Die Hard

Ok, I am starting to see how well my husband has been coaching my kids to be "die hard" OSU fans.

When I went to pick Noah up from school today, his teacher kindly recounted this story to me, that had happened only hours earlier:

Noah: Hayden, are you for the red team or the orange team?

Hayden: The red team.

Noah: Oh, thats too bad. Well, I will still love you anyway...

Wow! His daddy could not be any happier, I am sure! Next time this happens, Noah will probably offer to pray for those poor Sooner fans!! Looks like they might need it... hehe

Go Pokes!!

America's Funniest Home Video

I took this video of Noah playing Mario Cart the other day, at Lauragale's urging. She is pretty sure it will make it onto "AFV" if we send it in.

Well, I sent it in online today. It is probably not going to be in the running for the $100,000, but it is supposed to be featured on the ABC website in any case. That will be good enough for Noah!!

Enjoy "Booty Shakin' Video Playin'"... note the Star Wars Obi Wan briefs... standard Wii attire in our household... for NOAH, that is!

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Ummm, more like Tag Body Spray...


My son asked me on Friday if he could have some "Boy Polish". Needless to say I was scared to ask what he meant. Well, I went ahead and jumped on that grenade and pursued the "boy polish". He went on to say that it was "the stuff you spray on your body to smell good."... Ok, so he means cologne!

I told the boy that I would have to do a little research to find cologne fit for a boy, but that was not acceptable. Evidently he had a hot date that night or something and felt like it was an emergency. Sooooo, during our trip to the grocery store later in the day, we located the deodorant body spray aisle...

Were you aware of the sheer number and variety of body spray for men? It is embarrassing! The cosmetics industry must feel that most men stink for the most part. I am not kidding, we spent at least 15 minutes in the body spray area testing and re-testing EVERY variety that the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market carries.

The names are no better than the fragrances either! We tried "Midnight", "All-Nighter", "Get Yours", "VIP Access", "Lucky Day", "First Move", "After Hours" and "Spin It". After covering he and myself from head to toe, he chose "Spin It"... probably because it was in green packaging, not because he liked the fragrance the best.

We left that aisle smelling like we should have been wearing polyester leisure suits and gold chains! I swear everyone we passed did a double-take (smell style) and had a confused yet disgusted look on their face... it was lovely.

Soooo, next time you run into Bubby, take a good whiff and enjoy... lock up your daughters too, he is only 5, but he smells like Teen Spirit!!!

Various Summer Activites

I am just now getting around to posting about last week... I am sure you all are waiting with baited breath!

The week started off with golf camp for both the kids. They both enjoyed it a lot and we are looking forward to a future which includes at least ONE activity that the whole family enjoys and can participate in! Here are Annika and Tiger with the balls they won on the first day of camp...

Tuesday was Noah's last karate class at The Little Gym. This was his second season and he received his orange belt and a cute medal. It is just for fun so the belt does not mean much, but it does to him. He was very proud, but does not seem too interested in continuing the karate in the fall.

The rest of the week was made up of more golf camp, a new Beth Moore bible study (that is going to be great!), a charity street party and three birthday parties!! We were even able to start cleaning out the extra room we are using for the foster child. We made soooo much progress! I was and still am, thrilled!! Here are a few pictures of the room as it is now... It is not a true "Before" picture, but I was too embarrassed to post that one! These pic's are after most everything from the office was cleared out. Now it is awaiting paint. (And yes, we are going to take the deer head out of the room before we have a scared child sleep in there.)
Finally, I wanted to include a short film made by my daughter. She is really into making what I will call "Digital Shorts". She is pretty entertaining but is really going to need some cinematography classes if she is going to make a career out of this... you will see, the camera work is still in it's primal stages. Enjoy, but heed my warning... this puppy is 3.5 minutes long!


Lot's going on, so I will be posting more often!

Love, Brent

Cryin' In the Rain

Well, more like whining...

I posted about Bubber's real birthday day happenings back on Tuesday, but wanted to post some pics of his party on Saturday.

For quite a while now, Noah has been wanting to have a "Golf Birthday Party" so this year we planned a party at the local mini-golf course. It was a cute idea... even the invitations were cute. But no amount of cuteness could make up for the fact that as soon as everyone had arrived and picked their favorite colored golf ball to play with, it started pouring down rain. And not just rain, there was lots of lightning and possible hail to boot!!

Needless to say it was a big let down. But our friends and family were so understanding and helpful! We decided to open gifts first, followed by eating pizza and oh so cute golf cookies (made by Jennifer at Icing on the Top) and free play in the arcade. All the 5 year old's seemed to have a nice time even though there was no min-golf playing, but the parents seemed to waiver between trying to control the rained-out crew and starring out into the parking lot... either hoping their nice cars were not getting pummeled with hail or deciding whether to split the joint in favor of saving themselves and dodging the storm.

