Cheerio Face

Lorna loves Cheerios :).  The other day while she was eating she got one stuck on her cheek.  It was just too cute not to take pictures of!

Love it!

We love our little Lorna bug.  

5 year old Punkin!

Our Punkin had her birthday earlier in the month.  She is now a big 5 year old!  She was so excited for her birthday.  It was on a Sunday this year and Jeff had a meeting after church so we celebrated in the morning (which worked out really well with 1 o'clock church).  

Here she is ready to open presents.

Opening gifts.  This was a cute snail squishy glow toy.

A new shirt from Grandma Whitmer

Necklace and bracelet from Mommy and Daddy

Punkin with all of her presents

Punkin blowing out the candles on her brownie cake.  We made brownie sundaes.  They were yummy!

It's amazing how fast the kids grow up.  Punkin will get to start Kindergarten in the fall and she is so excited that she asks almost every day if she gets to go to school tomorrow.  Understanding how far away August is is tough for a little girl.  She is a strong willed, smart, silly, loving girl!  Happy Birthday Mhari!

Christmas spirit

We had put off decorating for Christmas because we were moving.  Well, the move has gotten pushed back due to some foundation issues.  We will see if we end up with the house or not.  Until then, we are celebrating Christmas in our house.  

We got out all the decorations and the kids had fun in the santa hats :)

Mhari and Clark

Jeff and the boys working on a strand of lights.

Decorating the tree.  

Jeff doing the star

All finished.  It isn't that big and has lots of kid flair.  I'm glad the kids love putting up all of their homemade ornaments ;)

Oh, and let's not for get our little love bug.  She didn't help that night, but she's had fun finding the tree as she crawls all over.  She can reach the ones on the lowest branch too.  I have rearranged so there are no breakables down that low!

We are looking forward to having some time to enjoy as a family this holiday season.  

Forts!

The kids love playing outside.  It has been such a mild winter that they have really enjoyed the freedom to play outside.  We don't have a lot of kid friendly toys, but they find plenty of stuff to play with :)

Recently when I went out I found that the kids had been creating forts.  It was fun to see what they had created.  

Grant inside his fort.  He used lots of the folding chairs and even had a door to go in and out.  

Mhari had to show off her muscles.  Not bad Punkin, not bad ;).

Talmage and the girls used a tarp to create their fort.  It looked more like a leaning teepee.  

The inside of the fort

Clark likes his picture taken too... even though he's not smiling ;)

Chica was cooking.  Wonder what was on the menu.

Mommy and Lorna.  Always fun to get a picture with my baby.  It is fun to have the girls wear the same dress over the years.  I made this with the bandanna when Sandra was a baby.  

You never know what you will find when you go outside.  Usually lots of fun and stuff not where it belongs.  Why clean it up if you are going to use it, right?

Fort Worth Rodeo

A couple of weeks ago we went to the rodeo down at the stockyards with some friends from church.  They have bull riding, calf roping, barrel racing and even some stuff for the kids.  It was a fun time and we even got to meet one of the bull riders ;). 

Here are the girls and Clark with Spiderman - the bull rider.  

Calf roping

They races for the kids.  The older ones get to chase a calf and get the tag off it's back.  Here are the boys in the blue and white shirts running after it. 

The younger group chase a sheep.  Jeff went down to help Clark.  It was a mass of crazy running.

Chica got pretty close and the boys almost had the calf.  Next time I hope they get it ;)

The girls down in the arena

Clark hanging out with Brother Curtis pointing out all of the cool stuff to see. Clark even hung out on his lap. It was so cute!

Spiderman's turn to ride the bull.  He didn't last the 8 seconds this time, but I guess the week before he won.  

It was a great night and the kids are really looking forward to going back.  I'm sad it took us this long living in Texas to actually make it out to a rodeo.

Bath time

Lorna is big enough to sit up for baths.  I figured it was time to combine the babies and make bath time funner.  Clark loves the company and Lorna loves baths so it works out great.  It's crazy how long it feels since I've had two in the bath together.  Before I know it they will be all grown up and showering without help.  

Babies are so great :)

Thanksgiving Break

Out here in Texas the kids get a whole week off for Thanksgiving.  It is nice to hang out and not have to get out the door early.  The kids spent their time playing and loved everyday.  We got together with some friends the first couple of days so that was great too.  Here are just a few pictures of what the kids do to keep themselves busy.

