eleven years

Our firstborn turns 11 today. I'm not sure what to think about that. He is growing up so quickly and it scares me when I really allow myself to think about it for too long. I am terrified to think about all the things that are on the horizon now that the pre-teen years are upon us. It hit me this week that in five short years he'll be driving. He starts middle school in August. That is just unbelievable to me and to be honest I just can't let myself think about it just yet. I have a feeling that in the next year or two Connor will start showing an interest in girls and I can't stand to think of how many times he'll have his heart broken. I could cry just thinking about ALL of it.

The pre-teen and teen years are so tough. I'm getting older, but I'm not old enough to have forgotten how hard those years were. I was terrible to my parents and I know that what goes around comes around! In fact, it has already begun....the attitude that Connor has developed over the past year or so is so hard to deal with. It just breaks my heart to have my son display such a bad attitude at times. I know that it is a part of growing up but I just can't say that it makes it any easier to deal with (at least the good attitude still outweighs the bad...for now at least :). We're not even to the teen years yet. Does that mean it's going to get worse!?! I'm not naive enough to believe that it won't, but I do know that we'll make it through. With lots of love and even more patience. And once we make it through with Connor we'll start all over again with Coby....and then Cale. Oh my. We have so much to look forward to! :)

I know that I've done a lot of complaining about the attitude that comes along with this age, but Connor really is a great kid. Sure there are times when he is a complete stinker, but overall he is an amazing boy and I am so proud to call him my son! He is very sweet and loving, mixed together with some rough and tumble. He is everything a boy should be.

Here are some things about Connor that I don't want to forget:

• He has all A's and one B (math is hard for him) in school
• he likes going to school and being with his friends
• he has a lot of anxiety and prays every night that he'll stop worrying (I hate that he worries, but am thankful that he is prayerful about it)
• Connor comes home after school, gets homework done and then spends the rest of the afternoon outside playing basketball with neighborhood friends if they're out, and if they're not, he plays by himself, he just loves being outside
• Connor loves sports and wants to spend all of his free time playing either baseball, basketball, or dodge ball
• Connor plays on a baseball team called the Challengers. He LOVES baseball and is an excellent fielder.
• Connor's best friend is Cameron. They are so different from one another, but they have so much fun together. I am so glad that they have each other. Cameron is a total jokester and Connor is more serious so it is fun to see them interact with each other. It's always fun to see Cameron bring out Connor's silly side (a side we don't see too often)
• Connor is wise beyond his years. His friends' parents get such a kick out of the way he speaks. I've heard many times from others that they just get tickled about how he's just like talking to a little grown-up.
• Connor loves to read. He is really into the Hardy Boys Mysteries right now.
• Connor's favorite show is "Top Gear" Darren DVR's it and they watch it together every chance they get. In fact, when we got Ellie, Connor really wanted to name her Top Gear Dog. Isn't that a great name for a girl? Yeah, I didn't think so either!
• Connor is slowly starting to take an interest in clothing. He is noticing what other kids wear and is beginning to have an opinion on what he wears (but overall he really still doesn't care too much...he's happy wearing athletic shorts and t-shirts every day)
• Connor is a rule follower. He really does strive to do what is right (although he does try to push the limits at home)
• Connor is in Honor's Chorus at school this year and seems to really enjoy it.
• Connor is very talkative. He is detail oriented just like me and asks a million questions about everything (and on the flip side of that, he gives many details to us about everything too)
• Connor reads his Bible and devotional book every night when he goes to bed. If you ask Connor who his best friend is, he will say Jesus every time. He'll tell you that Cameron is his second best friend. I love that he has a heart for Jesus at a young age.
• Connor is small for his age. It drives him crazy and gets him down. He is the smallest 5th grader in his school, but to us he is just perfect. He has grown a lot over the past few months though. He weighs 63# which is great considering he was 55# over the summer.

