Pointer Pride?

Well, the girls decided to take pictures in their pointer shirts, which is still hard for someone that is not a fan. However, I will say that this is a good place to raise a family and I have made many good friends here, and I will support the pointers b/c my babies go to school here, but I am still a rebel at heart. This photo was taken downtown and I had to ask the guy inside if I could take a picture of his door and dock. He was really nice and gave us a history lesson on the building also.

My facebook card

Also, here is one that I had posted on facebook. Still didn't get it sent, but I had fun making it.

Photo time

Did not get a Christmas card out AGAIN this year...in case many of you were wondering if you were off my friends list. Here is the one that I was going to have printed.... How can you have the card done, but never get it printed? Well, last year my aunt took the picture, had them printed, placed them in my hand and Jan's Mom made me cute labels and guess what???? Never sent them, but I found them in June! They were cute, I promise.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Favorite Christmas Photo (Todd in Santa suit with Tara's friends)

New Year's Resolutions

Because many of you have asked, emailed and called me to ask the question "Where have you been?", I thought it was high time to provide an answer. I have known for a while that my life had become complete chaos, but chose to muddle through it all and convince myself that I was doing the right thing. Until recently, I realized that I was not doing much of anything, except running in circles. Todd and I are both very laid back, unorganized, messy and fly-by-the-seat of your pants type people. While this may seem fun, it sure does make it hard to run a household and raise kids. Anyone that knows me can tell you that I really do try to keep it all together, but somehow I have over scheduled everyone and we get caught under a tornado of swirling debris. I listened when my pastor spoke on listing the 5 most important things in your life on one side of the paper and listing the 5 things that take your time on the left side... strangely enough these sides should match. Mine did not, nor do they now, but I am getting closer. Many times in the past 5 years, I am reminded of what is important in life. I know that there are no do-overs in this parenting journey, so I need to get it right this time.
So.... I quit! Yes, I quit everything that I did not HAVE to do. It was hard and I have had many comments from people, but I did it! The girls have begun to cut out things and we have re-arranged our schedules to work a little better. Life is more calm in the Young household. I am beginning to see what a gift my family is and realize that I need to take care of them FIRST and not way down the line. Life is precious and short and I know that I will never erase all regret, but I can do better.
Well, this happened 2 months ago and while life still gets crazy, I am a happier Mom and my family is in a good place. I am not trying to be rude if I do not answer calls or emails as quickly, but I am trying to devote my energy to Todd and the girls while they are here. There is seldom a time that a phone call could be more important than a shared memory between my kids. They grow up too quickly. Today is a gift and tomorrow is uncertain. Hopefully if I die tomorrow, I will be content knowing that I did the best that I could do.
My New Year's resolutions are to honor God, cherish my family and get organized (I know that most of you are dying laughing about now). Both Todd and I have missed our workouts for the past months, but it was one of the things that had to go for then. However, now is the time to get back in the gym...my last resolution. What are your resolutions?

Make a Smilebox slideshow

My Van is Tired

Well, my van is tired, because for the past 2 months, it has run up and down the road to every conceivable location for one girl or another. My girls are so over-scheduled right now that we are having to shuffle everything weekly just to get it all in. Hannah is doing quiz bowl, piano, band and choir. Kayla is in girl scouts, piano and gymnastics. Tara is doing gymnastics and dance. Can you see the problem here???? I have 3 girls with very different tastes and therefore, I run all over the place every day of the week to get it all in. Come to think of it, maybe I am the one that's tired!!

Fun Saturday

We had a busy weekend, as usual. The girls went with Nene and Ga to the falll festival at Neumier's and then we all went to Catfish Hole in Alma to celebrate Ga's bday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GA!!!! Then Kayla wanted to get her picture made on Uncle Rob's Harley. Pa and Re took the girls on Sunday afternoon to the fall festival in Van Buren and to get their Halloween costumes. This year we will have Sharpay, Wilma Flinstone and a Groovy rocker. Can you guess who is what?????

