New year, bring it on

Well, 2012 has arrived... it didn't come in with a bang or anything, it's just here.  It's been rather quiet around here lately, Cyrena just started Upward basketball last weekend, so that's going to give us a little something to do for the next few weeks.  I have to admit, we're all waiting for softball and baseball season to get started.  It's really our favorite (although I have to admit, I love football too, but baseball is always going to be #1 for me). 

Just found out today that Kaylee got a part in the upcoming musical, Hairspray, at her high school.  This is her 3rd year to be a part of the musical and I'm very excited that she got a part.  We've enjoyed the last 2, but she's only had small parts or dancing rolls before (although she made a darn good flying monkey last year in The Wiz).  So I'm really looking forward to the first weekend in April when they perform the musical.  Other than school and the musical, her job at the movie theater is keeping her hopping.  She loves it and we're enjoying the benefits of free movies.

Jake's getting ready for baseball season.  He decided not to play basketball this year, so we're going to spend this off-season preparing for this year's baseball season.  He's on a a "team" at school for something called Destination Imagination.  I'm not very good at describing exactly what it is, but it's sort of like "Odessy of the Mind" for those of you who remember what that is.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Cyrena is playing Upward this year, and I managed to talk her into doing basketball, not cheerleading this time.  Which I was quite happy about.  Cheer was too boring for me.  I just have to learn to not be so competitive.  This is a church league and it's supposed to be non-competitive, which isn't working out so well for me, being as super-over-competitive that I am.

Last, but certainly not least, Lily is growing up before our eyes.  She's becoming quite sassy and totally cracks us up with the stuff she comes up with.  As the old saying goes "out of the mouth of babes"... I'm pretty sure she's living up to that saying as much as possible.  We're thinking about letting her play t-ball this year.  She'll be 4 just in time to sign her up.  I think we're really going to have to give this some thought.  She doesn't do too well when things don't go her way.  I can only imagine what on earth she'd be like in the middle of a game.  You never know, she might surprise me.

Well, that's my once a year update, I said I'd TRY to do better, I made no promises, ha ha. 

some updated pictures

A friend of mine took some pics of the kids a few months ago, this was one of my favorites!
This was taken at Hedrix college in Conway.









Cyrena at the Daffodil Festival @ Wye Mountain

Riding the tube at Lake Norfork (Jake, Kaylee, Lily, Cyrena)

Kaylee - first day of school - Junior Year

Jake - first day of school - 5th grade

Jake, Lily & Cyrena - Daffodil Festival - Wye Mountain

Kaylee Prom - 2011

And 2 years later....

Well, last time I posted anything was in Aug. 09.  I guess we can blame Facebook for my lack of posting.  Once I started using Facebook, I pretty much forgot all about our family blog.  Well, as many of you know, lots of stuff has happened.  Kaylee is now a Junior in High School and driving (OH MY!!!)... Jake's a 5th grader now and has started Middle School... Cyrena is in her last year of elementary school (4th grade)... and then there's Lily, who is a wild & rambucious 3 1/2 year old who keep our life interesting to say the least!  We have so enjoyed our kids and their activities.  Kaylee's invovled in drama at school and has been in 2 different musicals, and is a part of "Off the Top" the improv group at our church.  She's a natural, and LOVES performaing.  Jake's still doing baseball in the spring, but has started his 2nd year of football and we are ready to get the games started!  Cyrena started playing softball in the spring and has found the sport that she likes, so we're just about to start the fall season.  Lily is at a new daycare, and is doing great there.  I went back to work full time in Feb. 2010.  I sure do miss staying home with her, but the checkbook said it was time to go back to work full time.  Jeff's still working in Little Rock, he figures he'll be there at least another 20 years until we get Lily out of college.  But the way time is flying by, those years will be gone before we know it.

I'll be really honest, this has been just a pretty tough year.  Losing Jeff's brother, Tom, and then my grandmother, Moneta, on the same day, then losing Jake and Keith just a few short days later, my family has learned a whole lot about what it means to really lean on Jesus and draw strength from Him when we just don't have the strength to carryon on our own.  We still think of all of them daily and miss them TERRIBLY, but we rejoice in knowing that someday we'll all meet up in Heaven and praise Jesus together for eternity.

