Happy Birthday to my brother!!!

Today is my only brother, Jeffry's, #31st birthday! I wanted Mom to send me a bunch of funny old pictures but she must have forgotten! I don't have any really good old pictures of him since that was before the days of digital camera's! We are going to Mom's tonight and getting with Jeff and his family for a "Sunday dinner" meal and chocolate Birthday cake! Yummy! Happy Birthday Jeff, hope you are having a great day so far! See you tonight...

Do you know where your children are?

Boy do I feel like a terrible Mother after this morning!!! As usual, we were hurriedly trying to get to Sunday School on time. Jonathan jumped out and grabbed Peyton, I jumped out and grabed Paige and told Parker to "Get out now!" I turned around to hand Jonathan the diaper bag and said I would go park the vehicle! (Jonathan leads the singing in Sunday School preliminaries and had to pick out a couple of songs!) I jumped back in the vehicle, drove out to our usual spot, put the car in park, got out and immediately locked the door! I walked quickly across the parking lot as I knew it was close to time to start! I went in and sat down in our usual row, saw Paige and Peyton playing and assumed Parker was on the other side of Grandma! I didn't see his feet and said to Jonathan, "Where's Parker?" His reply was, "I don't know, he didn't come in with me!" This is where I immediately panicked!!! (I knew he we hadn't left him at home because we had been practicing his memory verse on the way to church!) I threw Peyton down, grabbed the keys and tried not to run out of the sanctuary! As I got to the door to go outside, I could see our vehicle! Right at that time, the passanger door in the back came flying open and out jumped Parker!!!!!!!!!! He slammed the door, put his head down and came marching across the parking lot! I ran out apologizing all over myself! He was in tears and said, "Mom, you forgot me and I couldn't get out! Those stupid locks don't work and I had to push this red button! The horn was honking at me too!" We finally made it into church and Jonathan was now leading the singing! He looks at me as to ask, "Where was he?" I mouthed the words, "He was in the car" and he looked a bit disgusted, but kept right on singing! People all around us figured out what I had done and were dying laughing! Boy did I feel terrible! (Parker wasn't in the car more than a minute or two but still... That is how people smother their kids by leaving them in the hot car in the summer!) Jonathan told Parker he better speak up from now on and let us know he is there! Mary Jane says I better start doing head checks.! I guess I am like the old woman who lived in a shoe, I have so many kids, I don't know what to do!!!

Tonight when we were getting the kids out, I said to Parker once again, "Get out!" I stood there, made sure he got out and held his hand all the way inside the church! Bet this doesn't happen again! I will think of it every time I go into church now, and I would imagine everyone else will be doing a head count for me!!!

Our Black Friday...

It started way too early when Jonathan woke me up at 3:30am to say he was heading forThey had some electronic gadgets he was after and they were opening at 4am! He woke up at 2:30am and had been on his laptop checking out all the deals! (Remember, I had worked all night on Wednesday night and had been up for two days straight with the exception of a short nap on Thursday am!) He was also going to head to Circuit City to try and get some more gadgets! I wished him the best of luck and quickly went back to sleep!!! A little before 6am, I was awakened again by my dear husband, to tell me he was home! He got what he wanted at Kohl's but they were gone by the time he left the store! He didn't get a thing at after standing outside in a line about a half mile from the store! (Some people got to that store at Midnight and camped out, literally!) I got up and talked to Jonathan who was completely wound up for this time of day! At 6:30am, he left again and this time, headed to They were to open at 7am! I went back to bed again and quickly went to sleep! Once again, I was awakened by my wonderful husband of eleven years, telling me he was home from town again but wanted to meet my Mom and family for breakfast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told him to "Get out of here then!" (In a pleasant way of course, I had the twins in bed with me by now and they were beginning to stir!)




Jonathan got home from his breakfast out and we were all still in bed! He kicked back in his recliner for what he hoped was going to be a good nap! He instantly fell asleep and I kid you not, exactly 5 minutes later, the phone rang!! It was my Mom who he had just left!!! She was wanting to know when I wanted to go shopping! The phone woke all of us up and here we came to see Daddy! HA!!!!!



