Catching Up.....again!

Sorry I have been missing in action for sooooo long!! I have been sitting around on the couch eating cupcakes.....NOT!!! :) I keep thinking life will slow down and life will be "normal". I have finally come to the realization that this must be normal..... I do not like normal!!! I feel like we have been around the world and back again since my last post which was in July~ Truth be know we have been at least halfway there! We were at church family camp the first week of August, celebrated our 19th Anniversary, spent a week at God's Bible School in Cincinnati while Troy preached their fall revival, started school, spent a couple days in Branson, celebrated our 10th year anniversary of Pastoring in Cape, had Andrea's port surgery removal, went for revival in Alabama at my sister and brother in law's, came home and started revival here the next night.....are you tired yet?!!! :) At least we aren't bored around here! I thought I would share a few pictures of Andrea's port removal surgery which is another story in itself!! She gave us a huge scare right before surgery and we thought it was possible she might be relapsing.....needless to say it was a scary time but we were full of thanksgiving when everything tested out okay!! The surgery went forward and now she has a nice scar for a reminder!~ :) I say it is a beautiful scar and one to be proud of!! We are so thankful that God has been with us all the way!!! I have a ton more pictures of our Alabama trip and other summer fun but.....that will have to just wait for another day!!


Andrea waiting impatiently for them to come and take her away.....I can't tell you how excited she was to be back at the hospital and in her bed and room!!! I know......she is an unusual kid!!
Nana came up with us since Daddy had to work

Our great nurse and even more importantly our wonder friend, Kristin!!! She is our angel!!!

After surgery.....her surgeon gave her a special heart dressing.

Trying to sleep off the sleepy meds!!

Hope to get some more up soon!!!

Finished object....of the year!

Since we are going to get to make a trip to Alabama next week to see the newest niece...Ashlynn Paige.... I am on a mission!! I have made about 30 bows for her and now I am working on some onesie outfits! It is soooooo much fun!! I have had way to many boys.....lets just say that dressing girls is of the charts when it comes to fun! I think we may have to change this baby girls clothes about 6 times a day! :)


The completed outfit

A close up of the ruffle.... I just took a plain onsie and decided how long I wanted the ruffle.... this is a newborn size onsie and I made the ruffle about 4 inches long. I overcast both edges the then I added the elastic trim which made it ruffle up on its own. After it was ruffled I pinned it to the onsie and voila... add a little ribbon rosette and you have a shirt and a skirt! :)

I love this bandanna ribbon, especially with the pink rosette!! This is just way to much fun!!!! Andrea thinks we need to adopt a little girl from China...soooooo if I'm missing for awhile... I may be in China! :)

4th of July!!

We celebrated the 4th about 3 times this year! We had friends over on Friday night and the kids shot of a bunch of fireworks. Then on Friday night our next door neighbors came over and we had another great show....Sunday night we saw fireworks from our fair city.....I think the kids did better than Jackson! :) It was a fun weekend! I am proud to be an American!!!

Luke.... wow this is a serious moment!

Sunday afternoon we all had Ice cream cones and it got pretty interesting!

Gotta love the ice cream/ chocolate mustache!

Andrea got just a little carried away...

and.....Alex was out of control!!!

I finally got everyone roped together to try to get some pictures...do you have any idea how hard it is to have 4 boys all look in the same direction at the same time without being crazy?!!! It is no easy task!!

The 6 reasons I get up every day.....oh and so I can do laundry, cook, pay the bills........ :)

My most favorite person in the whole world!!!!!

That summed up the 4th for us..... I wanted to add a couple of pictures I took this evening.....

Alex had been playing outside in the dirt with his cars....he came in wearing these goofy boots and asking for a yogurt drink. Look at that dirty backside....

The front doesn't look much better.... it looks like he may have been eating the dirt!! Oh well I'm sure it wasn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last!! Besides Troy's dad always said dirt was good for you.... good for what I don't know....maybe whatever ails you....I think I may go have a serving of dirt! :) Not really!!!

Yay for me....I'm all caught up!

JUNE

June found us frantically getting ready for our youth camp! I always think I will be better prepared but so much can't be done until the last couple weeks. I think my kids were beginning to think they might be orphans!! :) The Sunday night before we were to leave on Monday morning I got 1 hour of sleep and headed out at 5:30 am with Heidi Boardman to go pick up the groceries! I don't think Heidi had any idea what she had gotten herself into! :) We made it safely and before we could get caught up on our sleep...it was already over!!! The wonderful thing is that it is so totally worth it that I would turn around and do it again next week....okay maybe next year will do!!! We did have a wonderful week with many getting their spiritual lives back on track!! That makes all the sleepless hours and days worth it all! We brought our 2 nieces and nephew home with us so my sister could hopefully rest up and get ready for their little baby girl who was due to arrive July 29th. To my amazement I received a call from my sister early Monday morning telling me that she would be here before the day was out!!! She arrived almost 5 weeks early weighing 6lb 7oz! Her name is Ashlynn Paige Jones and she is one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever seen! There will be many more pictures of her next week! ( we are going down to spend a week with this coming Monday.) Little Ashlynn wasn't quite ready for this world yet so she spent over a week in NICU but is now home and being loved to death!! We had a great time entertaining her brother and sisters while they waited for her to get home! Everyone was sad to see them leave and I think they were even a little sad to go! I can't believe I didn't get more pictures of them while they were here!! I guess it was due to the fact of 8 kids in the house.....7 of them under age 11! :) Lauren was also gone that week....she was at my sisters house spending some time with her best buddie, Katie Snodgrass! So I lost my right hand and didn't get much more done than cooking and doing laundry~ :) I loved every bit of it!!! I'm so glad my kids have cousins they are close to and get along so well with!!!