I'm going to try and do better about posting in the future.  I know some of my family isn't on Facebook and may think we've just fallen off the face of the earth.  Well, we're still here, plugging through each day.

Been awhile!

Wow, I just realized that it's been nearly a year since I've posted anything to the blog. You can all blame Facebook for that. I got so used to using it, and most everyone is on there that wants to know about the kids, that I completely forgot about my blog. I will try and do better (TRY!! LOL).

Well, lots of stuff has been going on. Lily of course, turned 1. My baby is growing up so fast! She started walking (officially) right after her 1st b'day. And now she seems to just run everywhere - which will explain how she managed to knock out a tooth on June 8th! She was running and put her sippy cup in her mouth, just as I was saying "take that out of your mouth" she tripped and knocked out her tooth. It scared me to DEATH!!! She was bleeding like crazy and screaming (of course), and the tooth was still in her gums, just pushed forward. It was awful. And the stupid ER wouldn't put the tooth back in, they said it's a baby tooth, she'll get another one, so why bother! Well, duh, it's going to be 5 or 6 years before she gets the other one - that's why I think we should have bothered! Oh well, it just gives her precious smile a little personality all it's own.

Lucky me, beginning June 1st, I dropped to part time. I took Lily out of her daycare and she's been home with me this summer. She will start a mother's day out program that is located at the church directly across the street from my office, and will only go on Tuesday's and Thursday's. She's become quite Mommy clingy since being home with me more. So I think it's a good idea for her to go at least a couple days a week to play and interact with other kids. But I am LOVING being home more. And I am looking forward to having more time to get involved in the kids schools.

Kaylee starts High School this year - OH MY!! I am getting so old (LOL). It's so hard to believe that she'll be in 9th grade. She's pretty excited about it, and I know that she'll do great! And she's glad the school is closer than her Jr. High (it was all the way across town!). I'm sure she'll find plenty to keep her busy and get involved in. I'm just reeling from the thought that she'll be off to college in just 4 short years. Time moves too fast for me. At least being home more, I'll get to enjoy more time with her before she goes!

Jake is going into 3rd grade and just started playing flag football this week. He has to wait one more year before he can play tackle, and boy is he looking forward to it (I'm not sure how much I am though, ha ha). He'll start fall baseball in September, then we'll have a little break before Spring baseball starts up. During his "off" time, he's going to take a few pitching lessons and see how he does. He's pretty excited about all of it.

Cyrena has decided to give soccer a try. She's did Upwards cheer last year during basketball season, but we've really been trying to talk her into trying a sport. She'll start that pretty soon, and games will begin in September. She's starting 2nd grade this year.

Jeff and Kaylee went on a mission trip to Wichita, KS this summer (well, Kaylee actually went twice). They had a great time, and met some amazing kids, and really got to watch God work in their lives! They always seem to come home from these trips so blessed! We are still involved in the youth group at church (pray for us, LOL) and look forward to our new group of kids moving up to 7th grade this year!

Well, short updates on all of us, will post some updated pics soon - all 4 kids have changed so much since the last ones I posted!

Random pictures of everyone

Nothing new going on for us lately. Activities have settled down until after Christmas. Just thought I'd add a few recent pics that my Mom took of the kids when they were up here last.

Happy Halloween

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great Halloween. We were lucky enough that the rain went away pretty quickly and we were able to have trunk-or-treat afterall. Kids had a blast, and of course were as cute as could be. Kaylee and her friend decorated the car in a "Luau" theme (thanks in large part to my friend Kim's creativity). Here are a few pictures.

Here are the kids on our front porch sitting with the pumpkin Daddy helped them carve.

Here are Lily and Jake (he's a ninja) right before we left for trunk-or-treat. Her whiskers didn't last too long. Guess it felt funny for Mommy to be "drawing" on her face. I was lucky to get what few I got on her.

MEOW!!!!

Cyrena was a "bride". She

wasn't with us that night, but she did come by to see us for a few minutes.

Here is Jake with his best friend Malachi. It's so much more fun to go to things with a friend.

