If You Read This Then You Have To Comment B/C It Took Forever!

Here’s a few things to talk about:

WEEK 2 of the building process.




It might not look like a lot was done to you, but I assure you that the things done are very valuable. You would not want to live in a house without these things.



Here is Spencer sitting on the potty. He wanted me to take this picture. He seems to be very interested in the whole building process.
The concrete should be poured by the end of the week. Next the framing will begin on the 20th of this month. It’s still exciting.

New Topic, but same pictures as above. Spencer is going to be famous. He did a song demo for Elliott yesterday. He was so excited to help Elliott out. He felt very special after leaving Pam and Elliott’s house yesterday. Elliott drew him a picture, and Spencer carried it around like it was treasure yesterday. After we left their house I went over to take pictures of Randy’s house. Spencer was the only one that wanted to get out of the car to look around. In every picture I took of the house yesterday Spencer held up his picture with great pride. When we got back in the car he told everyone, “Mommy took a picture of my picture!” I’m so excited to hear the song demo. I know Spencer will be as proud as he can be. I loved how special he felt yesterday.

Next topic:
My oldest son Joey is 9 years old today. (It was actually yesterday.) NINE! How did this happen? How can I be old enough to have a nine year old? I don’t why it sounds so old to me but it does. He will be in the 4th grade this year, and I’m shocked at how big he’s getting.
Today for his birthday he chose to have a friend spend the night instead of having a party. He’s never had a friend spend the night before so it’s a pretty big deal. He’s spent the night at other people’s houses, but no one has spent the night here. I don’t know how I’ve gotten away with it for so long. I guess other parents have had mercy on me since I have so many other kids. It’s actually been great to have his friend Jonathan here. He’s so good. He’s actually just like Joey. Right now they’re playing a Star Wars Lego game on the Xbox. Here they are.



So, Nine things that I love about Joey:
1. He’s everything a person could want in a son.
2. He’s witty.
3. He’s extremely intelligent. In many subjects I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that he’s smarter than me.
4. He’s honest.
5. He thinks about others.
6. He loves to get my love notes that I give to him.
7. He knows tons of the Bible.
8. He enjoys doing practical jokes on people.
9. He’s the one I miss when I’m out of town.

Enough about that! I think I might cry! Happy Birthday my sweet Joey!

(After I wrote the previous note about Joey my Mom came over with his birthday cake.
Joey isn’t real big on cake. He doesn’t like icing very much. So, he talked to my Mom about how he didn’t want a very big cake. He just wanted a plain cake with green icing so he could put his Star Wars action figures on there. Some of you know my Mom and she can make a cake look like anything they can come up with! A plain cake with green icing is not possible for her. She called me while I was still in Clyde yesterday and she told me that she was about to go home to make Joey’s cake. She told me to make sure the video camera was charged. Then she asked me if we still had our picnic table outside. I told her that we still had it. She said, “Good. We will cut the cake outside. That’s all I will tell you now.” She was so excited. I had no idea what she had planned, but I could tell from her voice that she had something good up her sleeve.
When she came over I was impressed at the cake. It was so shiny and cute.



We took it outside, she handed Joey and knife and told him to go ahead and cut it.
When he cut it the cake POPPED!



She made a regular chocolate bunt cake and then placed a blown up balloon on top of it then iced the whole thing. You couldn’t tell at all! I thought it was just a funny shape. We all laughed so hard. I was the furthest away and I still got icing on my arm and in my hair. She’s so fun. You could tell she was very pleased with herself.