Connor is so very special to us. I will never forget the day that I found out I was pregnant with him. I was actually 6 weeks pregnant when I finally figured it out (in my defense I was on the pill so yes, we were shocked...sorry if that's TMI!). Darren was working the night that I took the pregnancy test (he had just graduated from the police academy and was working 2nd shift at the time). I remember waiting up for him and when he got home I said, so how do you feel about having a baby? I still remember his response so clearly, "Honey, you know I don't want one yet." To which I replied, well, I'm pregnant and handed him an ultrasound pic of our little peanut (yep, one of the benefits of having a dad who is a radiologist.... I had him take me to his office after hours just to confirm that I was indeed pregnant via u/s, because I just really didn't believe it...and since I was already 6 weeks we saw the heartbeat the minute the doppler hit my abdomen!). I just remember Darren saying over and over again, a baby huh? From that moment on we were in love with "Bubba" (poor thing, that's what we called him until he was born) and were so grateful for the beautiful blessing that only God knew we needed at that exact time. I am laughing just thinking about how proud Darren was from that second forward. He would want to show my belly to everyone we saw. He would embarrass me to death, but deep down I just loved to see him so excited about our baby boy!

See what I mean? I still remember this day vividly.

I was five months pregnant and finally showing. Darren was thrilled to death about it and was showing my belly off to mom.

Darren was able to take some time off when Connor was born, but once he went back to work, he'd come home for dinner breaks to see Connor. I can't get over how young Darren looks in his uniform. I wonder if anyone really ever took him seriously as a young officer?

Connor was 2 weeks old in this picture.

I still remember how unhappy he was that day. Unfortunately he was starving and very unhappy during the photo shoot. Finally he found his thumb which pacified him for a little while.

This was taken on Mother's Day 2000. My first Mother's Day was very special as we had Connor dedicated at church that day.

And this one...it was taken before school this morning. He went from a beautiful baby to a handsome young man way too quickly!

Happy Birthday Connor! We love you more than you could ever imagine.

Ellie Mae

I simply cannot believe that I am writing the post. I really truly can't. However, I sit here writing it. So...where do I begin?

I guess with the fact that it's been 10 1/2 months since we said goodbye to Sadie Jane. I wasn't planning on getting another dog....never, ever. I loved Sadie dearly, but I was getting used to not having a dog. Getting used to not having to scoop poop, not having to remember to feed yet another mouth in our home, pay vet bills, worry about how she was doing when we were at the lake in the summer, worry if my house smelled "like dog", and on and on. I loved Sadie, after all, I had her since I was 19 (I bought her when Darren and I were dating...she soothed my broken heart after a particularly rough, but short-lived break up before we got married), but I just never wanted another dog once she was gone. I am NOT a dog lover (in fact I am scared of most dogs), but Sadie was a one of a kind. She was the sweetest girl I've ever known (I'm crying my eyes out just remembering her) and no dog could ever be her, let alone replace her. I didn't even want to try to ever love another one. Yet, here I sit tonight with a precious lab pup in my lap. Her name is Ellie and while she'll never replace my Sadie Jane, I must admit that she is a sweetheart. See for yourself...

Now, here's how she came into my life....On Thursday night Darren told me had to run an errand and would be back in a hour. He asked Connor if he wanted to go with him (Coby and Cale had homework so they couldn't go). Connor wasn't sure if he wanted to go and Darren was being very secretive about where he was heading (which is very rare around here). Honestly, I thought Darren was going to get me some flowers or something, but then he told Connor that he'd be sad if he didn't go. I thought that was weird because why would Connor care if he didn't get to help pick out my flowers? Within a few minutes and a million questions from me, Darren and Connor headed out. I hate surprises...I really do, so once Darren left I was just racking my brain trying to think of what he could be up to. Then it hit me. Could he possibly be going to pick up a dog? After all, he had abruptly left once he got off the phone with a buddy of his and when I asked if his "errand" had anything to do with the phone call he just smiled and said, "maybe."

