Montgomery Zoo & the Civil Rights Museum

Last weekend we went over to Montgomery to check out the zoo. It was cloudy and humid, but at least it didn't rain on us. In fact, it started raining a few minutes after we left - what a blessing! We also went down to see the Civil Right Museum after the zoo because it was within 5 minutes of the zoo. It was a really fun and enlightening excursion with the kids and I'm glad that we got to go.

Our kids were fascinated by the turtles - especially Dayne.

This was inside the bird sanctuary. Unfortunately I had a hard
time getting the birds in the picture.

We took the kids on the train that went around the zoo. Fortunately we took the train after we had walked around the whole zoo and seen everything. You really couldn't see the animals from the train. However, the kids didn't care - they just wanted to ride the train!

After the zoo we went to downtown Montgomery and went through the Civil Rights Museum. This monument was designed by the same woman who designed the Vietnam Memorial. I wish we would have had more time because there are a lot of Civil Rights Historical sites in downtown Montgomery. If you get a chance to visit us make sure that we take you there.

The Best Mother's Day

This last Mother's Day was by far my favorite. Ben really went all out and I really appreciated it. He had just finished his last assignment for the semester (from hell) the Thursday before so it was a wonderful Mother's Day simply because he was home.

On the night before we went out on a date. Ben had to go somewhere right before we were going to go out so he had me drop the kids off at our friend's house. When I got back, he was home and there was a huge bouquet of my favorite lilies on the dining room table - they were so beautiful! We decided to go out to eat, but we forgot that it was graduation so everything was a really long wait. We ended up going to Outback because it was the only place without an hour or more wait (it was away from the busy part of town, so not as many people there).

That night as we were going home Ben said, "Oh, by the way, you don't have to worry about dinner tomorrow night. We're eating with the Hirts (friends of ours) and Sam (Hirt) and I have it all worked out." Can I just tell you that those words are some of the most beautiful words a husband can say to his wife?


So on Mother's Day at about 3 o'clock, Ben took the kids over to the Hirts and Kim (Hirt) came over to hang out with me at our house. At 5 o'clock the guys called us to tell us to come over because dinner was ready. When we showed up the kids were already in the process of eating and almost done. The guys had set the table really nice and had made us Parmesan chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, croissants and punch. The punch was pretty ingenious - it was cranberry juice with 7up and they had raspberries and blueberries in it. It was really good! Anyway, the kids played while we ate so we didn't even have to get up and get the kids food or entertain them - we just got to eat (what a concept!). Oh ya, and the guys had the kids draw pictures to "decorate" the walls around the table. Our husbands thought of everything. It was a Mother's Day to remember. The only problem that I have now is - what am I going to do for Father's Day? I don't know how I'll come close to that!

Our awesome husbands!!!!

The older kids eating when we walked in.

Lexi got her ears pierced!

Lexi got her ears pierced last Tuesday. She's been going back and forth on the ear piercing thing for the last year. She's really wanted to have it done, but she was afraid it would hurt too much. Anyway, last Tuesday she came home from school and said that she wanted to get her ears pierced - so after dinner we went to the mall. When we got there we found out that they only had 1 piercing gun so they had to do each ear one at a time (instead of the easier way of piercing the 2 ears at once). She was sitting in my lap as they were piercing her ears and after the first ear was pierced Lexi put her head into my shoulder and said, "I'm brave enough. I'm brave enough. I'm brave enough." It was so cute. She let them do the 2nd ear with no problem. She has been so excited to have pierced ears and she can't wait until June 16th because that's when she can put in another set of earrings!

Ward Campout

This last weekend we went on our first family campout. We've been meaning to go camping for a while (like 7 or 8 years), but we never seemed to make it when we were in Oregon. Our church congregation was having a campout so we decided to make our family camping debut. It was so much fun - and so easy! We showed up about 5pm, set up our tent (took longer than we thought it would), and went and had dinner that was provided. Later that night we endured a fun (and cheesy) variety show then had s'mores which was the highlight to the kids. The next morning we got up earlier than I thought possible and hung out until the breakfast was ready. This is definitely the way to camp. We only had to bring our bedding, pajamas, and tent. We didn't have to bring any food (except for snack food) and the campground was only 3.5 miles from our house. It was the best!!!

