Bradley and I had such an awesome week together in New York. We are glad to be home but sad that we couldn't stay longer. We had so much fun getting to see my sister, Jamil, and baby Mikah! I managed to survive driving through Brooklyn and Manhattan. I drove DeeAnne to her doctor appointment Thursday in Manhattan and was fine driving, but I sure was glad when the doctor released her to drive after the appt. and she was able to drive us home. I think she was glad too. We did soooo much while we were there but and I wish we could have done more!

I got really good at riding the subway and figuring out which direction to go and how to get on and off the trains and running to the next train and reading the subway maps. I wouldn't mind riding it some more, but I didn't really care for it. I totally agree with Jamil in that you start to feel like cattle being herded everywhere.

A bunch of pictures are below...I will just type about our days and events...not necesarilly in order and try to fill you in on what all we did. Of course we LOVED holding baby Mikah.

Hanging out in the apartment. They live on the third floor across from Pratt. I loved that anything you needed was within walking distance. Okay, clothing wasn't, but everything else was. I LOVE walking to the grocery store. I can't tell you how many times I have wished I could walk to Walmart here. In fact when we lived in Ferris I used to walk 6 blocks to our small grocery store just because I liked too.

I thought this was a cool picture I took of the subway. One time we were waiting on out train and I saw a guy who looked just like Joe Hays. I didn't want to look like an idiot so I didn't ask him if it was him...I knew he lived in Brooklyn, but my mind said "don't be stupid...millions of people in Brooklyn and you think you see Joe Hays?'' I left a comment on his blog asking if he was on that train at that time and sure enough it was him!!! Crazy. So, I thought that meant I should go visit them. Bradley and I walked over to their apartment the next morning. I am excited that they are close to DeeAnne and Jamil! I think Ira and Sophia are precious! But, I am partial to this other little guy in Brooklyn :)
Bradley and I were chased by a wild pack of wolves in central park! I was somehow able to grab the camera, run backwards and snap this shot of Bradley making his get away. Please, nevermind the fact that it was snowing this day :)
Bradley rock climbing in central park. He made it all the way to the top. On his way down he really scared me. He made it though with no hurts. Oh, did I mention that the Museam of natural history was right across the street from central park? We went and enjoyed the planetarium, ocean exhibit, wild animal exhibit :) ....
Jamil's mom lives on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. We went and stayed the night with her and Bradley enjoyed a day at the beach. He walked up to me with a small Jelly fish in his hand and asked "what is this? It's all squishy." I am so glad it didn't sting him!
Bradley took this cool picture below. This was at a fair at LBI. Bradley rode some rides and won a stuffed dog at the frog hop game.

Our afternoon at Prospect park. Jamil stopped at the sporting goods store and bought a football and ball and bat to play with. We had a great time enjoying the picnic of 2007. I believe Jamil will be at this same park next weekend for THE Birthday of 2007 :) Bradley and I went to Toys R US at times square! It was AWESOME!!! There was a ferris wheel inside the store. It was three stories and this is the lego section Bradley is in front of. The Statue of liberty built with legos!!! This toy store was incredible...go to it when in New York! I believe it put FAO Swartz out of the running for best toy store. Me on the lego car of the ferris wheel in Toys R Us.
Lola with baby Mikah. I babysat this night so DeeAnne and Jamil could have a date night. I had no idea Lola was a pit bull until halfway through our visit. It's a good thing because I would have freaked if I had known that earlier...I always hear such bad things about them with children on the Dallas news. I'm still not too sure about them, but Lola is a pretty good dog...unless she's eating my salad while I change Mikahs diaper!!!!!! Cutie Mikah!

And of course we had to leave my Jake behind in the care of Mimi and Grandpa. We missed him soooooo much....in fact my mom and dad picked us up from the airport and took us straight to eat dinner. I was showing mom and dad some pictures and looked up and saw Jake in Bradley's lap. I think he really missed his older brother!

Bradley's New Hobby

This weekend when Bradley stayed with his Nana, he somehow managed to come home with her really nice camera. She had bought a new one because her flash quit popping up automatically. It still works, you just have to pull it up manually. Randy and I struggled a little with the fact that an 8 year old has such a nice camera, but Bradley is a very responsible kid and we know he will take care of it. I am going to buy him a simple notebook and he can use his allowance to develope the pictures he really likes, so he can put them in the notebook. Then, he can journal about the pictures. Bradley is so creative and I can't wait to see some of the pictures/stories/ideas he comes up with. We are hoping Uncle Jamil can give him some simple pointers when we see him next week in New York :)

Anyway, I am housesitting again for my parents while they are visiting my sweet Mikah right now. I took the boys on a bike trail at Parr park this morning and roller bladed. We stopped to take a rest by the pond and I let Bradley get out his camera and photgraph away. I love nature and I want the boys to really appreciate God's creation. Bradley took this picture of me and Jake and I didn't even know it. I thought it was really good.

