Landon's 7th Birthday...Superbowl

A little late on this but I usually am :-).

It's still hard for me to believe that Landon is seven years old. I still think of him as a baby and I guess since he IS the baby in our family I always will see him that way. As usual, we had his birthday party on Superbowl Sunday. His real birthday was the day before so we had a little party that night too. Jose' had to work all night unloading a barge but my sister, Sherri, and her three kids were here to help make it fun. I made spaghetti, garlic bread and a chocolate cake. I saved his big gift for the real party but got him a couple of small things just to have something to open...a John Cena wrestling man and a Ben 10 figure. He loved them both :-).

Superbowl Sunday I had my whole family here except two BIL's and a niece and nephew in law. We had more food than we could ever eat...everyone brought something. Jose' cooked on the grill even though we really had enough food without it...he wouldn't be happy if he weren't cooking LOL. He also made his yummy shrimp dip and stuffed jalepeno peppers.

My SIL, Ashley, brought a Mexican dip and my stepmother brought a brisket and rolls to make sandwiches. My sister, Lori, and her best friend had a good time cooking :-). They made a cheese ball, dessert ball, potato logs, meat roll and rice crispy treats.

Of course there was birthday cake too. Kinley and Kaylyn made his cake...a Ben 10 cake. I think they did a good job on it :-).

We did cake and gifts before the football game started.

He was so excited about his Mario game for the Wii he didn't even want to open the rest of his gifts...I guess we did good :-).
Kinley and Madison, my niece

My sister, Lori, Jose' and Teresa

It was a very good day! We had family, friends, GOOD food, Landon's birthday and a victory for our Saints :-).

Ornaments

I'm sitting here looking at my Christmas tree and all the ornaments on it. There are so many and they are all special to me. I can tell you where every one came from or who made it. I have some as old as when I was a kid and some I got this year. Last year when I was taking down my tree I decided to get pictures of some of the most special ones.

These are ornaments we've made either here or at school. The tree and snowmen aren't an ornament but I threw it in there because I'm proud of it :-)...I painted that about six years ago.

These are ornaments I've received from online friends. We do a gift exchange every year and I usually get an ornament. We didn't do that this year and I really missed it. Some people think that online friendships aren't real friendships but I'll argue that one with them. I am very close to some of my online friends who I've never met and probably never will.

The next ones are very special to me. On December 27th, 1989 I had a doctor's appointment. I was 9 months and three days pregnant with Stephen. I just knew he was going to keep me that day but once again he sent me home and I cried most of the way home. We stopped at Walmart that day and bought these ornaments on clearance. Stephen was born the next day.

I use to order from ABC Distributing a lot...did a LOT of Christmas shopping there. Every year I would order some of their ornaments. I stopped when our tree started getting so full there was nowhere to hang new ones.
My sister, Lori, has given me and the kids a lot of ornaments over the years. She made some of them and bought some.
This one deserves a closer look LOL. She gave me and Sherri (my twin) these last year. I love how Sherri and I look alike. It's the perfect ornament for us!!

Here are the ornaments made by the kids at school or ornaments given to them at school.

My best friend, Marcia, and I exchanged ornaments while she lived here and for a couple of years after she moved.

Oh, I forgot about these super cute ones. I LOVE my glass candies. They also came from ABC Distributing. I use to have more of these but have given a few away.

These are ornaments from when I was a kid so they are very, very special to me.

And here is our tree skirt. I made this YEARS ago. It's made of felt and sequins and took forever to make. I actually never finished putting the sequins on it. Every year I say I'm going to get a new and prettier one but just can't part with this one.
So far this year we've gotten three new ornaments...two LSU ones for Jose' and a Veggitale one for Landon but I don't have pictures of those yet. There's also several that didn't fall into any of these catagories that I didn't take pictures of.

Still here :-)

Wow, it's been almost five months since I wrote here! Buddy was so little in that last post. He's a big dog now!

I love this time of year but am sad that it's going so fast. Next week is Christmas :-0. I'm not tired of my tree yet and not done with my shopping. I am ready for the kids to be out of school...two more days. Stephen will be home next week and Jose' will be off work for two weeks. We'll all be here :-).

Thanksgiving was good this year. We went to Daddy's and the whole family was there except Jose'. His mom was in Idaho and his sisters didn't come home like they had planned so he stayed with his Daddy so he wouldn't be by himself. I missed him being with us but thought he did the right thing to stay with his Daddy. We did Christmas cards that day so since he wasn't there I just did one of the kids this year. I did get one shot with me in it and sure do wish Jose' was in it because it would have been a great family picture.

This is the picture I used for my Christmas cards...which I'm not done mailing out yet. I'm so behind on that this year. So, if you haven't gotten one yet it's still laying here beside my chair LOL.

I wanted to do a card with two pictures and use this one too but decided to just go with one picture. I do love this picture, though, because they are all hugged up so sweet :-).

I took several really good pictures of just the girls. I had the first one enlarged and framed for Jose' for Christmas. He's getting so many pictures in his office he may not even have anywhere to put it. He's going to have to start bringing some of them home, I guess.

I also got some good pictures of the kids, minus Stephen, before Church a couple of weeks ago.

