching them go to the bathroom now. He normally uses the bathroom at least 3 times during a movie...so consider that when I tell you he has been beelining it to the potty once he gets over to my classroom every day ;).