Okay, next subject:
I can’t believe that neither Becky nor I have posted about our trip to Dallas. I assure you that it’s not because it was lame. We had a fantastic time! (I did anyway.) I guess time has slipped away from us since we’ve been back.
It was the perfect getaway because we were able to relax, shop a lot, and go to Six Flags. I was a little nervous about going to Six Flags with her. I’ve never been with a friend before. I’ve always just gone with my kids. I didn’t think I would enjoy going without my kids. They’re always so excited about everything. Well, so was Becky so it was great. We didn’t wait in any lines. It wasn’t too hot. It was the perfect time to go. I loved being there with her. It was actually one of my favorite times to go. She got me on some rides that my family usually can’t get me on. I didn’t get on the way scary rides, but still I did pretty well. Becky says that I have the anointing for short lines at Six Flags. That’s a nice thing to have I guess.
The first night we were there we met up with Pam who was also out of town to go to Six Flags. She was childless and so much fun. We met at Clair’s and tried on every pair of sunglasses that were available. We had a blast. You would have thought we were a bunch of pre teens as much time as we spent in that store. Becky, I’m sorry your nifty highlighters were bunk that you bought there. You had such great plans! Anyway, so Pam, Becky and I ate dinner together. I don’t know why it seemed so neat to eat dinner together in a different town. It just seemed exciting. We ended up staying there until it closed. Then we stood outside forever and talked. You would have thought that we were long lost friends. Well, while we were eating Becky asked Pam where we could go shopping the next day. We wanted to know where the mall was. Pam informed us that there was a mall that was dying and then there was a good mall.
That brings me to the place where I had the most fun of the whole weekend. The next day Becky and I (who are both direction challenged) got brave enough to venture off of Collins street. We even got on the highway in hopes of finding a mall. You can imagine our delight when Becky spotted a Dillard’s! We got off the highway and made our way to the mall. Well, it just so happened that we found the dying mall that Pam had talked about. Pam hasn’t been there in awhile so dying mall might have been fitting when she went, but Becky and I have named it the Ghetto Mall! OH MY GOSH! There’s no way to over exaggerate how crazy this mall was! I’ve never been to anything like it. For Example: One of the stores that was in there was called Masta Grillz. It was a place where you could bling up your teeth. You could have your teeth gold, silver or diamond. It was so funny! They had snap shots of tons of people that had their grill bling. I wanted to ask how much it would cost, but I was too intimidated. There was also a lot of stores where formals were made, and they also had some Mexican imports thrown in there or some questionable clothing. Speaking of questionable clothing…they also had a Stripper store in there. They had some shoes in that store behind a glass case that said you must be 18 to try on the shoes! They had one pair of platform shoes that had a thick clear base and it had dice and poker chips in them! That would be fun to wear to poker night. Hey, I did buy something there. I’ll keep you hanging on what I bought. The mall also had a furniture store there, but on every piece of furniture was a posted sign that said you were not allowed to sit on the furniture. I don’t know who would buy a couch or chair without trying it out first! The whole mall was crazy, but my favorite part of the whole mall time and the weekend was our shoe shopping extravaganza! Becky and I came upon a shoe store where all the shoes were $4.99. There was not a normal pair of shoes in the whole store. They were all wild or different in some way. I’ve never had more fun shopping for shoes in my entire life. We laughed so hard! We spent over an hour in there trying on shoes. We ended up buying EIGHT PAIRS! Wait until you see some of the funky shoes I bought! I’m waiting for just the right occasion to sport them. Here’s a sneak peak.





They are Sneaker Heels. That’s what we’re calling them anyway. You would be surprised at how comfortable they are! I got two other pair, but they’re not as wild as these. I just start thinking about these shoes and I feel happy. They had them in every color imaginable! They had these lovely pink ones, orange ones, red high top, yellow, blue, white and black. I should have used up all my money in there and got one of every color. I thought about buying all my friends a pair, but I wasn’t sure that everyone would appreciate them as much as I do. I know my husband doesn’t. Actually, he likes to tease me about the shoes, but he actually likes them. Or I’m in denial about that.
Anyway, I had a blast shoe shopping with Becky. I don’t know that I’ll ever have so much fun looking at shoes ever again. Be on the watch out for when I wear them!

Today I took the kids to the park to feed the ducks. Melody, who is usually terrified of animals, no matter how small or docile, actually loved the ducks today. We had a ton of bread left over from the boys camp out, buns from a party at my house that didn’t happen and lots of donuts from the camp out that I wanted out of my house. We took our huge bags of goodies to the park and had a great time. I love this picture of Melody. She was standing in front of the duck and said, “Hello Duck. I’m a girl.”



Last topic:
I’m so excited that I lost another three pounds last week! I went to the kitchen to find something that could represent three pounds for me. I’m a visual person. Just saying three pounds doesn’t do a whole lot for me when I think about how far I have to go. When I opened up the cabinet right away I saw this family size spaghetti sauce jar. It said that it was a 3 pound jar!



If I think of the jar full of fat that’s not on my body anymore instead of just a regular jar of spaghetti sauce then I’m encouraged. Especially when I think that I’ve lost almost 4 of those jars total. (I had been trying before I started posting about it.) So, I guess I could say that I’ve lost 3.7 family size jars of spaghetti sauce! That seems like a lot. Hey, it feels rewarding!

I’ll leave you with a Silly Sister picture.