So, I grabbed that phone and called him immediately. {Poor guy, I am the worst person to try to surprise...I always figure out what he's up to because I hate surprises so much that I will not rest until I figure out what he's up to just so that I won't be surprised.} I told him if he was trying to surprise me with a dog that I didn't want it. I remember saying I don't want a dog to him about 100 times. "Is that what you're up to?", I asked him. He just laughed and said why don't you want a dog? That when I knew for sure what he was up to. Panic set in and I told him to just come home. I didn't want one. He told me that I'd really want this one. I didn't want to hear it. Not at all. Finally he told me that if I told him to come home he would. He'd call his friend and let him know he wasn't coming after all. I forced him to tell me what kind of dog it was (because that does matter after all!). He told me she was a lab. I told him I'd think about it (which is code for I need to call my mom and talk it out ;)) and I'd call him back in five minutes. Mom was no help AT ALL so I called Darren back. I didn't want to rain on his parade. After all, he was so excited and I think this dog he was going to pick up was more for him than me or the kids, whether he wanted to admit it or not. I told him that I wanted to tell him to turn around and come back home, but just couldn't...NOT that I was convinced that I wanted a pup, but more that, I just couldn't say with conviction that I didn't. He told me that we'd give it a few days and if I didn't want to keep her, he'd find a home for her. So, with that said, I agreed to give it a try.

This is Ellie on her first night home laying on Darren who was absolutely smitten with her from the get go. Who can resist this face? I couldn't. Which is why she's still here, sitting in my lap!

I will be honest...I do not handle new situations well. I am prone to anxiety and new situations just exasperate it. So, a new dog in the house has definitely freaked me out....like, A LOT. Thankfully after nearly 15 years of marriage Darren knows this about me so he took 2 nights off work to take care of "Miss Thing" (as he lovingly calls Ellie...so cute!) so that I wouldn't panic and send her packing. In fact, he went back to work tonight (an hour and half ago and he already called to check in and make sure that all is well...he doesn't want me to get overwhelmed...he knows me SO well). I am lucky that Darren will be coming home during the night (while he is working) to let her out for those middle of the night potty breaks. Either I'm really blessed with an amazing husband OR he's just really worried that Miss Ellie is going to send me over the edge. :) Either way, I'm OK with it as long as I can have uninterrupted sleep (which I should have since D was sure to get her a crate today and told me to be sure and put it in the laundry room so she won't keep me up! heehee) I'll just let him keep on thinking that I'm still up in the air about keeping her so that he'll keep handling the long nights until Ellie can make it all night without having to be taken out. It'll be our secret, OK? {wink, wink}

Oh, in case you're wondering, the boys love her. See?

I think they are as smitten as their daddy. They're just hoping mommy will let her stay...we'll see. She probably can as long as they're all helpful {wink, wink!}.

Did I mention that she's a mess? She is. It's a good things she's cute.

Stats: 8 1/2 weeks, 12.8 lbs at the vet on 2/10. Everyone we meet just LOVES her and they all say that she's going to be a big girl (like 60-75#). We'll see...

FIVE

Today the boys are at home with me for their 7th snow day of the year. But, much more important than that is today is Cale's 5th birthday!!! I cannot believe my baby boy is five. Everyone says that when their child turns a certain age, but I REALLY mean it. I truly can't believe that five years have past since I gave birth to this precious boy!

How do I even begin to describe my bug? He is such a stinker-pot! He makes me laugh all throughout the day...each and every day. I'm just SO thankful that Cale is in my life! To this day I just know that God knew we needed him in our life whether we did or not and I will be forever grateful for that.

This is a copy of the letter we wrote about Cale when he was the star of the week at school this year:

Dear Cale's class,

Cale is a very special little boy. In our house we call him "Bug" or "Calebug". His daddy started calling him that as a baby and it just stuck. Cale is so much fun and so full of life. He wakes up with a smile and goes to bed with a smile every night. He is such a joy!

We love that Cale is so outgoing and fun! He loves to meet and talk to new people, especially grown ups.

He is always giving us hugs and kisses and saying I love you. Getting kissses and hugs from Cale always brightens our day.

Cale is a wonderful brother. Cale and his older brother Connor love to play baseball together. Cale and his older brother Coby love to play legos together. They have so much fun together. Connor and Coby are so happy to have a little brother to hang out with. They think Cale is really cool!

