Welcome to the club!

"Welcome to the club!"

This was the message I got from my crossfit buddy after I posted this picture to facebook last night.

Yes, that's my giant hand IN YOUR FACE!

So last night at crossfit, after our regular workout, I decided to work on my pull-ups.  I finally got my kip down with the smallest band, and I was determined to ditch the band and get my pull-ups completely unassisted.

Which I did.  2 sets of 3 before my hand ripped.  Hurts like heck, but I'm super proud of myself!!

Weekend recap.

Well, I'm back from my stay-cation - actually I've been back for a while - so I think I need to catch up.

• We had a blast with my cousins and their kids last week.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was too busy floating in the lazy river, however, I did get some obligatory "s'mores" pics.

• Towards the end of our stay-cation, I came down with a summer cold that I was certain would be the death of me.  Finally, by Sunday I was feeling well enough to go to Crossfit.  Other than that, I pretty much slept for 4 days straight (while simultaneously complaining about said cold on Twitter).
• Late last week my parents left town to visit my family in Amarillo and they brought Ditto, my dog-brother, to stay with us.  He and Trigger got along nicely.  Hopefully Ditto taught Trigger how fun it is to be totally chill and lay around all day.

• Look!  I think it worked!!

• Somewhere along the way, my son decided the dog life might be for him.

• After seeing the above picture of Taylor's hair, we took him for a haircut immediately.  Then we had snocones.

• Later on that day, we had an unexpected visitor.  The kids had taken Trigger for a walk on Saturday and they were followed home by another dog, who proceeded to come into my house, into my bedroom!!

• This picture does not do the size of the dog justice.  He was huge!  He had to weigh at least 100 lbs.  He was also very sweet and well-trained, so we knew he must to belong to someone.  After some searching, we located the owner and he was reunited with his Clifford-sized dog on Sunday.
• Sunday afternoon was pretty low key.  I laid out for a bit then headed to crossfit.  I hadn't worked out in nearly a week, so I was anxious to get back.

Goodness, I'm tired after recapping that.  Thank heavens I have vacation coming up!  Woo hoo!!

If you need me...

My annual June stay-cation starts in T-minus 3 hours.  So if you need me, I'll be here:

Soaking up some sun and floating in this:

With these lovely girls:

And all of our kiddos:

And there will most definitely be some of this, too:

Father's Day 2011

For Father's Day this year, I cooked lunch at our house for Joey and the kids and his mom and grandparents joined us as well. This was perfect since Joey needed to sleep late anyway.

He came home early Sunday morning to one of his gifts - a buckwheat pillow. He is super hard on his pillows and basically demolishes them within a week, so he did his research and determined this was what he needed. What the research failed to tell him was that this pillow would be like sleeping on concrete.

The pillow will be going back.

(Joey with his baby girl.  She succumbed to the camera, but only for her daddy.)

The kids and I also got him something else that he has wanted for a while - a pen video camera. It's a pen, with a teeny tiny video camera in it for use at work.

(Pepaw and Taylor were making paper airplanes.  Doesn't Taylor look so grown up in the picture?)

After lunch, Joey and I gave the dog a bath then took a quick nap before he had to go to work.  When Joey left, the kids and I headed to my parents to hang with my dad.

(My brother, dad, and me.  In case you're wondering, that's my brother smiling, or so he says.)

My mom and I were making homemade pizza for dinner, so the boys decided to play some Jenga.

Uh oh!  Taylor knocked it down first!

But he got his game back pretty quickly.

Then Jason, who swore he would never knock it down, made a fatal error.

We had a great time hanging out and I hope my dad, Joey, and Jason had a great Father's Day.  They certainly deserve it!

Weekend recap.

This weekend was completely jam packed - non-stop!  It was lots of fun, but I'm already looking forward to next weekend so I can relax from last weekend.

Friday I had a much needed girls' night out to see Bridesmaids.

Everyone has been talking about this movie.  It is so flippin' hilarious!!  If you haven't seen it, you must!

After the movie we grabbed some dinner and margaritas (a GNO must, of course), then I headed home to make a cake.  I had promised a friend that I would bake a Dr. Pepper cake for him for his birthday and I had to take it to church on Saturday, so I stayed up until 1am baking.  (I also made one for my dad because I think he would have disowned me had I not.  And I love him.)

After church on Saturday, I headed home to get ready for a party at our neighbors house.  I know I've said it before, but I feel so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors!  We get along so well and always have a great time hanging out.

Sunday morning it was back to church for 3 services, then home for a little nap.  Trigger wanted to join me.

After our little nap, Joey's mom came over to meet her new grand-puppy and bring him a present - because that's what Mimi's do, right?  Trigger loves his new bone and hasn't let it out of his sight since.

Sunday night, we had another party at a different neighbors house.  Again, tons of fun hanging out with everyone and meeting new neighbors.

When Joey came home from work this morning (at 3:30) he was greeted with quite a surprise.  When he went to take Trigger outside to potty, he heard meowing, and what-do-you-know?  Our cat that has been missing for nearly 4 months was there on the back porch!  He could not believe it!  We thought for sure she had become dinner for a hungry owl, but she's a tough one, I guess.