I also got to go to Texarkana this weekend and see my good friend Kelley. That's when Bradley stayed with Nana...these were some of Jake's friends from when we lived in Atlanta. Kelley is an awesome cook and taught me a new recipe while there. She's one of those people who can just create and throw food together and make an incredible meal. We had a good time with our friends.
Cade, Jake, and Clay

Jake singing to Kyndal

MIKAH

My sister had her baby July 26th!!! Isn't my nephew precious!!! He weighed in at 7 lb 14 oz at birth, but a couple of days later left the hospital weighing in at 9 something pounds!! They think the scale was broken in the delivery room. Bradley and I get to leave for New York to see them the 13th. We can not wait!!!!! We will be busy until then though. Tonight I drove Bradley to his Nana's, where he will stay until Saturday. Jake and I leave in the morning to go to Texarkana to see my friend Kelley and her three kiddos (pictures of that later). Then Sunday I will teach my toddlers and then we will take off to Grapevine to house sit and the boys will attend yet another VBS while there :)

Then we come home the 9th and then Bradley and I leave the 13th for New York to see this cute little guy below and his mom and dad. Which, I've been informed that my brother in law will be giving me a quick New York driving lesson upon my arrival
so that I can drive my sister to the doctor in Manhattan that Wednesday. Hee hee....that sounds fun!



LOOK! MIKAH IS ALREADY BLOWING KISSES TO HIS FAVORITE AUNT!!!!

3 Down... 1 To Go

Well the boys just finished their third VBS of the summer! Bradley broke out with the chicken pox and had to miss the last two days of our Crosspoints VBS, so I told him he could go with some friends to Ridgecrest's VBS. After that one we got a flyer to attend Mineral Heights so I said WHY NOT?!!! This last church has been the smallest church, but the VBS was awesome! It was Avalanche Ranch and the boys had a great time. Actually, Jake was the only 5 year old to show up, so they combined him with the preschool class. Every night the kids would yell YEE HAW when the director said the Bible truth for the day. On the last night they had a crazy hair contest and this is how we did the boys hair.

And guess what??? They won the crazy hair contest and these horses were their prize.

Now I am house sitting for my parents and the boys will go to a VBS here. They love it! And so do I. I never thought VBS hopping could be so fun!

PaPa's room

Well, insted of starting our first day at Disney, we are sending Randy out to California to meet up with Deborah, his sister, and his brother Gary. We are sad but somewhat relieved to say that PaPa passed away Monday night. He fought a LONG brave battle against cancer and the Lord finally took him home. Bradley had come home from church one night with these materials to make what he thought his room would look like in Heaven. He decided instead to make what he thought Papa's room would look like, since he knew Papa was very sick.

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:2

I know that John is loving his new room in Heaven that was made just for him, and I'm sure it is way more beautifull than polished stones and a yellow plate. We miss him greatly but we know he is finally home and without pain.

My house has been infected!!!

Or should I say chicken pox??!!! Bradley broke out yesterday. He is covered all over his face down to his tummy. Now he is running a fever. The doctor said his was a mild case since he was vacinated at one year (I would hate to see a regular case). She thinks he will clear up in time to go on our Disney trip. I'm not convinced he will though. We will see, I guess it's good we bought insurance for the trip!!! We may be canceling!

We made it through VBS this week. Bradley had to miss last night and the closing celebration tonight. I taught in Jake's class with the 2, 3, and 4 year olds. Our computers have been invaded with viruses. I will take this computer in tomorrow to be worked on. It will take 5 to 7 business days to fix! Yikes. bye bye fellow bloggers! See you in a couple of weeks!

101 Uses For Rope!

Oh My these boys!!! I have seen them playing with this rope for days now. I'm glad they are using their imaginations though.

The trap for lizards they designed...I don't think they ever caught one! The left end of the rope is tied to a fallen tree limb.

And this is what is on the right side of the rope...a cereal box. Bradley tied Randy's Mag light to the top of the box to give it some weight so it would fall faster onto the lizard. I don't think the flashlight got to stay on the box once Randy saw it :)

And this is what they called their "roller coaster" ride. I put a stop to this one quickley since they have broken this rocking chair once already! Jake sure lucked out on this ride. Bradley did all the pulling....oh these boys...never a dull moment!

I'm off to bed soon. We had a double header tonight. Came back from being down 7-0 in the first game to win it 12-11...and won the second game 7-6....no thanks to my two strike outs!!!