One of Cale's favorite things to do is make our family laugh. Sometimes he makes us laugh by telling silly stories. Other times he makes us laugh by making up songs and dancing. WE love hearing all the songs that Cale makes up. He is so good at it!

Cale is also a very smart boy. He loves to learn and we love to teach him new things. He likes to teach us new things too. We love when Cale teaches us something new.

The most important thing you should know about Cale is that we love him so much. We are so thankful he is apart of our family. He brings us son much joy every day!!!

Cale's mommy, daddy, and brothers (Connor and Coby)

Cale, Cale, Cale....he is such a silly, sweet, funny, loving, and smart little boy! I just adore him more than words can ever express. Out of the blue last night he said, "I'll never stop loving you mommy." He is a momma's boy (who also loves his daddy so) and is ALWAYS hugging and loving on me. I am SO thankful that he is in our lives.

I am so grateful that I told Darren we should leave the "option" open to have just one more baby when he thought otherwise. Because of that, we were blessed with Cale and without Cale in our lives, we would feel incomplete. Cale completes our family, plain and simple. I am so thankful to be his mother and his daddy is just CRAZY about him! We are SO thankful he is apart of our family. What a blessing he is. I love him so!

Now, for his five year old stats...he weighs 35 pounds (with clothes on) and is 39 3/4" tall.

Cale seems to love hanging out with the girls more than boys. According to him, his best friend is Mia-Kate. He seems to really like to hang out with girls, but is also very much a "boys" boy as well.

He is reading books with simple words and is very good at sounding out words he doesn't know.

He reminds me SO much of Connor (intellectually) at this age...both very smart little boys with amazing memories. Personality-wise however, Cale is much more outgoing and silly than Connor. He is a people person for sure and I have a horrible feeling that he's also going to be a class clown.

He loves to meet and talk to new people...when he and I are shopping, he will talk and talk to the sales clerk (especially female sales clerks :) and it seems as if I am always waiting on him to wrap up his conversation so I can leave a store! I'm not sure where got this social side to him....although I have to admit it is pretty cute!

Cale thinks Coby hung the moon. He loves to hang out and play with Coby. They have so much fun together and I just love watching them play. I know one of these day Coby is going to think he's "too big or too cool" to play with Cale so I'm savoring every minute I see them having fun together. Most recently they like to play cars (Hot Wheels) together, play with their Playmobil toys together and they also spend lots of time building Legos together. Coby also likes to read to Cale and loves to help Cale read (and learn) as well. Seriously, these two are just precious together (when they're getting along because when they're not it gets pretty ugly around here!).

Cale has recently started using a deep voice when talking to other people (people other than our immediate family). I don't know if he thinks it's cool or if he's nervous, OR if he started doing it and it just became a habit. It's funny, but I hope it's just a phase that will quickly go away because I much prefer his little boy voice over his deep voice...plus, he'll really have a deep voice soon enough without having to pretend.

There is so much I could say about my Calebug, but for now I think I'll wrap this up and go spend the day loving on him.

Happy Birthday Cale!

more snow

{Excuse the lines in the pics...those are the blinds that I was too lazy to move :)

I'm sitting here on my couch cuddled up in my favorite blanket while taking in the beautiful snow fall. I love slow, leisurely mornings like this. The boys are here with me enjoying their 6th snow day of the year. I think it goes without saying...they are LOVING the weather this year. Any excuse to miss school is alright with them. Today I am just going to sit down and enjoy watching the beauty outside. That and have some quality time with the boys. I see lots of board games being played today. I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

wooohooo

Our neighbor had a friend come plow our little street this morning!!! And I just saw two trucks successfully go down our street without getting stuck. That is huge and I can't tell you how happy it makes me. It's nice to see signs of life again. Things have been so quiet on our street so I was just thrilled to see some "traffic". Oh yes, it is the little things in life that excite me. This is going to be a GREAT day! We're breaking out and going to dinner tonight. Yippee!!!! I can't wait...and neither can the boys.

snow day #3

Today marks day three of being stuck at home. As you can see from the pics, we're going crazy short on entertainment so we've resorted to taking pics of ourselves. Actually to be perfectly honest it's been a good day. The boys got along great and now we're sitting down to watch American Idol. I shoveled for an hour and a half today trying to break us out of here, but you could barely tell anything had been done. It is becoming quite frustrating! The only way people are leaving our street is if they walk to the end of our street and have someone pick them up there.