Around noon, we were finally ready to hit the mall and were there about 3 hours fighting the kids! Fun times for sure! Parker and Peyton sat on Santa's lap but Paige would have no part of him! We ran into several people we knew and had a pretty successful shopping day!


We girls went back to the mall last night for some deals we had seen earlier in the day! The crowds were gone and the shelves were pretty bare! The "door buster" deals were gone and some things weren't even on sale at all! That made everyone really glad they had gotten up and out so early!

My mom and aunt had gotten up and were in line at at 4:30am, my Uncle Garry was at at the same time! They all got what they went after and were feeling good about their black Friday shopping experiences!

Today is my cousin, Kylie's, Sweet 16th birthday so that promises us a little family party, some cleaning around the house here as they are coming over to see us after lunch, and then a little more shopping!!!

Hope you all are having as much fun this weekend as we are being together as a family!


Have a great weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours...

Hope everyone has a wonderful day with your families and that you get plenty to eat! We are going to my mom's for dinner early this afternoon! (I just worked a 12 hr night shift and have now been up 24hrs!) Time for a quick ciesta!!! We have family in from Kansas and they will be here all weekend, so I doubt I take much time to blog! Have a great weekend and shop till you drop! (Or get your tree up, or do whatever you normally do on this particular weekend!)
I decided not to list everything I am thankful for as some others have already done. My list would basically be the same as theirs so I will just say...

So true...

Grandma Brown's Custard...

I am sure all of you have family traditions that have been passed on for years and years! One of ours is having home-made custard at Thanksgiving and Christmas! My Grandma Brown made custard every year and it was always something we looked forward to drinking when we would go to Kansas. Jeff and I would drink big glasses of it and it seemed to make Grandma proud that we loved her special drink so much. Well, Grandma has been gone now for 4 1/2 years and our tradition continues! (My mom thinks the store bought egg nog tastes really "close" to Grandma's custard but I say "No way!!!") So, I decided that I wanted some of Grandma's custard bad enough this year that I helped make some on Sunday afternoon! It is very simple to make, however, you have to stand at the stove and stir it in a double broiler for 1 1/2 -2 hours!! Ugh! (I decided to make the most of my stirring time and study my play part on Sunday afternoon!) I told Mom that some traditions do change over the years but I don't want to forget all of our family traditions. I want my kids to grow up enjoying some of the same traditions that I did when I was a kid!

Tomorrow, I am making salty chex mix! Another tradition... (My Grandpa Brown would make that for me every year!) Only he would just throw in some of "this and that" and never measured his ingredients! He would also add some ingredients that weren't even listed! Things such as "hot sauce!"

I have many great memories of holiday traditions and I am sure you do too! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and make many wonderful memories!

Until next time...

Cheers!!!

And the winner is...

Jonathan Walden!!!!!!! Tonight we stood in the cold air and watched the musical fireworks at our local mall! Afterwards, we decided to fight the crowds and hit the mall. Most of the stores were having huge sales to kick officially kick off the Christmas season. We spent a fair amount of money in Hallmark and were told to take our receipt to the information desk and they would give us a $10.00 gift certificate to the mall. Jonathan went to get his certificate and they told him to go ahead and open it right then to see if he had $10.00 in the envelope or if there was $100.00!! Would you believe he was the winner and had two $50.00 gift certificates in his envelope!!!! How cool is that!? The radio station that had sponsored the fireworks were broadcasting live inside the mall and they interviewed Jonathan and he got to say about 2-3 words on the air!! (I am married to quite the celebrity, huh!? HA!) Anyway, we decided to do a little more Christmas shopping after that and still have money left to shop some more sometime! (Now Jonathan is glad I had him spend so much money in Hallmark!!!)

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

This weekend is going to be packed with many things to go! First of all, today we are going to take our donations to the drop off place here in town for...

