Friday, September 21, 2012

For my memory box

Tonight Brody disappeared to our office and came back with "art" (now that he has art class at school he refers to it as "art" rather than "pictures") that he drew for us. He said he was just thinking about how much he loves us and wanted to draw something for us. He drew me a sunflower and Mike a rose bush. I love it!! It will go on the fridge for sure...but I probably won't hang it in the manner suggested by the artist. He punched holes in the top of the paper and told me to put yarn through the hole and then put a nail in the wall and hang it on the nail. I think a magnet on the fridge will work just as well ;)

I sure do love this boys sweet, loving heart!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Puppy Shopping?

I think Brody put Barrett on "beg for a puppy" duty. After we got home from women's Bible study today Barrett said, "Are you and Daddy going puppy shopping soon?....Brody told me to say that." lol

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sign of a Promise

Tonight we walked out of Taco Bueno with the boys and were stopped dead in our tracks. In the sky was the MOST BEAUTIFUL rainbow I have EVER seen!  I have never seen a rainbow so full, bright, and complete.  Seriously!  In my 32 years...I have NEVER seen a rainbow this stunning!  It was illuminating the sky!  Everywhere you looked people were stopping and pulling out their phones to take a picture.  I didn't have my real camera with me and was kicking myself for having to take a picture of this amazing display of God's creation on my cell phone camera.  I couldn't get the distance to capture the whole sky...but I found a few people online who were able to capture it!  Here's a picture someone at the Ballpark in Arlington took of the rainbow we saw....
 
And this is from someone a little north of us....
 
Here's the best my iPhone captured the rainbow (UGH!  So wish I had my real camera with me!!)..
 
And this is what the sky looked like in the opposite direction of the rainbow!
 
As soon as we saw the rainbow our boys began talking about Noah and the promise God made to never flood the entire earth again.  Not only did it fill our hearts with joy to hear our boys immediately relate the phenomenon in the sky to God's word...but it filled us with awe.  God knew when he put that first rainbow in the sky... that the rainbow he placed in the sky tonight would remind us of His love.  He knew thousands of years ago that Mike, Staci, Brody, and Barrett would drive around looking at the beautiful rainbow and worship Him...talking about how He is a God who keeps his promises!  What an awesome God we serve!

Friday, September 14, 2012

15 seconds of fame

Tonight Mike and Brody were invited to go to the Rangers game by one of Mike's co-workers (Jason). Wade and Truett also got to go with them and all the boys were super excited! Their seats were just a few rows behind 3rd base on the first level. I was surprised when I turned on our TV at home and realized I could watch them most of the game! Any time they went to the camera that shot the side view of a right handed batter, I could see the guys in their seats about shoulder level with the batter. It was so cool! At one point during the broadcast I was even more surprised! All the sudden Brody and Truett were FULLSCREEN!!

Here's a picture of the video...since videos don't print in blog books ;) 

Brody, Truett, Mike, Wade, and Jason
 
 

Riding in the Rain

What do you do when you ride your bike to school...and it's raining when you get out of school? Do you have your momma drive (rather than ride her bike) to pick you up? No! You hop on your bike and sing, "I'm riding in the rain. Just riding in the rain. What a glorious feelin'. I'm happy again."

Monday, September 10, 2012

Date Night with Brody

 
When Brody got home from school today he said, "When am I gonna get to have a date night with you?  Can we do it tonight?"  Since I didn't have class tonight and Mike had a softball game I thought...why not!  I asked him what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to go to dinner and then go see a movie.  I was surprised that IHOP was his restaurant of choice...but that's what he wanted so that's where we went.  I didn't realize that kids eat free....and that I could get a HUGE meal for $4.99.  It ended up being a really cheap place to take him for a sit down dinner!  Brody got the chocolate funny face (a chocolate chip pancake with a smiley face made out of whip cream, chocolate chips, and cherries).  For some reason, Brody doesn't ever want syrup on his breakfast foods (pancakes, waffles, french toast).  It's a good food aversion to have ;)  I was shocked when he downed the ENTIRE funny face.  It was as big as his plate and there wasn't anything left!  He even ate some of my food!!
 
After dinner we headed to Cinemark for the 6:10 showing of The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  It was an awesome movie!  I definitely recommend it!  It's family friendly and has a great message.  Of course, I should've taken a few kleenex with me as it was also a tear jerker!
 