Girly Girls

Put me in the outdoors and I can hang with the best of them. If God had given me boys, I was also known as the queen of kickball, can throw a pretty good forward pass, love to fish (if Todd gets the fish off for me), can totally do the khaki/jeans as attire and generally am ok at most boy things. BUT>>>>>> God, in his great wisdom, decided to take a perfectly fine boy Mom (me) and the testosterone charged Dad (Todd) and place 3 little angels in their care. Believe me...I question this decision often. My girls are short-changed, to say the least, in getting me for their Mom and Todd does not have a girly bone in his body. So, I was Mom Extraordinairre last Friday when I did the "girl" thing as best that I could. We went to a make-up store (who knew they had one in Fort Smith), got Tara's ears pierced, and Nene took them to the nail salon to get their nails done. I bought everyone glitter make-up and tried to act like I knew what to do with it. Hannah said "What's up with you Mom?" several times. I fixed my hair and dressed up for the luncheon and wore heels without taking them off for the whole 3 hours! Man, being a girl is a lot of work!!!

Labor Day Fun

We had a great weekend at the lake house in Hot Springs with Papa, Re, Dan and Sara and Cortney got to come along too. The girls had so much fun swimming, paddle boating, tubing, going to eat pizza by boat on the lake and then there was the nightly poker games. They all decided to play and wore their sunglasses to make it look really professional. Of course Kayla beat them all, but Cortney had a good bluff on them many times.

Amazing Book

Big surprise, but today I am not blogging about my kiddos for a change. I just finished a book called The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I finished it over a week ago and I can not quit thinking about it. This book is the last lecture that a computer science professor gave to his class at Carnegie Mellon before he died. Because he died recently, I wanted to read the book. His lecture is on the net, but I would urge any of you to read this book...he had so many great things to say. One of my favorite is "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." I am reminded of what is important in my life and what can wait.

Cupcakes

So I make a cake every year for the first day of school. Decided that cupcakes would be easier this year, but it wasn't. I did all the prep work and made the icing and baked the cupcakes before Tara got out of preschool, so she could "help" me. The conversation went like this

Tara:"Mom, why is there a cookie on the cupcake?"

ME:"Tara, that is the chalkboard."

Her:"Ours is white at school"

Me:"Well, they used to be black in my day"

Tara:"What is that white thing?"

Me: "That is supposed to be chalk?"

Tara: "How will it show up on the white chalkboard?"

ME: "It won't"

Tara: I bet that teacher will be mad"

Tara:"Is is candy? Can I eat it?"

Me: "You can try it, but it is licorice and I do not know if you like it"

After a bite Tara says "That is gross"

So the conversation goes on and on and on like this until we are done many days/weeks later and we take them to her friends.

I told the girls that they may not like the licorice, but they should try it and all as we are delivering cupcakes. We get to Bekah's house and all 4 kids chow down on their cupcakes and not one child even asks what anything is on it!!! They all ate the licorice...no complaining while mine are dissecting the entire cupcake to see what each item is...even the writing on the "Chalkboard". Then we get home and my kids want a plain cupcake if it's ok. Do I have any? Of course. I knew, because I am their Mom. Next year it is plain cupcakes.

School Days

All the girls enjoyed their first day and when I asked them about their day, I actually got more than the standard "fine" answer. We got up on time, got to school on time, had fun and made it home safely and are ready to go again tomorrow....what more can a Mom ask for. I kept myself busy making dinner and cupcakes so that they would have a treat when they got home. I have always made some sort of cake for the first day of school since Hannah started. Well, since most of the easy ideas have been used here before, we moved on to cupcakes this year. They got to take some to all of their friends though, so that made it great! We got to hear about Jadee's first day and visit with the other kids too. Tara was a a little nervous, Kayla was going to miss her Mommy and Hannah could not get out of the car fast enough to get to her friends/locker...a normal day. It was quiet with out my precious babies.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Today is mine and Todd's 13th anniversary! Yahoo! With our families track records, I think neither of us thought that we would make it to here. It has been an adventurous 13 years to say the least. I am so thankful to be blessed with a great husband to complete our family.
Todd,
Thanks for the first 13 and for putting up with me and the girls. Our life is so much better with you in it. You are such a great man and I am so lucky that God chose you for me. I hope the next 13 are even better! I Love you!

