Loralai's Prayer

Tonight at bedtime, I put both kids in Tyler's bed to talk about the best and worst parts of the day and then to say a prayer before they go to sleep. Loralai's best part of the day was: "Going to McDonald's and making caramel popcorn". Tyler's best part of the day was: "Going to McDonald's, making caramel popcorn, and playing XBOX football". For the worst part of the day, they both said, "I was tired this morning when I got out of bed"....wow, that sounds really awful.

I asked who wanted to say the prayer tonight, and Loralai said she wanted to. This was Loralai's first time to say the prayer, she usually prefers Tyler, me, or Drew to say it. This was Loralai's prayer:

"Dear God,

Thanks for my Tyler and my mommy and daddy. Thanks for the moon and stars and milky way. Thanks for all the planets and grass and trees. I like to hear the birds and see them fly in the sky. When my tummy growls I like the food I eat. I like to play outside and sing. I love Jesus and I'm glad he is in my heart to hug me. Thank you for my friends everywhere. Jesus name, Amen"

It was so sweet and honest, I just loved her sweet little prayer!

Labor day at Nana and Papa's

The kids and I spent labor day weekend at my parents in Coppell. The kids had a fabulous time, they love going to "Nana and Papa's" house. We spent Friday at the Ft. Worth zoo, the picture directly above is of Loralai waving to the "big fat monkey" as Loralai called him...or what some zoo experts refer to as the chimpanzee. We went into the bird cage where you could feed the birds with a seed stick. In the picture third from the top, Tyler is feeding a group of birds. We called him the bird whisperer since they all seemed to swarm around him. They swarmed around Loralai too, although she wasn't so crazy about it. She wanted to feed the birds, just didn't want them so close. She giggled at first, then ran straight to Nana and let her finish the feeding. On Saturday we went to the mall and afterwards Tyler played catch with Papa and Jeff...a lot. They would play for an hour, come back in. Then an hour later, they'd be back outside playing catch. On Sunday we went swimming at the aquatic center in Coppell, the kids always look forward to that. We came back home on Monday, so it was a quick trip but lots of fun. I was able to see several high school friends as well, so it was a nice little vacation at the start of the new school year.

Baseball

Tyler is into the fall season of t-ball, although I'm not sure why they call it that since they encourage the players to hit the pitches from the coach. Drew and I both decided that he needed to take a break from head coach, so he is the assistant this season. He loves being the assistant so much he probably won't go back to head coach! MUCH less responsibility. He is able to stand behind the players when they bat and help them get into the right position and stance. Tyler absolutely loves baseball. He is the first baseman on the Cubs this season. He practices three times a week with the team and plays one game a week. At first I thought this was a little extreme, but for a child who loves baseball and wants to play all the time, it's great. On the days he doesn't play with the team, he practices in the backyard. When he isn't practicing in the backyard or doing homework or eating, he is wanting to play baseball on the XBOX. He watches sportscenter before he goes to bed, he knows the players and some of their stats. He is a baseball junkie right now....last year he was a star wars junkie, so I wonder what he will be obsessed with next year. I LOVE watching him play...previous seasons he has asked me to be quiet and not yell so much. This season he wants me to yell more, and he is big on giving me the thumbs up from first base, it is so cute. Loralai cheers so loud for Tyler, it is so sweet. Loralai yells, "Go Tyler! I love you sooooo much!" Tyler kind of laughs and looks around at his friends and then gives me a look to tell Loralai to cool it with the I love yous.

Tybee Island

We just returned from our first vacation as a family to a beach. Tyler had been asking for a couple of years now to go see a beach, so naturally Loralai had started chiming in as well. So we decided Tybee Island was a good choice since it is only 5 hours from Atlanta and is known to be a family friendly destination. It was a quick trip, just Monday-Wednesday, but perfect for our first time visiting the island. We arrived Monday around 2 pm and right after checking into our hotel we put our swimsuits on and started walking to the beach. The hotel was really close, just about a block from the beach so it wasn't a long walk. We played for about 30 minutes and then we heard a loud thunder boom and saw lightning...then it started pouring down rain. We gathered everything up, then ran back to the hotel. It ended up raining the entire night, flash flood warnings and all. So plan B: we asked the hotel attendant where the best seafood place was and she told us about a place called The Crab Shack. We loaded up in the van, drove slowly, and arrived at The Crab Shack. It was wonderful, we had shrimp, crab cakes, sausauge, potatoes. And my favorite part of the restaurant was that the center of the table had a whole cut out with a trash can below so you could clean up after yourself....very handy when two very messy children are peeling shrimp! Our waiter let us know that had the weather not been so bad, we probably wouldn't have been able to get a table due to how busy they usually are in good weather. We wouldn't have waited.