So, I guess that's enough pictures for today :-). The kids get out at noon today and the rest of the week. Tomorrow is Kinley's Christmas play at school and after that she and I are going to finish our Christmas shopping.

I'm going to try hard to write more. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!

Buddy's Playdate

Kaylyn dog-sit her friend's dog last week for a couple of days. She mostly kept him in her room because he's not completely house broke but she would take him out every now and then to potty and to play with Buddy. They were SO cute together!! Oh, and about Pete's coloring...he is purple LOL. Kaylyn and her friend decided to put a little coloring on him that they thought would wear off quickly...it didn't.

Poor Pete, no dog should have to be purple LOL.

Buddy has grown so much since these pictures were taken. I'll have to take some recent ones of him to put here.

He also had a playdate with Lori's puppy, Maggie, but we didn't get any pictures. She'll have to bring her back soon.

Stephen At Work

Stephen posted these pictures on his Facebook so of course I had to steal them. I love having pictures of him working on the pipeline and especially love the one of him with my Daddy, his boss. I am so proud of Stephen and how hard he is working to put himself through college.

These pictures were taken in Ohio. It's so beautiful there!! He is getting to see so many places working on the pipeline. So far he's worked in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. There's a chance he may even go to Alaska in 2011.

Our Trip to Ohio

We left for our trip Thursday morning at 4:30. We spent the night at Lori's house the night before so we could leave earlier. The kids were excited and I had no trouble getting them out of bed and dressed. I have to brag on my kids :-). We could not have asked for a better sixteen hour drive than we had with two kids and a puppy. I gave the kids motion sickness medicine before we left and Landon slept probably 12 of the 16 hours and Kinley is just a good traveller. She slept a lot too but when she wasn't asleep she was happy to just look out the window. The few times Landon was awake I kept him happy with the DVD player.

Maggie was in her pet carrier for most of the trip but we did let her out some to get a break from the carrier. She loves attention!!

Kinley thought it was cool that we were in six states in one day...Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. Here's Cinncinati...

Daddy, Lynn and Stephen are staying in the cutest little house. The kids called it the Christmas house :-). It sits up on a hill by itself and the backyard is a park. Across the road was another park with great stuff to play on. We spent a lot of time there and the weather was so cool we never even broke a sweat. It was in the 60's and 70's the whole time we were there.

The first day we were there we went and picked up Lori and went to some garage sales. Kinley found a LOT of baby clothes for her dolls. Then we rode around and looked at some Amish farms. We also saw a bridge built in the 1800's called an S bridge. After we dropped Lori off we came home and played in the park. After Daddy and Stephen got home Daddy took us riding out to where they are working. He drove us up the huge hill/mountain they are going up. It scared the kids!! I loved getting to see where Stephen is working.

Saturday, the 4th, we went to a place called The Wilds. Lori and Deano didn't go with us because they went to Niagra Falls for a couple of days. The Wilds is on 10,000 acres and we rode in an open air vehicle. They had a lot of endangered animals there. It took three hours to see it all. They stopped a few times and let us get out and walk around, feed the fish, get a snack.

Nothing makes me happier than seeing my Daddy with my kids. He's never gotten a chance to really get to know Landon because he's gone a lot and because Landon has never been one to spend the night away from home. Also, with his Asperger's, for so long he wasn't good at interracting with people. This trip was so great because they got to see a side of Landon they've never seen and he got so close to them. He told them all the time he loved them and they laughed at him so much...he's funny with the things he says. Daddy and Lynn both told me several times what a good kid he is and that made me feel good :-). On the way home from The Wilds we went to eat at the Chinese place. Stephen said they eat there every Saturday night. It was a long day and we were all very tired but it was a good tired. That night MawMaw Lynn, the kids and I sit on their front porch and watched fireworks over the mountain.

On Sunday, we went to Trade Days, which was a huge flea market type thing. Before we went Daddy took us riding again through Amish country. It is just so beautiful there and so much to look at...so different from where we live. After we got home Stephen and I went to Walmart and Daddy and Lynn kept the kids. That evening we had a cookout under one of the gazebos in the park behind their house. It was Daddy, Lynn, me, Stephen, Kinley, Landon, Lori, Deano and Uncle Richard and his son Corey. Daddy cooked hamburgers and Lynn and I made some dip. Landon even met a couple of little friends he played with for a while. It was a perfect day!!

We left at 4:30 (Ohio time) Monday morning to come home. It wasn't as easy to get the kids up and going as it was Thursday morning. Daddy had to carry Landon asleep to the car. Kinley was very sad about having to leave. The trip home wasn't as easy as coming because the motion sickness medicine didn't make him sleepy like the first time. He probably only slept three hours out of the 16. But, he was very good and mostly watched the DVD player. We rode by Graceland in Memphis, which was a huge disappointment for me. It's in a really bad part of town and just not what I had pictured. I enjoyed this trip so much and all the time I got to spend with Lori and Maggie in the car. She makes me laugh so much I'm sore the next day. Kinley said there were a couple of times Aunt Lori almost made her pee in her pants LOL.

We let Maggie out a little more on the way home because she'd just had enough of that carrier.

We got home around 7:30 that night and back to our house around 8:00. Jose' and Buddy were SO happy to see us. I think Kaylyn was even glad we were home :-)