Trigger was super excited to have a new friend to play with, but I think Leah was just happy to have some dinner.  She is skinny as ever!

Poor thing!  She still had her collar on and was very happy to see us.  I even woke Ashton up in the  middle of the night to show her that her cat had returned.  Leah LOVES Ashton and always slept with her, so Ashton was very happy to have her back.

Smarty pants.

Ashton and Taylor finished up the school year with outstanding grades.  They are both very smart and we could not be more proud of them.

Ashton aced all of her TAKS tests (state mandated tests) - math, science, reading - only missing 2 questions out of all 3 tests!  This is such an accomplishment!  She also finished up the year with an overall "A" average.  She has always been very smart and we're so proud of her for finishing up her elementary career strong.

Taylor doesn't take the TAKS test yet, but he also finished up the year with all "E's" (the equivalent of an A).  I'm also very proud of him for bringing up his citizenship grade.  The previous 9 weeks, he received his first "N" in citizenship.  He's not a touble maker, but he does like to talk.  And that got him several marks in his folder.  This last 9 weeks he tried very hard and I'm happy to say that he did not get one single mark in his folder!  I'm so very proud of the effort he made!

Because of their wonderful accomplishments, we wanted to celebrate by taking the kids to dinner at the restaurant of their choice.  This could have been budget-breaking, as my children are known to have quite expensive taste in restaurants, but it turned out not too bad.

They chose Red Lobster and we all had a great time!

Me and my beautiful girl.  I can't believe she will be in middle school!  I'm so stinkin' proud to be her momma!
 

My two favorite boys.  Love them both more than life.

Burpee for President!

For those of you who don't know, a burpee is a staple crossfit exercise.

There is nothing about them that is fun.  They suck.  (I can totally vouch for this since I had to do 50 last night at crossfit.)

So when my crossfit pal, Stacy, informed me that she was making her kids do burpees when they fought or were disrespectful, I knew I had to adopt this form of discipline.

They hate them.

In fact, Taylor told me last night that he was going to have a horrible summer because he would be doing burpees all the time.  Of course, that's when we had a heart-to-heart about how he wouldn't have to do any burpees ever again if he doesn't fight with his sister.

Taylor pretty much does the burpees without complaining, just to get them over with.  Ashton, on the other hand, does the burpees in full-on drama mode.  You know, pretending to pass out on the couch, huffing and puffing, and whining the whole time.

Here's hoping we have fewer and fewer burpees in our future.

Trigger happy.

Meet Trigger.

We rescued Trigger yesterday afternoon from a man who had rescued him from the side of the highway.  He was dirty, but so sweet!

We brought him home, gave him a good bath, and let him settle in to his new home.

I could be wrong, but I think he's settled in nicely.

I was a bit worried about the crate training, since I like my sleep (as does Joey) and wasn't looking forward to listening to him whimper all night.  My mom suggested that we get an analogue clock (or something that ticks) because she said they like the noise.  I went searching for such a thing, but all I could find was this:

Yes, my new puppy is now the proud owner of a teddy bear with the soothing sounds of the womb.  And he loves it! 

He was so great last night!  I put him in his crate around 9pm, turned on the bear (which is on top of the crate, BTW, not in it - I'm no dummy!), and went to bed.  He whined for about 2 minutes, then I never heard another peep out of him until Joey got home.

Joey took him out to potty, then back in his crate he went.  Again, he was so good!  Just a few little whimpers, then off to dreamland.

He's such a sweet dog and has been doing so well!  He loves chewing on his bone and really appreciated the nice, cozy bed that Joey got him.

I'm all ears for your puppy training tips!  Help a sista out!

Last day of school.

Today is the last day of school for the kids.  Not only the last day, but the last day of elementary school for Ashton.  I just can't believe it.

I left the house this morning and forgot to take a picture of the kids, so I made them pose for me in the parking lot at school.  Both of them were super excited about this. *sarcasm*

And just for reference, here they are on the first day of school in August 2010.

And here they are as they will forever remain in my mind.

*pause for giant tear fest*

This morning was Ashton's 5th grade graduation ceremony, so I gathered in the school cafeteria with all the other parents and their cameras.  I tried not to embarrass Ashton, but it's just so easy these days.

They all walked the stage and received their awards.  I'm so proud of my girl.  She made 100% on all of her TAKS tests, with the exception of Science, which she missed 2 out of 40.  She also made A honor roll and was in the Young Astronauts Club.

Ashton had a great teacher this year and made some really good friends.  She's very apprehensive about middle school since not only will it be middle school, but she'll be at a different middle school than all her friends.  In fact, she didn't even want the school year to end. Which, if you know anything about Ashton, that will tell you how apprehensive she is.

I'm encouraging her to keep in touch with her friends over the summer and talking to her often about middle school.  I hope I'm easing her fears, but I remember those days.  It's all so different and it can be very scary.

 

Here she is, my beautiful girl, moving on to 6th grade. And by the way, the tall one in the top row on the left, that's not her teacher.  That's a student.  And she is loved by everyone!  She's throwing an end-of-the-year bash tomorrow night and Ashton is super excited to be able to see her friends one last time.