Clark feeding his baby doll.  I just love how good Clark is with Lorna.  He loves babies ;)

Lorna loves to be up!  She would prefer moving, but the saucer works too

The kids had fun making books:

Mhari and Clark

Sandra

Grant

Oh, and there was lots of reading to be done.  Talmage spent a lot of time with his books.

We did a few house projects since we are trying to sell our home.  We also had several showings.  Nothing has become official but it was very exciting to have a lot of interest! 
Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Moving...

Our family has doubled (by children) since we have moved to our home in Texas.  It doesn't seem that long ago, yet over 6 years has gone by.  Jeff is in a new job market and so our desire to be more accessible throughout the DFW area is more important.  We have been house hunting for over a year, but have yet to find something that was right.  One of our big requirements in a home is large bedrooms.  We have three boys and three girls and we want them to share their rooms.  It's not an easy task to fit three kids per room, with beds, dressers, and misc stuff.  Finding one extra room that is large isn't usually a problem, but two large bedroom as well as a master is very tricky indeed.  The other important factors were a large enough dining area for our whole family as well as large living areas to hang out together in.  Needless to say we really don't want to feel cramped.  

Jeff's coworker had told him about Mansfield, a town south of Arlington centrally located in DFW.  We finally took a look online and found lots of different home options in a decent price range.  We took a trip out on a Saturday, met up with the realtor and looked at houses.  We found one that was really interesting to us.  It is on a could-a-sac and right by Joe Pool Lake.  We want space for the kids outside, yet not necessarily a large yard that we have to maintain (Jeff has allergies so mowing is a pain for him).  The best part about this house is the room sizes!  Seriously the smallest room is 13X14!  It is a 5 bedroom house so that also gives us lots of room to enjoy.  The other pluses that we get to enjoy are a library (previously a media type room), office, craft/sewing room, and extra guest room!

We will be closing on the house in mid December and will be moved in before Christmas.  It's going to be a busy holiday season.  Now to get our house cleaned out, packed up, and ready to move.  Oh, and let's not forget trying to sell or rent the one we are in now.  Crazy, busy times are ahead of us!

Here are a few pictures of the home that we got off the listing :)

The pretty garage doors and main front of the house.  

Front porch and landscaping

looking down onto the family room and kitchen nook area

The best front view we could find... taken from Bing.

The kitchen

The backyard

More of the front landscaping

Yay for big changes!  We are ready to have some more space, but will miss our friends on the west side of Forth Worth!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween has come and gone for another year.  We reused some of our old costumes and bought a few.  It was very low stress for me which was nice :).  We joined a friends trunk or treat on Saturday for tons of candy.  Clark really got into the trick or treat part of the night.  Grandma and Grandpa were in town so it was fun to have extra hands for the night too!  Here are all of the kiddos!

Monkey big dog!

Grant and Tamage as ninjas.  Grant is white, or ice ninja, and Talmage is red, or fire dragon.  So fun to be boys!

The family walking around.

Chica mouse.  What a poser!

Punkin leopard.  So silly

Lorna love bug!  So cute!!!

After the trunk or treat we drove over to a nearby campground where they do a forest of fear.  Basically trick or treating to the campsites.  They decorate really cool and have fun trying to scare the people.  We sat in the back of the truck and drove through really slowly.  There were some good scares too, poor Clark, and Grandma :).  We will probably make this a new tradition!

Since we had plenty of candy we went out to the Stockyards on Halloween.  We did a little bit of trick or treating and also a hay ride!

Here are the kids all dressed up again!

Jeff and I dressed up as Tough Mudder survivors.  It was fun to get to dress up as something cool ;)

It was a neat atmosphere with tons of stuff going on :)

Kayla joined us on our hayride ;).  She was working and passing out candy for the family store.  Then she ran out ;).  She is dressed as a cow!

Our side of the hayride 

It was a fun Halloween with some fun new traditions.  Now we have way too much candy... oh the candy :). Did I mention Clark is in love with his candy?  Oh, he is!  He sleeps with his bucket and his candy are his new toys.  It's a good thing he can't open up all of the candy wrappers!!