Ben being confounded by the set of instructions that came with the tent.
Seriously, it was like reading Latin. Thankfully we were finally able to
put up the tent (after enduring much ridicule from our fellow campers!).

Well, here's a picture of my belly. It doesn't look so bad - until you
realize that I'm only 3 months along (barely 3 months).

Here we were enjoying the free dinner. It was so awesome! We were eating something called "Hirt Dogs." A family in our church congregation has a secret sauce for these and they taste so good. One day they are going to be famous. Remember you heard about it here first!

Lexi and her friends hanging out inside our HUGE tent.

Sam patiently waiting for the s'mores - his favorite part!

This was so weird. Normally Dayne is up at the crack of dawn. Apparently camping takes it out of him because he slept in about an hour longer than the rest of us - and it was really bright in the morning.

This video is so awesome. Lexi and her friends were practicing for the variety show. They are singing "Old MacDonald" and the girl that is pretending to play the Ukulele does an awesome job - she even is pretending to change keys.

Rocket Run

Lexi's school had a fundraiser recently. They had to get pledges from people for how many laps they ran around the basketball court. The classes have been practicing for weeks in P.E.. The minimum laps to run were 20 laps - Lexi ran 38. She was on a roll. She ran all of the laps which goes to show you she's her father's daughter (I do not like running).


Lexi running her laps.

Sam and Dayne on the sidelines (wondering when it was time to go home).

Lexi's class after the run.

Sam's Pictures

I'm sensing a theme for Sam and getting his picture taken. The first picture is his school pictures that he just got back and the 2nd picture is one I've posted before. It cracks me up that he looks so proper. I'm raising an English dandy in Alabama! =)

Ben's post-bacc review

Ben is winding down his last semester of the post-baccalauraete program (2nd bachelors) and he's been accepted into the Graduate program in Industrial Design. To say that he's been busy would be a serious understatement. Two weeks ago he pulled 5 all nighters (only 1 or 2 hours of sleep a night and 1 or 2 hours in the day) . . . in a row. Last week he pulled a few as well and I'm sure that he'll have a few more this week. The good news is that after this week he's done for the semester! Yay! I get my husband back! Here are a few of the projects that he's been working on over the past few months.

This was the culprit for most of those all nighters. He had to design a wet/dry vac and make a full scale model of his design. He probably could have done it in less time, but he's a perfectionist so he took a lot of time with the details. I think it looks awesome!!

This was a small project for one of his other classes. He had to make a cool floss container.

These are some of the projects that he's done over the past year that he
was putting together for his post-bacc review last week.

Container Gardening

Ever since we moved here I've wanted to have a garden. Goodness knows I've got enough room in our backyard, but I've been hesitant. Part of the reason was I didn't want to get docked on our deposit if I tore up the yard and the other reason was that we have clay soil and I would have to get the soil tested and amended before I could start the garden in the first place. I finally came up with a solution - Container Gardening. I took a class through the local extension office and they suggested using 5 gallon buckets. The great thing about it is that I got most of the buckets for free. I had to call up a bunch of restaurants, but it was worth it. I only was able to plant 6 buckets because I can't pick up the other buckets until tomorrow - and I ran out of soil. The kids helped me to clean out the buckets and Ben mixed my potting soil for me (40lb bag of potting soil, 40 lb bag of cow manure and a bag of compost - just in case you wanted to know). It was a great Saturday project - glad we got that taken care of!

Lexi and Sam decided that the buckets needed worms, so they dug them up and put
them in the containers (I didn't even have to ask them - they're naturals!)

Here we are filling up the buckets with soil. The bottom third of the buckets
have packing peanuts - so I could conserve soil and so the buckets
wouldn't get so heavy. The kids were such good helpers!

Our finished product. Looks like I've got a "Christmas" container garden.
In this picture I've got 2 Roma tomato plants, a Poblano pepper plant
(really excited about that one) and a few bell peppers in various colors.