Busy Busy Busy!!

Well, not much longer till Halloween. We're still working on what everyone will be....so far the only person who has made a choice is Jake, he wants to be an Army guy, pretty easy costume, just my style. We're going to decorate my car for the "Trunk or Treat" that our church hosts every year. I think we've decided on a Veggie Tales theme, how easy that should be.

Here's my little Lily looking cute as can be in her Daddy's hat. She's growing up so fast, I blink and feel like I'm going to miss something.
And guess what "little girl" this is. My goodness, Kaylee is growing up to be such a beautiful girl, I can hardly believe she was once as little as Lily. I should be getting some volleyball pics soon, one of the Mom's took a bunch of pictures of the girls while they were playing and is planning on making a CD for each girl. I'm looking forward to getting that. She also took several pictures of Lily, since she went to every game that I was at. It's hard to resist taking a picture of a cute baby!

Look at this big girl sitting up all by herself. She's gotten so good at it, she rarely ever falls over now. And it's so easy to get a smile out of her. She sure keeps us laughing.

Jake's busy with baseball, Cyrena's still doing girl scouts, we pretty much just go go go.

Just another day!!

No new pics to post, right now. I'm sure Nana will bring us some new ones when she comes down next weekend. Jake's getting ready to kick off the fall baseball season this Saturday with 2 games. We'll have 2 games each Saturday throughout the month of October. It's a short season, but it gives us something to do in the fall. Kaylee's volleyball team is still playing, I think we've got about 2 - 3 weeks left. I am hoping she can stay in one piece for the rest of the season, it seems like something new is hurting all the time. I never realized how much diving you can do it volleyball, I'm sure it can take a toll on you. Girl Scouts started back up for Cyrena, I'm looking forward to cookie time. Hey everyone outside of the Central AR area, our cookies are cheaper than the NWA ones, so be sure to buy from us. And Lily is just growing up WAY too fast for Mommy's liking. She is now eating like crazy, she loves her cereal, and now that she's had fruit, she's not liking the green veggies too well. She's also sitting up pretty well by herself now. I still stay on the floor with her when she's down there, but I'm not holding her up. Pretty soon she'll be able to get herself into a sitting position from laying down. She is also rolling EVERYWHERE!!! I turned my back for just a second the other day, and when I turned back around she wasn't on her blanket anymore. Guess it's time to babyproof the house. She weighed 17 lbs. 10 oz, and was 26 1/2 inches long at her dr. appt on Monday. Wow my baby is getting so big. She's really starting to show her preferences for people and things now too. So if you want her to know you, you'd better be sure to come around often.

Big day!

Wow, we have been busy. Guess I lost track of time and it's be quite awhile since I posted anything. Kaylee's volleyball season has kept us running. Last weekend Nana & Papa came up to see her team play in a tourney in North Little Rock. They played very well, went undefeated in Pool play, but then we lost a VERY close match in the first round of the tourney. This weekend there was a 9th grade tournament here in Conway, and her 8th grade team played. Once again they played very well, especially since they were playing all 9th graders. We made it through pool play again, and once again dropped 2 exciting games in the first round of the tourney. I was really proud of how well her team played, they didn't give up, and made those 9th graders earn every point they scored.


Jake & Cyrena got to be in the Faulkner County fair parade last week. Each elementary school made floats and the kids got to ride on the floats. Their school had the cutest theme, I thought. It was a giant Wall-E (from the movie) with moving arms. They had a lot of fun. Cyrena is about to get girl scouts going again, and Jake just started Cub Scouts again. Also, Jake starts fall baseball practices this week. We're really looking forward to getting the baseball season going. It's a short one in the fall, they only play 2 games each Saturday in the month of October, but we have a lot of fun.