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to get them there anyway so I'm glad they're out. Darren starts his days off tomorrow night so I'm a happy girl....at least he'll be stuck here with us!

brrrrrr......

Baby it's cold outside!!!! We're having the lowest temps our state has seen in 15 years. We're not used to this kind of cold and I'm ready for it to go away as quickly as it showed up...if I wanted to live with this kind of weather I'd move to Colorado where at least they have pretty mountains to look at and ski down (Oh how I miss snow skiing...haven't been in years.)

The boys have been out of school for two days and it's been cancelled for tomorrow too. That's probably a good thing since we have 18-24 inches covering the length and width of our entire street. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make it to school even if it was in session. We are truly snow bound, but thankfully we have a tractor coming to dig our little street out tomorrow. Can't wait for that! We must get out of this house...and soon.

Since we spent yesterday indoors due to the snow, we decided to do something fun with it...we made snow ice cream. I'm not sure why, but we'd never made it before. It was SO good!!!

After filling our bellies with snow ice cream, we all snuggled up and watched a movie before Darren had to leave for work (he had to have another officer pick him up at the end of our street last night and tonight since ours is impassible at the moment)

This afternoon the boys and I finally ventured out to play in the snow for a while (it was 12 with a wind chill of negative who knows what so we didn't last too long). We made the most of time we were out though....

Coby climbed the drift that is in front of the house

the only pic with all 3 boys (Connor wasn't out very long at all b/c he was having shoe problems so he wasn't in many pics)

Coby loves the snow!

Cale went off the drift and needed a lift back over

Coby is always eager to help

Coby kept trying to make snow angels and Cale kept throwing snow in his face...poor guy!

this is the other side of the house where there were more fun drifts just begging to be played on

Cale sliding down the drift

Coby gets ready to head down the drift (look at those red cheeks!)

diving in

Uh oh, Cale got stuck...but no worries, Coby was quick to the rescue! (the look on his face cracks me up)

Cale is SO lucky to have such a sweet brother who is always there to help him out of a jam!

It took a while but Cale was freed.

Connor was crawling so he wouldn't sink in like Cale did!

Brrrrr.....and they say we've got more snow coming at the beginning of next week. Enough already!!!!!

snow day

We're having a blizzard in our neck of the woods today which is very rare. Our school was cancelled even before anything fell from the sky (which was nice since we all knew it would be cancelled anyway, plus it saved me from having to wake up at the crack of dawn to check school closings). I just wish the wind would die down so we could enjoy the beauty of the snow falling, but alas that doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. The boys and I are hibernating for now, but I told them that they can head out as soon as the wind slows down a bit. I can't wait to go out and play with them! Until then, I've got plenty of house cleaning to do (sheets to be changed, laundry to tend to, mopping, vacuuming, dusting, and bathrooms to be cleaned...yep, I've been slacking and everything needs to be done, but today is the perfect day to do it!)! My reward when I'm done is that I'm going to read a book that I've had for a month and a half and still haven't started to read. I can't wait to snuggle up on the couch with it. What a treat!

While I am getting my work done, the {little} boys are playing cars and Connor is reading. I love days like this (where the kids are happily playing together and I'm able to get lots accomplished)! As for D, he worked all night so he's really hibernating. I jokingly asked Darren if he thought they'd just tell the police not to come in last night as all state and city agent workers (aside from police and highway patrolmen of course) were told not to come in. He got a good laugh out of that, but seriously who needs the police {in the middle of the night} during a blizzard? A girl can dream right? I just wish that every now and then he could be here {awake} to enjoy watching the snow come down with me and the boys. However, I am thankful for his job so I'd better quit whining about now!!!!

Alright, I'm off to clean....