In spite of the rain, Noah had a good time, but he was very disappointed that he was not able to "golf". As we were comforting Noah and reminding him we would be back so we could play a round without the inclement weather overhead, the rain subsided and the sun came out... just in time for the drive home. Niiiice.

** I want to thank my friend Malisa with "Fresh from God Photography" for all the great party pics she took for us! Thanks friend!! **

Wildflowers and Birthdays

Hello World! I'm back. It has been a while but I wanted to report on the Memorial Day weekend we had. It was a nice one! We ended up traveling to my parents hunting ranch in Texas for the holiday weekend. There is not much to hunt that has a heartbeat this time of the year, but we went in hopes of catching a few wildflowers. We were at the ranch last year on Memorial Day weekend and the flowers were spectacular! We had never seen anything like it! Well, our hopes were dashed this year, no such luck hunting wildflowers on the ranch. They were pretty much extinct. I know you are let down as much as I, so I went ahead and added some pics of the flowers from last year...

With or without the flora, we had a great time. Jeep and tractor rides as usual along with relaxing on the deck, sun/shade bathing and barbecues. We did add a new activity this trip. I was lucky enough to find a Wii Fit at the local Wal-Mart Supercenter, so needless to say, I was the best Mom EVER many times over! So, after spending 5 hours creating our Mii's and getting our BMI's calculated, the kids went to trimming themselves down. (they have really let themselves go!) It was pretty hilarious. Just watching the two of them "cyber hula-hoop" was a roar! Here is a video of Bubby's first try...

Now that is some hip action! Take THAT Kristy Yamaguchi (or however you spell your name)

While he is working up a sweat trying to get his Wii Fit age down from 43, my Dad asked him, "When are you gonna get competitive?"... his sarcastic reference to Bubby's undying competitive spirit... Bub says back, "I'm not going to get a PEDICURE!!!" Nice. A few minutes later my Mom tells the kids that their cousin will be visiting them back home this week in which Bub fires off, "Oohhh, that's so sexy!" Real nice.

After coming home from the ranch, we made it back just in time to celebrate Bub's 5th birthday in style. His day consisted of:

1) a Pop-Tart breakfast (breakfast of champions)

2) Wii Fit

3) Wii Sports

4) Going to mom's workout with her and flirting with the older gal in the kiddie room (think she was 7) Dancing in front of gym video monitor to watch himself for at least 20 minutes.

5) Lunch at Wendy's (lunch of champions)

6) More Wii Fit

7) More Wii Sports

8) Riding lessons with sis

9) Dinner at The Brook (because they have mac 'n cheese AND cottage cheese)

For his b-day he received a Super Soaker from my sis, brother-in-law and niece (thanks guys... all my tender, burgeoning impatiens and artificial door arrangement are blasted to pieces) and a Nintendo DS plus games from the rest of us. Bub's prefers to call it his "Dindindo DS" mind you. Most of today consisted of mastering that electronic babysitter! He loves it! I do too if it will get me through a mani/pedi every few weeks this summer!!!

Lastly, we completed our fourth installment of our DHS Foster Training classes today. All I can say is "Oh Lord help us, we are scared." We are really banking on the whole "They give you the worst scenario in training to better prepare you" thing. Pray for us!

PS We are wanting and needing to create some House Rules for the betterment of our family and as a helpful tool when we get our first foster placement. I am wanting to collect some ideas of House Rules that you all use. Can you give me your favorites in the Comments section? Now, I know that there might be A LOT of responses here because of the enormous amount of traffic my blog gets, but don't be shy, respond anyway! ha

Treasured Images

Like I mentioned a couple of posts prior, my friend Malisa is an amateur photographer and starting a small business called "Fresh from God Photography." For a little practice, she offered to photograph Mr. Noah a couple of weeks ago then Lauragale yesterday.

She had just purchased new backgrounds and flash and wanted to work with them a bit before having some new clients in. As you can see from the photos of Noah I have included, she did an awesome job of catching his personality and love for his "lovies" he holds so dear. Some neat things that she offered that I have not included are cool textures that she added to many of the pictures to give them a more "vintage" look.


Yesterday we met her in a park adjacent to her house to get some shots of Lauragale. Of course Lg had to pick her outfit all herself, and it turned out nice to have her all in white by the brightly-colored azalea's and green grass. I loved catching her in this stage while her front teeth are missing! It is so precious!


Thanks Malisa for blessing me with these treasured images of my treasures. I love knowing that I will be able to look back and recall Noah and his favorite lovey "Pablo" and how sweet Lauragale looked during this time of physical transition! Being able to capture pieces of me and pieces of Curtis in our children is priceless. Knowing that they are growing up to be their own person and not just pieces of us is even MORE exciting.