Lily has grown up so much in the past month. She has started eating solid foods, and just today, she got to try honeydew melon. At the volleyball tournament, we were taking care of the hospitality room, and we had a fruit basket. Towards the end of the day, Lily was getting a little fussy. She had been so sweet all day long, and so good, but everyone has their liimit, and apparently she had reached her. I was eating a piece of honeydew, and she somehow managed to drag it into her mouth and started sucking on it. SHE LOVED IT, and threw a BIG fit when I tried to take it away. Jeff and I were very careful to be sure she didn't somehow chomp off a piece of it. And then another big discovery late this evening, her very first baby tooth is just coming through. She was gnawing on my finger (she does this quite often) and I could feel the tip of a little tooth just starting to poke through. My littlest baby is growing up. She's also starting to sit up a little on her own. Not for long, but it's the beginning. And she has finally discovered how to roll herself to where ever she wants to get. Tonight was the first time I really saw her doing this. She was laying on the floor a little ways away from me, and apparently wanted to be closer, so she rolled on over towards me.

Whew, lots going on. I'm hoping to get some good volleyball pics from another one of the Mom's on her team, and when I do, I'll be sure to get them posted.

YAY!!! School is back in!!!

Tomorrow is the first day of school. As my kids get older, I realize now why parents SO look forward to this day. It's going to be much easier getting the munchkins out the door and on their way this year, now that we live practically in the backyard of the school. The kids have been enjoying going over to the playground and playing. It's nice, we don't have to spend the money on a swingset now. I'll try to remember to get a picture of the 3 older ones and post it. Of course, in order to post it, I've got to find the cord for the camera. Still looking for a few things in boxes from our move. Here's a picture of all of us that Mom took a couple of weeks ago.


Check out our "cool girl". I saw these sunglasses and just couldn't resist. And the funniest part is, she wears them without fussing about it. Who would've thought??? She fusses over shoes, but the sunglasses are no problem. Today she was ever "peering" at Kaylee over the top of them, it had Kaylee cracking up in the car.

Well, I know, very few people can actually get me to let them take a picture, but here's one that I really liked of Lily and me. Lily, as always is precious as can be. I guess I'd better allow a few pictures to be taken, or else the kids will never remember what I looked like :) - I don't want them to think I always looked old.

Now here's proof that even angels have horns sometimes. This picture is just to let you all know that Lily has an ornery streak. She LOVES to "play" with hair (I use the word play very loosely, so far all she does is pull, and pull hard). She really loves her big sister, Kaylee's, pretty long hair, it's lots of fun to pull.


We so enjoy Nana and Papa's visits. They always seem to be over too quickly though. Lily smiles the biggest smiles for them, she already knows that they're special people, and she sure knows how to melt their hearts.








Look at how big my little angel is getting!!! She's wearing shoes no less (OK, it was a battle to get them on her, and it's a battle to keep them on). I just can't get over how quickly she changes. She's reaching for things, and grabbing anything and everything she can get her fluffy little hands on. She's not quite reaching out for me yet, but she's on the verge. Of course, everything goes in the mouth once she gets it in her hands. She now weighs 15 pounds and is just a little over 2 feet tall. We were at a b'day party for a friend of ours last weekend, and another couple was there with their 7 week old baby, and I thought Lily seemed so much older than him. It's amazing how much difference 2 months make at this age. Lily is also rolling from her back to her tummy whenever she wants to now. In the beginning, it was purely accidental when she'd roll over, but now, if a toy she wants is just out of her reach, she'll flip over to get closer to it. Of course, once she's on her tummy, with her arm stuck under her, she gets mad, but maybe that will just encourage her to learn to roll back over.

We hope everyone is doing great, and enjoying the last little bit of the summer. We miss you all, and can't wait to see everyone.

We've moved!!

Well, we're "officially" in our new house. We are living out of boxes and various types of bags, but we spent our first night there last night. We never could've done it without the help of my parents, my brother Scott and Steve, Michael & Morgan Shiew from church. I'll post some pictures of our new, roomier house soon (once I can find the digital camera).

Jeff and Kaylee got home from the Mission Trip around 10:00 pm Saturday night. Needless to say they were tired, but we stayed up until almost 1 am talking about the many things that went on during the week. I'll have them post an update about the trip once we get the internet up and going at home.

Hope everyone is well.

It's too quiet!!!