We were in Grapevine this past week holding the fort (or should I say ZOO) down while my parents were away. While there we celebrated Jake's 5th Birthday! A couple of different celebrations... the first with my mom and dad. Then On Thursday we went to a water park in Hurst with our friends the McGraws. They just live down the street from us and drove all the way to Hurst to enjoy the day with us and have hamburgers for dinner.
I've managed to get a pair of those FIT FLOPS from Bath and Body works. After our mobile Sunday our church had at the park in pouring down rain, I managed to ruin my summer sandals. I noticed the Fit Flops in Bath and Body Works a while back and they looked rather comfy and they are supposed to help firm your backside up. So, I went and bought myself a pair. Well, I wore them this week in Grapevine and a lot of people asked me where I got them and some strangers even asked to try them on. I had no idea they were such a hot item. Well, while staying at my moms, my sisters cat Vern (who scratched the bajeebers out of my arm on the plain ride home from New York) decided he would use my new Fit Flops for a scratching post!!! I was able to get another pair when we returned home and the lady said that Greenville was a testing spot for selling these shoes! They are sold out in the UK and online, but they are here in Greenville! Wow go figure....anyway looks like a possible ebay situation for me :) !!!

Another thing going on that i haven't said anything about is Softball. Some months ago I had connected with an old friend (Wade Floyd) and he had asked if I was playing any sports, mainly softball. When I said no he asked why not. I got to thinking and realized hey my kids are old enough to sit in the dugout and not need constant supervision...I ought to play. So I am playing with a church here in town and MAN AM I TERRIBLE!!! It's been a lot of fun, but I'm no player like I used to be...we are however 4-2 for the season so that's good! Hopefully they will ask me back next year to play again...I am getting a little better! :)

We got our truck load of sand delivered today...that's the last picture...we are leveling for the pool to go up. We had to wait this long to get sand because the rain has soaked the sand so much they haven't been able to deliver it until today! But now we have it and the boys are extatic!!!

I'M FIVE!!!

WATER PARK


JAKE (in the far left corner), DANIEL, BRADLEY, LUKE, and EVAN ENJOYING HAMBURGERS!

THE BEST TOY EVER!!! A TRUCK LOAD OF DIRT!!!

Sorry no pictures...this will be more an informative post i guess. Let's start with today....it the last day of school!!!! Yipee!!! and that means for Randy, the last day of being a lion. What's that you say??? No more Greenville Lions???

That's right people! Randy has accepted a job in a town 15 minutes away from our house. We are now going to be The Lone Oak Buffaloes. Cool thing is they are red and black so I don't have to buy new clothes for next year. We will still live in our house and Bradley will still go to Lamar and Jake will go the the Christian school next year. Randy really likes the head coach out in Lone oak and has really enjoyed working with him, and it's a smaller school with really awesome kids! In fact people in Greenville pay for their kids to attend the Lone Oak school district. So, Randy is going to coach in Lone Oak next year and we are really excited about it.

Really that's the biggest news we have. Other than that let's see. We will go to Disney World this summer. Originally I thought we were going to California because our friends we're going with kept saying Disney Land and I'm such a literal person that I assumed we were going to California. But after all the planning I realized we were going to Florida HA! I now have everyone corrected and they are all saying Disney World just to appease me! So, I won't tell you when our trip is for security reasons I guess, but it will be HOT when we go.

Actually we have been practicing with the boys a lot lately for our trip. We will be able to go to the parks after hours and some nights the parks are open until 2 am. I don't for see us staying that late, but we will try to play until midnight. So, we have been letting the boys stay up late then practice taking a nap in the late afternoon. We have also been practicing sleeping in in the mornings! We still have a while to get all this down, but we will get it. I've also taken Bradley walking two miles with me at a good pace to be ready for all the walking we will do! Ha! It's so funny to be able to say to your kids... "take a nap so we can practice for Disney....keep walking fast so we can practice for Disney...Sleep till 8:30 so we can practice for Disney..."We'll see how excited the kids are about going after we practice for the next oh some.....wait I can't reveal our trip dates.

The jewelry business has been exciting. One of mom's bracelet is being published in a beading magazine this summer...it has 90,000 in circulation! So, we met with some marketing people and we are changing our name and they with give our website a "facelift" and they designed a logo for us. I don't think we are ready to reveal the new name yet, but soon. Mom and I are going to be sellig kits for people who want to make their own piece of jewelry but don't have easy access to the materials. Mom and I are still having fun with this. So is Bradley's teacher...she has loved all the jewelry she's gotten this year. I made her an s-link dangle bracelet for her end of the year gift. Her daughter serves in Iraq and came home for spring break and came to her classroom dressed up for the kids. So, I dangle some red, white, and blue lampwork beads from it. Mrs. Kelley loves jewelry, and we love Mrs. Kelley! She has been an awesome teacher! I don't know if you can get much better of a teacher than her. And no, she doesn't read my blog, I just have to brag on her that much because she is that great of a teacher.