The next day, the sun was out and no rain in site. We woke up early, spent a few hours at the beach. Buried Tyler in the sand, then Loralai, and finally Drew....I then read a book. Ha, ha yeah right, but I did bury everyone in the sand (legs only, I was a little paranoid about doing more than that). We played frisbee on the beach, turns out Tyler is pretty good at throwing and catching the frisbee. Loralai loved building sand castles and sitting at the shore letting the water come up to her little feet. Tyler loved crashing and riding the waves with me and Drew. He also loved co

llecting shells and Loralai loved throwing them back into the water when he wasn't looking. Then we went to the hotel pool to "clean off", had lunch, then back to the beach. We are definitely beach bums, I love just hanging out around the water and sand. We ate at a local pizza joint that was really good and had homemade ice cream that to me tasted like Edy's, but that's okay. Our final day was spent at the beach and pool again, then home. It was a nice, relaxing vacation. I enjoyed not having any plans, just hanging out was nice.

Favorites age 6 and 2

We just spent two weeks in Texas visiting my parents and brother. We had a great time and while we were there my kids experienced their first tornado warning. We got into the interior hallway of the house and waited to see if we needed to go into the interior bathroom. The tornado missed Coppell, so we ended up just waiting in the hallway until the wind calmed down. The wind did tear up two of the trees at my parents house and messed up my dad's garden. I had told Tyler that if we had to go into the bathroom that we would lay on top of the kids to protect them. He thought that meant that Loralai would be on the bottom then Tyler, me, and Drew on top. So just a couple of days ago we had a lightening storm in GA and Tyler told me that if a tornado comes, he doesn't want Loralai to get hurt, he will lay on the bottom. He said, "I don't care if I get hurt, but if Loralai got hurt I would be really upset" He is such a sweet boy. I assured him we wouldn't squash them.

Here are a list of their current favorites:

Tyler

Favorite color: light red

Favorite food: burritos

Favorite cartoon: Spongebob Squarepants, Phineas and Ferb

Favorite movie: Sandlot, Back to the Future

Favorite song: Right Round - Flo Rida

Favorite toys: Star Wars, Wii Sports, Wii Rockband

Favorite book: Go Dog Go - Dr. Seuss, The Foot Book - Dr. Seuss, Star Wars early readers

Favorite game: baseball, baseball, and more baseball!

Favorite clothes: Tyler only wants to wear "workout clothes"(that's what he calls them). I can only get him to wear collar shirts and nice shorts to church.

Loralai

Favorite color: Pink

Favorite food: popsicles. she likes chicken nuggets and hamburgers when she can't have popsicles

Favorite cartoon: Caillou, Blue's Clues, Max & Ruby

Favorite movie: The Little Mermaid, Dumbo

Favorite song: Popular - Wicked soundtrack, Take a Chance on Me - ABBA, Don't Stop Believin - Glee Cast version....it's really her favorite! We just have similar taste in music!

Favorite toys: dolls and anything to do with caring for her baby dolls. Also cell phones and purses.

Favorite book: A Cuddle for Little Duck, The Princess Book, Mother Goose's Nursery Rhyme Book

Favorite game: baseball with Tyler, kicking soccer ball around

Favorite clothes: pink usually, whatever she decides for the day. Loralai is very picky about what she wears with what shoes and jewelry. She becomes very unhappy if I disagree with her!

Loralai is at an age where she thinks Tyler is the most wonderful person in the world. I know this won't last forever, but it is so cute right now. Today during lunch it had been quite for about 10 seconds which seems like a long time in our family and Loralai looked at Tyler and said, "Tyler you are my best friend and brother". Drew and I were telling her how sweet she was when Tyler said, "My best friend is Kadin". Loralai didn't seem to mind or even get it thankfully!