Hello everyone! It's been awhile since I've posted anything, and there's been quite a bit going on. Since the 4th of July, it's pretty much just been Jeff, Lily and I. Kaylee and Jake have been gone to Bentonville and Cyrena has been staying at her Mom's. Luckily while Kaylee and Jake have been up there, our old church, First Baptist, had their VBS, and Jake got to go, and Kaylee got to help out. They apparently had a great time. Everyone was home this past weekend, and Nana and Papa also came to visit. Our house has gotten pretty crowded, so we've been watching for a bigger house and Jeff just happened to come across an ad in the paper for one. When he and I went to look at it, we knew immediately it was the perfect one for us. It's literally right behind Jake's school. In fact, it's so close, he could walk out the door and be in class in less than 5 minutes. And it's over 2000 sq. ft. (we've only got close to 1400 here). We're planning on moving in this weekend, thanks to the help of Nana and Papa, who are going to be making another trip down here to help us move.

Jeff and Kaylee are gone this week on their Mission Trip to Cincinnati. I've talked to them several times, and it sounds like it's already starting out to be a great week. I'm so glad that he was able to go with her. I will have them post pictures and some updates when they get home. In the meantime, if you want to see what they're up to, there's a link on our churches website with daily photos and updates. Just go to http://www.sbcconway.org/ and look for the link.

My job is still going great, and I still LOVE being in Conway. Lily is doing great at her daycare, the teachers just love her to death, and it sure makes me feel better as a Mommy to know that she's being loved on when I'm not there.

Speaking of little Miss Lily, she's is growing like a weed. She has really found her "voice" and loves to see how many different sounds she can make. She's got squealing down to an art form, she gets herself all worked up trying to talk to me. I just melt when she gets going and smiles her big toothless grin. I don't think it will be toothless for too much longer though, she's drooling like crazy and chewing on everything she can get her "fluffy" little hands on (Kaylee says she's fluffy, not chubby). That's another thing she's doing now too, reaching out and grabbing ahold of anything that gets close to her. I just can't believe how much she has changed so quickly. It seems like it was just yesterday she was a tiny little newborn, and now she's doing so many new things. Like rolling over - it's offical, she can roll over now. She still gets her arm a little stuck, but she can get from her back to her tummy with enough determination. And she even did it at her daycare today. Oh boy, we're really going to have to watch her, soon she'll figure out how to get from her tummy to her back and then she'll be rolling around everywhere!!! One of the first things I'm going to do in our new house is baby proof as much as possible. That is one of the nice things about moving now, I can baby proof AS we're moving in, rather than trying to baby proof after everything is already in place.

Kaylee will be getting started with Volleyball the first week of August. I'm really looking foward to getting something going, it feels like we've had too much down time. A little is fine, but I start to get antsy for some activity. I still can't believe that she's in her last year of Junior High (they call it middle school here, but that still sounds weird to me). She'll be in HIGH SCHOOL in just one more year, UGH, can I really be that OLD?????? She's very excited about being the top dog at school this year. She's also been spending some time this summer working with Grandma Crass on sewing. It's something they can really have a good time doing together, goodness knows she can't learn anything about it from me, I can barely sew on a button. I'm glad that Grandma knows so much and enjoys teaching her.

Cyrena got her ears pierced, YAY!!! We've been trying to get her to, she loves jewelry and I kept trying to bribe her into doing it by offering to buy her new earrings. Now she's ready to go shopping!!! We're looking forward to her going to school with Jake this school year, since we're going to be living so close we've decided to transfer her. Now, she'll be at our house every morning and afternoon. Girl scouts will be starting up again soon, get ready to buy some cookies!!!

Baseball will start up again this fall, and Jake is really looking forward to it. He sure can throw hard now, it burns my hand to play catch with him. He really wants to give pitching a try, but he's still got another year playing with the pitching machine. Jeff wants to start working with him next year to see how he does. That way he'll maybe be ahead of the game. I'm so glad that he loves to play, because we all LOVE baseball, it's one of our favorite sports. Jake is really looking forward to 4th grade, because that will mean that he can play football (something Mom isn't too anxious to get started on). He's already one of the biggest kids in his school, so I'm sure he's got the size for it.

