Official!

On the Wednesday of the Bar Exam Jeff's diploma arrived! He is officially a graduate of law with a JD degree :). We went out frame shopping Friday and got it all put together Saturday. It's a pretty big diploma, but it is a JD degree!

I'm sure he'll have an office to hang this in soon enough.

I'm so proud of my husband! He worked so hard for 2 and a half years staying focused and studying and testing to get his law degree. He also put in so many hours of study time for the bar exam. He stayed up on it all and endured the hardships and it is over... for now. We are in the waiting game phase, yet for all of his hard work he did his best and hopefully it will come back with a pass (in May) and we can move forward from there. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication. I love you and knew you could accomplish this!

Great Job Jeff!

Wolf and 8 months!

Last week was our Blue and Gold banquet for cub scouts and Talmage received his Wolf badge. It was great to have him earn it and I don't think he realized he had it all passed off so he was a little surprised. Jeff did a fabulous job working with him and helping him pass things off. The den helped out too and I did a few things with him to finish it up. He has enjoyed participating in cubs :). Jeff was gone for the bar exam so he missed the banquet and award.

I was lucky enough to get the mother's pin.


In other news... Clark is 8 months old :).

He has had a hard week however, filled with Dr visits, double ear infections, breathing trouble and sleeping trouble :(. I just keep waiting for those top teeth to come on through and make it all better, but no luck yet. Even though he's been sick he's been a good sport and still pretty happy.

We had our first play date with his friend who's just 6 weeks younger than him also last week!

Here they are playing ... separately.

And then together :).

It's great when they learn to share when they are young!

Such cute little toe heads :).

On his 8 month mark we were at the Dr. so his official weight is 23 lb 12 oz, however I have yet to measure him so I'm not sure on that stat. He learned how to crawl this last week!!! He also knows when Mommy is in the room, or leaves the room and now that he can crawl he has come into the kitchen, when I'm working with the older kids, to find me. Oh, the life of a mobile child. He's still slow, but I don't think that will last long. His favorite position is standing/walking so that probably won't be far away. He's growing up so much! He also loves people food and would rather eat that to his baby food any time.

We just love our baby and he is growing up too fast!!

High Shoes

A few weeks ago I walked through a department store with the kids and Sandra saw the shoes... and all of the high heels. I think it was love at first sight. She immediately told me that she wanted"high shoes". It was so cute. This conversation has gone on and on since then and at night she couldn't sleep because she was asking for high shoes. She had seen a craft foam project of making flip flops and one day during quiet time she made her own and made them high shoes at that. She used her flip flops as a pattern.



After I looked at them she asked me if we could hot glue all of the little pieces together so they would stay. The materials she used wouldn't work and stay together so I told her no. She was very sad :(

I must say that she was smart to figure out how to do it on her own. They looked pretty cute for not having the right supplies :).

Then she told me she accidentally got marker on her fingers when she was coloring. Well, really she colored her finger nails with marker is what she meant to say. I guess it's time to do the nail polish again. She is such a girly girl!

Clark as been progressing and recently started crawling (but that's a different post). He's such a fun baby :)

Cute boy!

Grant was having fun doing raspberries on his tummy. Clark would laugh for him too :)

On a different note:

Jeff has survived the bar exam. We recently bought him a pillow pet because he really wanted one. He was pretty excited about it too :). It took forever to find the one he wanted - the pink pig. He's cute when he acts silly about stuff like that. One of my friends wasn't sure Jeff was serious about his pillow pet when he mentioned it on facebook so I took a picture to prove how much he likes it...

he really does sleep with it. He didn't even know I took this picture :). While he was gone for the bar exam all of the kids had a turn sleeping with it for him.

He's such a good Daddy :).

Yay for being done with the bar exam... now to find work!

Play Ball!

The weather has been so nice recently that the kids have been playing outside again :). I was watching out the kitchen window and saw all of the kids up on the fence. First Talmage dropped a bucket over the fence. Then the other kids brought over the hose and Talmage draped it over too...

I figured they were trying to get a ball that must have gone over...

I decided to stop them when I saw Grant's leg go up. I figured we shouldn't trespass into our neighbor's yard. Even if he had made it over, I had no idea how he would've gotten back over!

I sent the kids around to the neighbor's house to ask for the ball back. After the ball was retrieved I saw the game start back up...

Grant was batting :)

He got a hit... (the ball is up along the first fence panel) and Talmage is fielding the ball!

Back for another hit... and Talmage is pitching :).

After watching for a little while I couldn't figure out the rules. I went outside and the kids explained that they each either get 5 hits or 5 strikes (swings). After that they switch. If the hitter gets a hit he has to run the "bases" while the pitcher retrieves the ball and runs back to the pitching spot. If the pitcher beats the hitter back he wins, if the runner gets around the bases and back to home first then he wins. Very unique, but also good without having to tag each other... I think these rules work just great :).