Naked Lady

I am recording this story because it is so funny and I don't want to forget it. When we ask Tyler about his day we usually get the response of "Fine" or "I don't know". Occasionally Tyler will just start to talk and tell us stories and when he does Drew and I really listen since he normally doesn't give us a lot of information on his day at school. This was two nights ago, we just finished supper and were sitting in the living room and Tyler just started talking, without stopping to take a break. Here's how his story went:

Tyler:

"Today on the bus home from school I was talking to my friend...he's in like 2nd or 3rd grade I don't know, and he went to a beach over spring break in another country. Like Mexico or Canada or something. He said he was in the pool and there was a naked lady in the pool. He said she was a mom lady with real boobs, not flat ones. He said he kept following her and his dad would tell him to leave her alone and stay with him. He said she fell asleep in the pool and was just floating around and when his dad wasn't looking he swam over and touched her head. (ha, ha he is laughing pretty hard now). He said he tried to touch her back but she woke up and he swam away really quick."

Drew:
(speechless, turned around trying to keep it together but laughing)

Me:
(speechless as well, but unable to hide it my mouth is open and my eyes have that stunned glazed look)

Tyler:
"What? It's okay mom, it wasn't like a real girl she was a mom lady. When we go to the beach this summer will there be any naked ladies there? I mean mom naked ladies?"

At this point I explained a few things to Tyler with Drew's help, but I won't get into that. I can't wait to tell him this story when he's married to a mom lady.

Easter

Today the kids had an easter egg hunt at church and had a lot of fun with that. There were over 400 eggs and the kids were split up per age group. Loralai was in the 3 and under group while Tyler was in the 4-6 group. Unfortunately, I couldn't be with Tyler while he was hunting for eggs but he seemed to do pretty well...all the kids did really since there were so many eggs! It was fun to watch Loralai hunt for eggs. She seemed to get right away what she was supposed to do. She wasn't as aggressive about it as Tyler was at this age, but she didn't shy away either. The only pictures I was able to get of Tyler after the egg hunt was of him sitting down by his basket of eggs. He stayed there for about 15 minutes until we left. I thought he felt sick, but he told me he was keeping watch over his eggs, he didn't want anyone taking them!

After lunch we came home and played with bubbles outside that the easter bunny left in their baskets. We also flew a kite which turned out to be funnier than intended. Watching Drew fly the kite combined with Loralai crying to hold the kite and Tyler kept getting caught in the kite string...Drew was getting so frustrated...it was so funny!

Loralai has now crashed after the sugar high and taking a nap. Tyler never seems to run out of energy and is now playing lego star wars on the Wii. We are about to play RockBand and on a side note I got 100% on the vocals(expert level) for "You Oughta Know". It's just killing Drew that I'm better at this then he is :)

Snow Day!

The morning started off with rain, which turned into sleet, then turned into snow! I didn't think it would really stick but by the end of the day we had enough to make a decent snowman. I didn't get a picture of the snowman unfortunately, I will try to tomorrow if it hasn't melted already. Loralai called the snowman "my fwiend". The snow was good packing snow, perfect for a snowman but for a snowball fight it was pretty brutal. Drew belted me in the back of the head with a snowball (more like a block of ice) and I got Tyler to come to my side and we got him back pretty good. We made several hard snowballs and just threw them over and over at Drew, he ended up rolling down the hill on the side of the house....it isn't that steep but it was definitely hilarious. During this time Loralai was talking to the snowman and giving it kisses. She did try and throw a few snowballs, but preferred talking to the snowman. We took a picture of us in front of my hyacinths which just bloomed and unfortunately will probably be dead tomorrow. That's Georgia, crazy weather....I never thought it would snow so late! We had so much fun, so it was worth a few dead hyacinths!

Back From Christmas Vacation

Look! It's a picture of me and Drew! This almost never happens, the last picture we had of us together was in October when we went to Wicked. Before that it was our wedding day I think. No, I'm sure there are some pictures in there. We just don't have many!

This picture was taken by my friend, Nancy, at her house on New Year's Eve. She is getting more into professional photography and has a real gift. She is taking our family pictures when we come to TX for a visit in June.