Troy and the boys decided to give our house a much need bath!!! Tyler was more than happy to get up on the roof and assist!


I was in the house when I heard this terrible CRASH!!! I was almost to scared to come out and see who had fallen off the roof....much to my relief it was only the ladder that had gotten knocked over. Luke came to the rescue so they wouldn't have to spend the night up there! Am I ever thankful for the "sparkly" clean house!!

Best Buddies for life!!! These two have so much fun together!

What a serious moment!! I'm not sure what he was thinking about but I love this picture!!

That brings us to July....actually July 4th.....

MAY

Alex's favorite toy of all times is a laundry basket! Anytime there is one around, empty or full, he claims it! Of course 2 necessary items are always included: a paci and the one and only green blanky! He will just lay around in it, push it around and generally entertain himself for long periods of time! Very cheap entertainment!!


The month of May is our marathon birthday month! Travis starts it out on the 14th- as you can see this year was the big "9" for him!

Having a fun sleepover with his buddies, Caleb and Gabe.

At the top of Travis' wish list was his very own 24 pack of Mountain Dew...which I might add was consumed very quickly! That smile looks a little scary!!!

Tyler was right behind Travis on the 17th....11 years for him. Tyler is our dare-devil..... I wasn't to excite about this two wheeled unstable "rip stick" but true to Tyler form, he has it down!

Tyler also wanted his own 24 pack of Mountain Dew.....he was smart and hid his.....he still has quite a few cans left!!!

In between birthday's our great friend Jason Eftink invited us to spend a Saturday out on Kentucky Lake in his pontoon boat. It was the most enjoyable Saturday I have had since our last vacation!!! It was a picture perfect day and we enjoyed it to the fullest! Jason had a diving accident when he was only 19 years old and is paralyzed from his upper chest down. He is an inspiring person to be around to say the least! There isn't anything that he won't try to do!~ He operated that boat with amazing skill!~ Thanks Jason for the awsome day!!!

Jason's nephew, Aiden, and Alex became great buddies!

Tyler, Andrea, and Alex fixing to take off on a tube ride.

We ended this good month on the 29th with Luke turning 14! I can't believe how fast the time has flown by!! Luke didn't want a birthday cake.....so we had a yummy choc chip cookie cake!

What a great guy!! Happy 14th Luke!

Well that sums up the month of May........ June will soon follow!

APRIL

April was an incredibly busy month at our house......then again, I'm not sure there are many months that aren't busy around here! :)

We left our house the 5th of April and headed down to Westlake, LA to spend a week at the Kenny Adamson's house. Troy spoke at their church every evening and on Sunday. We had a great time while we were there! The Adamson's are a lot of fun and we just kind of adopted them! :) We arrived back home late on April the 12th....my birthday....not my favorite thing to do....ride in the car for about 13 hours!

On April the 17th the Tony Ross' arrived at our house to spend the weekend with us. Bro. Ross spoke at our church over the weekend. We always enjoy the Ross' being here! They are super special people!!

April the 20th we loaded up our van again and headed over to Cincinnati, Ohio for IHC. This year we were able to get 2 rooms right in the convention center! If you have ever been to IHC this is the only way to go! Troy feels the need to try to visit the several thousand people while he is there for 2 days and I'm just not interested!! So Andrea, Alex, and I hung out a lot in the motel room!! :) Troy also had the privilege of speaking to the young people in their service... that was the highlight of his time there! We had fun seeing a lot of old friends and meeting some new ones!!

After IHC Troy, Lauren, and Josh Boardman headed over to GBS for their VIP days. The rest of the kids and I along with Heidi Boardman and her kids headed over the Paul Holden's to hang out! We had a great time visiting there! They are awesome hosts and took good care of us! We did cause a little excitement that I'm sure Sara, Heidi, and I will never forget.....Luke had a diabetic seizure and we had to call 911....none of us do to well under stress like that and I think an ambulance was about necessary for us girls....Luke was fine! :) To say the least we will never forget that trip! We made it home late Saturday evening just in time for Lauren and Andrea to go participate in the Relay for Life cancer walk. I ended up going for a little bit and was really touched! It was a really incredible experience!!!

The back of Andrea's shirt....



Lauren and Andrea making a lap!

My sister Patti, my mom, my brother-in-law, Toya and Andrea

Lauren turned "sweet 16" while we were at IHC so we waited until we got home to celebrate....her great friends, Tori and Abby made her a beautiful birthday cake!!

Lauren and a bunch of her friends for her birthday!!


That about wraps up our month! I have great intentions of keeping this up every month.......sorry!!! I'm going to try to get caught up through June at least! :) Maybe one of these days I will get it together!!!

My latest project

This past week my mom took all of the kids and went to visit my sister and her family in Alabama. Talk about a drastic change at our house! I only ran the dishwasher one time while they were gone...it always goes at least one time a day and sometimes twice! The house was as quiet as a tomb.....way to quiet!! But I did use the quiet time and get caught up on some things I needed to do! I also spent some fun time sewing a few dresses for Andrea...they turned out so cute now I am really inspired!!

Well I am finally up to date on my blog!! I have such good intentions of posting every couple weeks....sigh!! I'm not making any crazy promises to do better because you just never know what is going to happen on any given day around here!!!