I had such a fun time with my boy.  I'm so blessed that God put him in my life!

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Just Hangin' Out

Last night Caleb, Audria, Axton, Tyler, Ann, and Luke all came over to hang out. We ate dinner together and then just spent time talking, laughing, and watching the kids play.  When I say kids....I mean Mike, Caleb, & Tyler too ;)  Some of you remember when my brothers were scared to even hold Brody as a baby (they held him at arms length)...and they wouldn't go NEAR a dirty diaper!  I found it quite humorous when they decided to play football with Axton's diaper!  Oh how the times change...
Luke and Axton didn't have their swimsuits, so Ann & Audria had to keep a tight hold on the boys.  They decided it would be fun to throw balls into the pool...so Brody got on his swimsuit and played fetch with them. lol 
 
 
I'm sure Tyler and Ann recognize this look!  It's the "will they tell me 'No' if I go in the pantry and start snackin' on the goldfish?!" look.
 
Axton loves our shaggy rug.  He gets excited to run and crawl through it every time he comes over.
 
 
We had fun hanging out last night.  One major difference from a year ago....everyone was headed home before 9 pm!  Back in the day....we'd hang out until midnight or later!  Times change...but boy are the changes fun!

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

After school fun with my boy!

When I picked Brody up from school today, he ran to me and said, "Can we play Monopoly when we get home?!?"  So guess what we did when we got home?  Made a big bowl of popcorn and got out the Dynopoly (the Dinosaur Monopoly Brody got when he and Grammy went to the Dinosaur Depo Museum in CO)!  {picture with my phone}

This morning was a much better start to the school day.  Brody was a little sad as we walked onto the school grounds, but then he saw some friends to walk into the building with.  One of his friends was having a hard time and I whispered to B ("try to encourage Kade and see if you can get him to walk into school with you").  I think taking his focus off himself and putting it on someone else (thanks for the tip Angi!) helped a lot.  He was more concerned with his upset friend than he was about the fact that he was leaving me.  Thanks to all the friends and family who have been praying about this with us!  I'm hoping we turned a corner today and he'll be excited about going to school.  I guess I'll have to wait for tomorrow to see for sure...but today was a great day!

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Marlins 7UAA - Game 1

Brody is playing up this year and he's playing on a new team.  His friend, Logan, who played with him on the Phillies last year is also playing with him on the Marlins.  They are both loving Coach Dan and all the assistant coaches and have been learning a lot of new drills and skills to help improve their game.

My teacher is out of town this week, so I didn't have class tonight and got to come to Brody's first game!  I was so excited....especially since it's one of 4 games that are played at Big League Dreams!  It was a HOT night (a digital sign on the way to the ballfield read 109 degrees!) and the kids were already sweaty (just from warming up) when it was time for the pledge. 
 

Mike watching Brody in the on deck circle. 
 
Mike gave Brody some tips when he came back to the dugout and then told him he was doing a good job and that he was proud of him!
 
 
 
 
Brody played short stop and right field tonight.  He made some great plays in both positions.  In the picture below he's throwing the ball to first base to get the batter out.  Can you find the ball?  (Hint:  It's at the fence level in the picture.)
 
The sun was bright and hot.  It affected the batters of both teams as they had to look directly into the sun to bat.  We were tied 6-6 at the end of the 4th inning...but in the 5th inning the A's scored 5 unanswered runs.  The boys were disappointed in a loss, but they played a great first game.  The coaches were proud of them (and so were the parents)!   
Some of the coaches watching from the dugout in the last inning. 
 
Game 2 is this Saturday!  There's a cool front that's scheduled to come through.  Hopefully the boys will have a little more energy on Saturday...and we'll have another fun game to watch!

Monday, September 03, 2012

Colorado Vacation 2012


We had an amazing vacation in Colorado.  I took over 600 pictures and after narrowing them down....I still have over 150 pictures!  That's way too many pictures to try to post about our vacation on our blog.  I'm going to have to create a separate book for this years vacations in order to do the pictures justice in print.  This means I don't need to get all those pictures on the blog...but I do want you to get to see them!  Here's a slideshow of my fav pics from our week + in beautiful Colorado. 



Here's the link to the picasa web album in case the slideshow above doesn't work for you (or in case you want to see the pictures full screen):  Colorado Vacation Picasa Web Album
Knowlton Colorado Vacation 2012