We got back from TX a little over a week ago. We had a wonderful time at with my family. I got to see a lot of movies with my brother and the kids had so much fun...especially playing in the backyard. Loralai and Tyler both love playing outside. On the flight back to Atlanta, Tyler said he wished Nana and Papa lived closer to us because, "They have fun all the time, they don't have to work they just play all day" I explained to him that they do in fact work, they just take time off when we come to visit. Tyler is back in school and we got his report card. He is exceeding kindergarten expectations in math! I am so proud of him, he is such a good boy and so smart. Loralai is really into musicals and about a month ago was addicted to "Grease". Now, she is obsessed with "Annie". She watches so intently and then she will stand up and try to sing and do the the dance moves along with the orphans on Annie. She will try and get Tyler to dance with her, but he has none of it. It usually ends with a fight, he is determined to get through life without singing and dancing.

Loralai's 2nd Birthday

Eating some pizza before cake and presents.

I wanted Drew to smile because when he doesn't smile in pictures he looks mad! So he has a friendly wave for the camera too.

Loralai wanted to play the games, but didn't want to use her tokens, she wanted to save those. So she was happy to just pretend play. She spent most of her time in the toddler playground which doesn't cost anything.

Finishing up opening the gifts.

We celebrated Loralai's birthday a little early this year. Her actual birthday is December 29, but we wanted to have a party for her and her friend, Warrick, who is the same age as Loralai and in her class at church. We went to Chuck E. Cheese and just had a few close friends over to keep it small but enough to make it feel like a party. Loralai had an ice cream cake (chocolate and vanilla) since ice cream is one of her favorite foods right now. We made sure to NOT sit near the stage since the robot Chuck E. Cheese makes both Loralai and Warrick scream and cry. We sang "Happy Birthday" and Loralai knew to blow out her candle. She got some good gifts: a baby doll that you can change outfits and hair bows, big box of bath toys, tinkerbell dress up outfit, tea set, Dumbo stuffed animal, and two Hi-5 dance DVDs. I can't believe she is already two!

Some Thanksgiving Pictures

These are a few pictures taken over the Thanksgiving holiday. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to, so some of my cousins' kids didn't make it into the pictures. We had Thanksgiving with my parents, brother, aunt and uncle, and my cousins Lori and Kelly and their families. Below is Tyler on the tree swing at my aunt's house in Alabama.

Tyler is talking football with his cousin Drake in the picture below.

Loralai goes for a ride with another of my cousins children, Kasey.

This is a picture of Tyler and Tyler. Both five and one of my cousins kids. They got along really well and my Tyler is already asking when he can see them again.

When we got back home, we put the tree up the following day. It was chaotic at times, I just let the kids put the ornaments wherever they want to, and I did see a few toys in the tree, they also wanted to surround the tree with toys they already have like it was Christmas day.

Loralai - 22 months

Loralai is growing so fast and in one and a half months she will turn two! I can't believe it, time is going by so fast. My little baby girl isn't going to be a baby much longer. I want to update the list of her favorite things, as this list seems to change monthly.

LORALAI'S FAVORITE THINGS

FOOD:If she had it her way, the world would be made of candy. Since we don't let her eat candy all the time, her favorite foods are ice cream, sour cream, ketchup, chocolate, and marshmallows. She really can't eat those foods all the time either, so her favorite REAL food is chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, bologna, applesauce, and avocados.

MUSIC: She LOVES the kids pop group Hi-5. She knows some of the words and tries to sing along with the music sometimes. They have choreographed dance moves and she even knows some of those. The group I would say is a mix between N-Sync and ABBA. She also loves ABBA and The Wiggles

MOVIES: The only movie she will watch all the way through is DUMBO. She loves this movie. She stands up during the scene where Dumbo's mom is being taken to solitary confinement and shouts, "NO, NO!!!" During the scene where Dumbo visits his mom in solitary and Dumbo's mom sings "Baby Mine", Loralai stands up with a doll and rocks the doll back and forth and sings along. Very cute!

TV: Spongebob Squarepants, The Wiggles, Elmo's World, and Veggie Tales, and most of all Hi-5. She laughs out loud during Spongebob, it's funny to see her mouth fall open and her little nose crinkle and a huge cackle come out!

BOOKS: She likes to read the nursery rhyme collection book. She also likes How Do I Love You?, From Head to Toe, and The Icky Sticky Frog.

WORDS: Favorite phrases: "One more" (pronounced "mun-mo") - said with her index finger up in the air. "Don't do that", "Me, me, mine", "Jewelry", "No, your Jewelry", "Shoes", "No, your shoes", "My Ta-ta (Tyler)", "Mommy, now!", "Please (peez) Da-da".