Well, nothing much else to report. Hope you all have relaxing and fun summer plans!!! Summer is such a big deal to us because Randy is home for the full month of June and half of July. So, we really get some great family time together. So, we are looking forward to the next month and a half!

New York

I don't know what is going on...all the picture's showed up when I was previewing and editing!!! I will keep messing with it and try to get the rest of the pictures to come up like they are supposed too!!!!!UGHHHHHHH
I love this picture...I took it in Times Square. I believe that is Obama and Hillary's faces in the middle screen. And then of course the Bush's on the right and Guiliani (sp?) on the left. I just love it because New York is such an economic and governmental power. It's amazing to see all the ships in the harbor and all the lots of train cars with shipments in them!

For those of you who haven't been to New York....there are way more buildings than you would ever be able to imagine. I love this church that towered with some of the buildings...it was spectacular. Sorry it's not a better picture. We were riding in the car.

The sea of yellow. I felt out of place in DeeAnne and Jamil's car with all the taxis about. I also believe I learned the appropriate (and not so appropriate) times to yell at stupid pedestrians and drivers on our trip to Manhattan.

I'm really happy these cops have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon. No really I am...it means everything is flowing smoothly in the city.

Surprise!!!

These are all coming out in the wrong order...oh well! So, big weekend! I hopped on a plane friday morning all by myself and headed out to New Jersey. Mom was supposed to come, but her broken foot didn't allow her to make the trip :( The reason for our trip was to surprise my sister at her surprise baby shower!!! Her sister-in-law hosted the shower at her house in Short Hills NJ. It was so much fun.

I stayed friday night with DeeAnne's MIL and FIL. They live in Long Beach NJ. All beautiful places, but I was dying to get to New York and see DeeAnne's place. I had a good time friday night and then Saturday morning we drove out to short hills and started getting ready for the guests. Can yall believe I drove to the train station in NJ all by myself to pick up guests??? It was a really easy drive so don't be too impressed :)

Then after all the guest arrived, Jamil drove up with DeeAnne and we surprised her with a fabulous baby shower!!! It was soooo much fun and soooo well put together.
Here is DeeAnne's reaction when she saw her sister (ME) !!!! (she doesn't even look pregnant in the picture!)

The beautifull table where all the food went.

Some of DeeAnne's friends!

 

The proud daddy to be!!!!

 

More pictures...DeeAnne had lots of help opening preasents from her niece. She was sooo cute.

The little girl on the right is DeeAnne's niece. She and her friend are enjoying some yummy cake. I think DeeAnne's niece had quite a bit of cake...she managed to find a few extra pieces lying around at different tables :)

A picture of the cake before everyone ate it.......YUM!

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Silver trees in Central Park

For all you Law and Order fans! The infamous court steps.

DeeAnne and Jamil's cat, Vern, who made the plane ride home with me! He is such a sweet cat. In fact too sweet to keep with a baby on the way. He might try to cuddle with baby M, so he has a new home in Texas with my mom. I visited him today and he was lounging on his back in his comfy bed...Yep, I think he's gonna love Texas.

Me and DeeAnne! And Lola....And Vern....And Ginger's hiney....hee hee!

Now is that one good looking kid or what???

Last week Bradley came home from school and pulled a small wadded up piece of paper out of his pocket and began apologizing to me. He said, "I'm really sorry mom. I tried my hardest and I just couldn't pass the test. She said I failed it. I'm so sorry mom." I looked at the piece of paper and chuckled. It was from the school nurse saying that Bradley failed his eye exam. Bradley was standing there really upset waiting to see what my reaction would be...he never fails anything. I told him it was okay and said all it meant was that he would need to see an eye doctor.

After getting off the phone with the eye doctor, I went in the kitchen to find Bradley crying at the table. He said he didn't want glasses because all the kids would laugh at him and make fun of him. After a good little talk, I had him feeling better and told him he didn't even have to worry about it until next week anyway.

So today he went to the eye doctor and man he is blind!!! I don't know how we didn't have any problems at school or signs elsewhere! So we drove to Mesquite to LensCrafters and he got glasses in 1 hour! Funny thing is that after all the pouting and crying last week, Bradley LOVES his glasses. He couldn't believe how good he could see. And while enjoying a nice ice cream cone and CHICK A FLAY (Jake's pronunciation) he siad, "I don't care anymore if the kids laugh at me. I'll just be like so what. I can see now." He's soooo cute!