Just when I thought things were getting easy. . .

It looks like in the beginning of November we will be welcoming another Puffer into the family. I'm only about 11 weeks, but I totally look like I'm 4 or 5 months. Some things in life are just not fair. Oh well!

I've been way more nauseous this time around. Actually it's really weird because I'm either sick to my stomach or starving to death. Being so hungry is the strangest part because I am actually starving in the process of eating! Is that normal? Also, I've been totally having cravings which is something I've never had before. It would be okay if it were something that I knew my body needed, but I doubt that it needs Chinese food. For real, I've been craving that so bad - so far I've been able to resist. I really have empathy for those of you who have specific cravings during pregnancy. I used to think it was a pregnant womans' excuse to eat whatever they wanted and a way to enslave their husbands into going out and getting food when they didn't feel like it. Now I know I'm wrong! Anyway, I've been feeling better lately and we're pretty excited. The kids are super excited and can't wait to find out if it 's a boy or a girl.

Free Lunch

My friend from church, Jana, won a lunch from a local radio station. They asked people to send in an email with a reason why they deserved a free lunch. Jana wrote in that she was a stay at home Mom and all of her friends were too - she needed a break away from the kids. Lucky for her (and her friends), they chose her so she got to invite 5 of her friends to go with her. She said she thought that they chose her because the DJ had been talking on the radio the day before about how he had recently babysat and he had been exhausted by the end of the day. Also, my awesome friend Kim, came over and watched my kids (and some of the other Moms kids) so that I could go to the lunch. It was a much needed break. It really made my week!!!

Gluten-Free

Sam seems to have a sensitivity to gluten so we are going to try and take him off of it for a while. As a result, our family has been attempting to go gluten-free. I say attempting because we live in the South and it's really hard to find some of the ingredients that I need. Plus, it takes more time so I haven't exactly jumped in with both feet. I've been trying to gradually add more and more gluten free recipes to my recipe collection and it's finally starting to add up and not be so intimidating. This week I made a few different things that turned out to be easy enough and really good. I will say that my favorite was the chocolate cake. It was amazing!!

This was my first try at making gluten free bread. I found out that baking it in a crockpot helped it to rise because of the steam. I worked out great and Sam liked the bread. Actually, all of the kids liked the bread!

These rolls were awesome and what was so great about them was that they only took about 20-30 minutes to make. That's like miracle food when it comes to gluten free. Oh, and Ben ate, like, 3 or 4 of them (another miracle)! They were really good with Strawberry jam on them.

And for the grand finale . . . Chocolate Cake!! This was so good and super rich so you could only eat one piece. That was helpful because I might have tried to eat the whole thing!

Cool Picture

This post is for my Mom. I can't get it to send in an email. I've been messing around with Photoshop and trying to figure it out. This is one of the only things I know how to do and it makes me feel like a genius. Just imagine if I could actually figure out the program. Maybe I could get Lexi to show me how to use it . . . =)

Auburn vs Tulsa Game

Tonight we decided to treat the kids to a basketball game. Luckily when you live in a college town you have access to cheap sports entertainment. We wanted to make sure that the kids got to have the experience of watching a game in the old coliseum. It's the same building that Charles Barkley played in during college - that should tell you how old it is. Actually it's way older than that and they are going to tear it down this year (as soon as they finish building the new one). At first the kids weren't all that excited to go, but as soon as they got there they had a lot of fun. They want to go to Tuesday's game now. We'll see.

Here are the kids enjoying the game. You can see we're in the nosebleeds.

The kids were excited to get their picture taken with Aubie. Dayne kept pointing

out Aubie all during the game, but when it came time to take a picture he wasn't
so happy to see him. Ben came to the rescue and we got the picture.

SPRING BREAK!!!

We just got back from our Spring Break vacation in Alligator Point, Florida. We rented a beach house with our friends, the Hirts. It was so great to have weather in the 70's and 80's and to be able to hang out on the beach. The kids especially had fun - Alexis said she never wanted to leave. It was hard to come back home after such a fun vacation!

Getting ready to take off!