I can't get it out of my head!

Tyler since birth has always been a very curious little boy. He has a question about everything and is always thinking. A few days ago Tyler had been home from school for a couple of hours and he started asking me about God and how much God knows. Here is the conversation:

T: Does God know everything I do and say?

Me: Yes, God is all-powerful. He knows everything we are doing now and everything we are going to do. We make choices, but God knows what we are going to choose.

T: What if I change my mind?

Me: God knows that you changed your mind.

T: HAPPY!.....I thought that in my mind to say it, and shouted it....did God know that?

Me: Yes

T: HAP.....66!....Ha, ha...I tricked God! I thought to say HAPPY in my mind, then I stopped and said 66.

Me: Hate to break it to you Tyler, but God knew you were going to say that.

About an hour had gone by and Tyler went to his room to put a puzzle together. I was in the living room with Loralai. Tyler walked out and was really close to tears. His little voice was cracking, and this is the next conversation:

T: Mom, I have a bad thought in my head and I can't get it out.

Me: Oh, Tyler it's okay...that happens sometimes, what is it.

T: I can't get the word "idiot" out of my head and God knows.

Me: Tyler, that's okay, just don't call anyone that. It's okay, it will pop in your head sometimes but just don't say it.

T: Okay, because I was thinking how much of an idiot Loralai can be, but I won't tell her that.

Loralai was just sitting there playing with her dolls, I don't know where that came from!

Halloween pictures

There aren't as many good pictures as I was hoping for, but we did get a few. The evening started off with me trying to hold Loralai down and put her witch costume on. She was not happy about it, normally she loves dressing up but for some reason she didn't want to dress up on Halloween night. I'm pretty sure part of that was because we wanted her to do it, it wasn't her idea.


Trying to get Loralai dressed, we turned around for a quick picture. She was't happy about that either!

Before we went trick or treating, we got a quick shot of the kids sitting on the curb. We just have to take what we can get since Loralai is at an age where sitting down doesn't last very long! She was ready to go!

This is the only picture I have of her with her hat almost on her head. She didn't want to wear the hat, but would sometimes put it over her head like this to show people where the hat was supposed to go but it never made it all the way to her head. She also had tights to go with the costume, but we made a deal that if she put the costume on, she wouldn't have to wear the tights. The socks and shoes didn't last all night either!

We went to the grocery store by our house because they had stuff for the kids to do. She is excited because she is about to decorate cookies. Drew is wearing a halloween tie, which is hilarious to me because he hates seasonal ties but Tyler begged him to wear it, so he did. Drew took it off after the grocery store.

Tyler is a scary knight. Their papa (my dad) bought the costumes for them this year when they were up visiting. We went to the grocery store, then the mall, and last our neighborhood for trick or treating. They got a lot of good candy, Tyler got a pack of candy cigarettes-which I didn't even know were still made. Tyler put the candy cigarette up to his mouth and said, "Gimme all your money and get out of town". I don't know where he got that, I guess he thinks that smokers like to steal money.

Tyler's Halloween "Hoedown"

For Tyler's kindergarten class the halloween party was a farm theme. We had four stations set up for the kids: crafts (decorating little pumpkins and face painting), games (bean bag toss, ring throw), biscuits and make your own butter out of cream was the third station, and the last station was a farmers breakfast (eggs and bacon - one of the parents cooked for the kids and the kids could special order their eggs). It went really well, and pretty smooth. There were a lot of moms and one dad made it to help! I thought I was going to be at the butter station, but I ended up being at the crafts station and I also did the face painting. So the face art work was pretty basic to say the least.


Tyler's face painting request: a black widow spider (this has become a recent obsession of his, poisonous insects)

Tyler and his group eating a farmer's breakfast with is wonderful, fabulous teacher, Mrs. Hobgood.

They could wear their costumes today if they wanted to, he is a knight but we had to leave the mask at home.

Tyler's pumpkin after he added the decoration.

Decorating pumpkins, eating candy corn, painting, saying cheese for the millionth time...

More pictures from Washington Farms...

Here are some more pictures from Washington Farms. Below are a couple of pics from the corn pit.

Loralai is laying down like she saw Tyler do earlier. She wants him to bury her legs in the corn.

Tyler in his cow for the cow train ride.

Loralai and I in our cow car during the cow train ride.