Tara's Birthday

As many of you know, I finally have a princess in my house after 2 sisters that were not girly at all. Tara had a family bday back in July, but we got to celebrate with her friends yesterday at The Little Wedding Chapel. It was the perfect day for her and when I asked her what was her favorite part, she said "all of it, Mom." She had all of her buddies there....Rebecca, Makena, Lily, Savannah, Chloe, Caroline, Jadee, Kylie and cousin Reese.

Swim Season is Done!

After vacation, we came home to a swim meet in Alma. Stephanie N. and I were timers together and thank goodness we had 2 stop watches, because I kept forgetting to set mine (otherwise known as too busy talking.... hard to imagine, right?) Both girls did great, which was surprising after a week away and not enough sleep. Kayla swam her first IM which is 1 lap of each stroke and came in 3rd overall, so she was thrilled to get a medal. The first 3 swimmers overall get a medal and the next 3 get a ribbon. The number of swimmers can range from 6 to 40 or more. We swim with the Alma Gators and swim against Waldron, Russelleville, Clarksville, Paris, Ozark and Mena. This is a great program and I would recommend it to anyone wanting a low key swim team experience. The coaches and managers are great and the kids have a lot of fun. My girls love it and get up early 3 mornings a week in the summer just to practice. The following pic is of Kayla and Coach Matthew and Erin and then Hannah swimming freestyle in the top of the third picture. Kayla got first place overall in the backstroke in Clarksville this past weekend, which is something Hannah has never done, so she was extra proud. Hannah did get 2nd in Butterfly, so she was not far behind. Both girls have enjoyed this season alot!

"The Best Day Ever"

Hannah has always wanted to swim with dolphins. She finally got her wish. Her dream is to become a marine biologist and work with dolphins or orcas. We traveled to a water park called Xel-Ha about an hour away and swam with the dolphins right after we got there. Hannah, Kayla, Doug, Jill and I all swam with them. It was my first time also, so I really enjoyed these sweet animals. Todd and Randy took a ton of pics and video. At the end of the hour long session, the dolphins push you up on your feet out of the water. It was cool, but a strange feeling. Kayla had to work through some fear of the smaller fish swimming all around under us while the dolphins were near, but she did it and finished just like the rest of us. Hannah said at bedtime that night..."Mom, this was the best day ever." It was all worth it for that alone. We also snorkeled and rode tubes/swam down a lazy river. Tara held some big birds, but I have to scan that picture later.

Water, Water Everywhere

The rest of the crew went speed boat riding and 4 wheeling in the jungle, so we had most of the day to ourselves with Papa and Re. We swam and played on the beach the whole day. We had sand everywhere! It was a low key day and the girls enjoyed it a lot. That evening we took all of our pics and then went to dinner.

Day 3

Our Monday started out with disappointment. The girls were supposed to swim w/dolphins, but the Tropical storm/hurricane Dolly changed our plans and we moved it to Wed. However, I wanted to get the girls shopping done, so we headed out to 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen. This is about a 30 block area of shops with Mexican crafts and tourist type stuff. We took a taxi w/the family and did fine for a few hot hours until....the RAIN came. Man, did it rain. We tried to fight it, but gave up after an hour or so and got a taxi back to the hotel. Todd did not enjoy the day at all, but he was a trooper to put up with us. We were trying to get to Senor Frogs to meet up with the rest of the crew, but the rain was so intense that we just gave up and moved on. It finally let up later on and we took a few beach pics...the wind was still a mess to deal with.

Finally on the beach!

We got out on the beach on Sunday. It was a beautiful beach and the water was great. The girls had so much fun and we stayed out there until it began to rain in the afternoon. They had a bunch of hammocks set up in the shade whenever we got tired of the sun.

That night we went out to a "fancy" (Tara's word) dinner at a brazilian restaurant. It was really good. They brought all different kinds of meat cooked on these long skewers and cut them off right on your plate. Interesting presentation for the girls. Hannah's salad consisted of chips, pickles and pecans... her response to me was "I got something green." Kayla then responded "You mean pickles count, oh man...." Priceless. After dinner, we went out into the courtyard and they were playing music, so Doug, Jill and Randy danced with the girls for a while. Then we all crashed in our "fancy" room (Tara again).