Kids hangin' out on the deck.

Monstrous jellyfish

Lexi had tons of fun collecting sea shells.

Dayne playing in the sand.

Sam didn't want to leave my side. He was not impressed with the ocean.

The 2nd day we went to the beach he decided that the sand wasn't so bad.

Dayne, Ben and Lexi had lots of fun wading in the ocean.

When they weren't at the beach they enjoyed playing in the pool.

Alexis' 20 questions

I got this idea from my cousin (thanks Cissy). I think these questions are a crack up and I had fun asking my kids (and finding out what they thought of me).



1. What is something mom always says to you? How was your day at school?

2. What makes mom happy? When I clean my room without her asking me

3. What makes mom sad? When we don't listen

4. How does your mom make you laugh? When she drops a pancake on the floor

5. What was your mom like as a child? She liked to play with her brothers and sisters

6. How old is your mom? 30

7. How tall is your mom? 5' 4"

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Discover plants

9. What does you mom do when you're not around? Take care of kids

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Being a planter

11. What is your mom really good at? Telling which plant is which

12. What is your mom not very good at? Making a tree house

13. What does you mom do for her job? Babysits kids

14. What is your mom's favorite food? Yogurt

15. What makes you proud of your mom? She knows how to grow stuff

16. If your mom were a movie character, who would she be? A Ladybug

17. What do you and your mom do together? Read books

18. How are you and your mom the same? We both have brown hair

19. How are you and your mom different? We don't have the same color eyes

20. How do you know your mom loves you? She helps me

Sam's 20 questions

1. What is something mom always says to you? Will you go do your chores?

2. What makes mom happy? When I clean up

3. What makes mom sad? When I don't clean up

4. How does your mom make you laugh? She tells me a funny joke

5. What was your mom like as a child? She was cute

6. How old is your mom? 102

7. How tall is your mom? Taller than a city

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Play with me

9. What does you mom do when you're not around? She plays with Dayne

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? For dressing up

11. What is your mom really good at? Running to the car

12. What is your mom not very good at? Playing the piano

13. What does you mom do for her job? Vacuum

14. What is your mom's favorite food? Chicken

15. What makes you proud of your mom? When she smiles

16. If your mom were a movie character, who would she be? Percy from Thomas the Train

17. What do you and your mom do together? Whatever God wants us to do and He wants us to be wise

18. How are you and your mom the same? We match

19. How are you and your mom different? Mommy doesn't make stories like I do

20. How do you know your mom loves you? She's nice to me

Here's a video that I got off of my cousin's blog. It was a religious forum that they had at Harvard. In this video they are asking a 20-year old girl, who is a Latter-day Saint, about her faith. I was so impressed with this girl and how well she answered these questions. They asked her a lot of tough questions which I believe she answered very well.



Day of Faith: Personal Quests for a Purpose - 3. Rachel Esplin from Harvard Hillel on Vimeo.

7 years of ALEXIS !!!!!

Lexi just turned 7 on the 7th (it was her golden birthday)! To commemorate 7 years of craziness here are a few pictures of Lexi and some of her favorite things:

Color: Purple
Food: Apples
Day: Friday and Monday
Thing to Do: She likes to do art stuff on the computer (I'm thinking of turning her loose on Photoshop so she can teach me!)
Game: Candyland
Place: Froglegs (it has a bunch of inflatable play areas)
Toy: My Little Pony Set & Tinker Bell Hopscotch
Song: ABC Rock
Movie: Veggietales - Esther
Book: If Wishes Were Horses
Activity at School: Rotations

5 years of SAM!!!!

Sam turned 5 on the 2nd of March. He is getting so big I can hardly believe it. Here are some pictures and a few of his favorites:

Color: Green
Food: Everything (that's what he said and it's totally true - he's a bottomless pit)
Day: He said Thursday because it's his best day.
Things to Do: He likes to make pictures for his friends and his Mom
Game: Mickey Mouse puzzles
Place: Being in the woods
Toy: A Truck
Song: ABC Rock
Movie: Veggietales - Little Joe
Book: "My Day"
Activity at School: Going on hikes