They even taught Sandra how to hit the ball. That was really cute (sorry I left the camera inside). I also took a turn or two, but I don't think we have a very good yard for baseball. The ball kept going over the fence. After going to the neighbor's house to get the ball again we switched where we were playing, but it just kept going over the fence and then into the street. Maybe we'll have to find a good park to play in :).

I had a great time playing with my kids. They can come up with some fun games! Next up... Soccer!

Our Valentines!

Our beautiful children are our sweet Valentines! Here is how our day went:

Woke up to Valentines from Mommy and Daddy. Then off to school :)


School parties:

Mhari enjoying a cookie in Sandra's class :)


Sandra with her Valentine box...

and all of her Valentines!

Grant with his Valentines!

Grant giving Clark Eskimo kisses :)

Talmage and his bag of Valentines...

A closer look at the bag... the brown picture is a buffalo and he wrote "I love buffalo" on his bag. Daddy has been talking about having a buffalo ranch... the kids are really excited! Just need to earn some money to make that happen ;).

Speaking of Money -

Grandma and Grandpa sent Valentines with money in it! The kids were so excited about the money! They asked to go to the store so they could use it....

Here is the result of the shopping trip: Talmage - detective set (police stuff), Grant - sword, Sandra and Mhari - Glitter Globes, Clark - ball.

They had a great day and enjoyed all of the fabulous valentines!

Mommy even got a few Valentines from the kids :)

Clark faces

The other night I was holding Clark and Jeff told me that he was making a funny face. Well, in-between the "funny" face he was just a happy little guy :).

It was really hard to get a picture of it... he was making pouty faces by sticking out his bottom lip.

Seriously sooo cute! (sorry about the crazy eyes)

We tried to get a video of him doing it, but the lighting is horrible. It was just so random that he would start doing it and then he would smile.

I'm sure I thought it was so cute because he wasn't actually sad. What a funny baby. He is growing up too fast!

Snow Day... I mean week :)

The snow and ice came Tuesday and the kids got a snow day :). Everything was pretty and white.


It was also FREEZING! I mean, below 0 feels like temps and lots of wind! This was how far baby and I made it outside before we decided it was too cold to be out in the snow!

Daddy hung out with the kids and did a snowball fight in the crazy cold weather!

The kids liked running around playing...

and throwing snow at the fence,

but they got cold pretty fast too.

After everyone came in and had some hot chocolate I figured we were done playing outside. However, later that day Sandra went out again and played in it all by herself. Here is a picture through the window. All the kids also went out again and again!

On Thursday after having 3 snow days off of school the roads were still really icy and the snow still hadn't melted! This is what it usually looks like later in the afternoon the day we get snow, not 3 days later!

Thursday night the snow came again... and didn't stop until Friday around 12 noon. It was a winter wonderland all over again! We were already off of school and the kids only had to go 1 day this week!

Here is Sandra happy to see so much new snow again!

Enough snow to do a good snow angel too!

The front of the house covered, and the car hiding in the new snow! you can't even see the curb... seriously so much snow!

So what do you do when it's been days and days stuck inside and you just got lots of new snow? Go to the local school and sled down the big hill! Jeff took the morning off to go out and play with us. That was handy so he could drive in the snow, and not me! We used a cardboard box and Rubbermaid lids. The box was the best sled.

Sandra cut her own sled path while the other kids got a nice big slick one going with the box.

After a while some people who were also out playing on the hill lent us their shell sled thingy and that worked much better! Too bad the camera batteries died :(. Everyone had turns - even Mommy and Daddy. The snow can be lots of fun... it just helps to have good warm clothes, snow toys, and lots of hot chocolate afterwards! Texas just isn't prepared with all of those things! It's been a fun week. Next week also has wintery weather fore casted... I guess we'll see if we repeat the freezing, icy, snowing weather or not.

Putting

Our friend from church recently had a birthday and Grant was invited to his party. Well, since I'm alone with the kids these days it turned into a family event. It was our first time as a family going to Putt-Putt. The kids had a great time. I must say that their putting skills are not that great, but I guess that's to be expected. I think the funniest parts is that they (Grant especially) look more like hockey players hitting a puck instead of golfers... since they don't let the ball stop. It was quite entertaining :).

It was a beautiful Saturday too! Here are the kids putting.

Talmage


Grant, getting the hockey skills on!

Mhari - also a good hockey player!

Sandra :)

Now all the kids want to do Putt-Putt for their birthdays. I'm glad we were able to go and enjoy the day. Thanks to our friends for letting us all tag along!