We hope that all of our friends and family that read our blog are doing great and we look forward to seeing everyone soon!!! Have a GREAT summer, try to stay cool.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th Everyone!!! We had a great 3-day weekend up in Bentonville visiting friends and family. The original plan was to go to a Naturals game and then watch the fireworks, but we decided to just stay at Nana & Papa's and shoot off our own fireworks. Lily spent her very first 4th of July asleep in my arms. But Uncle Scott, Jeff and Kaylee gave us a short but pretty show of fireworks.

Our house is like a ghost town now with all of the older kids gone. Kaylee and Jake are at their Dad's and Cyrena has gone back to her Mother's house. We'll still have her on Tuesday's and Thursday's and every other weekend, but I won't get my kiddo's back until the weekends. It sure is quiet. This morning when I left for work, I started to go wake up Kaylee to let her know I was leaving, then I remembered she wasn't there. So now it's just Mommy, Daddy and Lily holding down the fort.

Here's just one picture of Lily that Grandma Crass took. Grandma bought this little Cabbage Patch doll for her, and they sort of looked alike, so she took this picture. She's growing up way too quickly!!! I'll post more pictures of everyone soon.

The end of baseball season & Lily makes a new friend

Well, sadly enough baseball is over. We had a much better season this spring. And Jake really improved at both fielding and batting. He has really taken off in this sport, and is already talking about fall ball. Jeff helped coach again, and even though it's so time consuming, he's enjoying it. I'm not really sure what we're going to do with ourselves in the evening now, but I'm sure the kids will think of something to keep us busy.

Above, Jake's ready to field the ball, and to the left, he has connected with another base hit. He just keeps improving! And he's almost as competitive as his Mom (uh-oh, that may not be a good thing).

On the "Lily front", she and Tiger are becoming good friends. He has got to be the MOST patient cat I've ever seen. She can kick and swing her arms around, and he just sits next to her and never even flinches. I guess all the "love" he's gotten from the other kids has made him immune to her swats and kicks. He seems to really like snuggling up to her.

On another note, we're still sleeping through the night (I'm probably jinxing myself by mentioning this though). She has even been sleeping as late at 6 am. It is just so amazing to me, especially since it seemed like it took months and months for my other 2 to sleep through the nigh. Although, according to Jeff, Cyrena slept through the night when she was little, then all of a sudden started waking up again. We're going to hope that Lily doesn't follow this pattern. So far, we've been so blessed by how sweet and happy-go-lucky she is. Even the ladies at her daycare tell us that it's so easy to get smiles out of her.

BIG MILESTONE!!!

I know I just posted something last night, but this was big enough (well at least to me, ha ha) to mention today. Lily fell asleep around 10:00 pm last night and she didn't wake up until 5:00 am this morning!!! But of course, Mommy woke up twice to check on her little sleeping angel. To me, 7 straight hours is sleeping through the night. We'll see if this trend continues, or if last night was just a fluke. Just another sign that our baby is growing up!

Rub a dub dub

Today I thought I'd write about Lily, since she is the newest member of the family (and we currently have the most pictures of her). She LOVES bath time. I've had to start laying towels all around her because of all the fun splashing!!!

This picture (to the right) was taken probably about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and the one below was taken maybe a week ago. Look at the difference in her, she just keeps growing and growing!!! I keep telling her to stop, but like all my kids, she's not listening!!!

She never wants to get out of the tub either, if she's fussy, we know what to do with her! Throw her in the tub and prepare to get wet along with her!

Nana and Papa were here with us this past weekend, and we got to show them just how much fun a bath can be. There's nothing cuter than a baby in the tub!!!! I'll post more pictures from their visit later (when I manage to find my camera and download them).

Another new favorite is the outdoors!!! She loves to be outside. Last weekend we took all of the kids to Beaver Fork. Lily didn't seem too jazzed about the water, but loved sitting on the shore with me. She even crashed out and took a nap.

These pictures are of her adorable swimming "attire". I'm looking forward to her reaction to the 4th of July, I hope she likes the fireworks!

I guess there's no other big news in Lily's life!! But that can change daily. So I'll end this post with this picture, which is Lily at her absolute sweetest!! I told Jeff tonight, while I was holding her as she slept, that there's nothing more precious than snuggling with my sweet sleeping princess!!