This is a first for us this year and we have really enjoyed doing it. We had our Junior Church help participate and ended up having 12 shoe boxes to donate. The kids brought in a few items from home and we let them choose in which box they wanted to place their items. We talked to them about the kids who will be receiving these Christmas boxes. (Parker really enjoyed going to Target and picking out toys for a little boy who lives far, far away.) We hope to do this again next year and get even more boxes to donate! Tonight we are planning on going to see the Christmas fireworks here in town. This is a huge event in our community and the town is just crazy with people. They set the fireworks off to music and then Santa comes to town at the end! (Don't even think of going to the mall afterwards!)

Tomorrow Jonathan plans to put up our outside Christmas lights which means climbing up a ladder and walking all over our roof! (I will be at work so he has some friends coming over to help babysit and put up lights with him!)

However, tomorrow afternoon is probably going to be our biggest event of the weekend! Buddy will be saying his goodbyes to us and going to his new home. We are selling him, for my aunt, to a friend that works with Jonathan! He is going to be a Christmas present for someone in her family! (He will have three teenage girls to love him there! He will probably be so much happier sitting on their laps instead of having to run and hide under the coffee table when he sees my three toddlers!) Parker will have a hard time saying goodbye I am sure. We talked to him about it last night and he was trying to be so brave and not cry! However, I couldn't take and and just let the tears roll!!! We are going to have to make it up to him since we are taking his puppy/birthday present away!!! Sunday afternoon promises another play practice at church. (A nap is highly doubtful since Jonathan and I haven't even began to learn any of our lines!) We just started last Sunday though!

Next week will be busy as well as I work every day until Thanksgiving! I will be thankful to not be working the entire Thanksgiving weekend though!! We have family coming to town as I am sure most of you do as well! Postings may be scarce but don't worry, I will return and keep you updated on Buddy's final goodbye, what the twins have torn up, Jonathan's CPAP fitting, etc!!

Until then...

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Near the end of Parker's bedtime prayer tonight, he said this! "and Jesus, help me to get lots of presents from Santa!" As Jonathan and I chuckled out loud, Jonathan said, "Do you think Jesus has some connections with Santa?" Parker said, "Yes, they both live up in the sky!" :)

"All I want for Christmas is..."

"This, and this, and this, and this, and this..." That is what Parker and Peyton were saying tonight as they were sitting on Daddy's lap going through the Christmas catalog! I thought they were so cute that I grabbed my camera and snapped their picture!

(If you are wondering, yes, Peyton has a fat upper lip! He fell off the bed today and bloodied his nose and got a fat lip out of the ordeal! Of course, I am thinking of scheduling Christmas pictures very soon too!)

I think he fell onto a toy airplane! I am not sure, but I think a wing might have gotten up that left side of his nose! Poor kid! He plays SO rough!

Happy Veteran's Day to all our veteran's!

My Grandpa Brown
Grandpa Brown in South America
My Grandpa Thompson

(Jonathan's Dad served in the Army for 30+ years but I don't have a picture of him in his uniform!)

To all our veteran's, past and present, "Thanks so much for all you do or have done for our country so that we might have freedom!"
We love you all!

Always into trouble...

Take a look at what little Miss Paige has been up to recently around here!!! One day last week, Parker came running and told me that Paige had just dumped a brand new, large box of Fruit Loops all over my family room carpet and coffee table! I found her sitting in it and helping herself to several bites! (There must have been over 2000 pieces in that box too!)

Then, on Thursday, I was talking on the phone to my mom and thought the twins were being so good! (I should've known better...) They were coloring away and being quiet for a change! Much to my surprise, I looked at my family room carpet and Paige had colored a huge area with a red crayon... I about died! I have tried Resolve and Spot Shot and now it is a pinkish-orange color! (I still need to try "mean green" that a friend recommended!)

Later that same day, while I was fixing supper, she and Peyton were sitting at the bar coloring and I thought all was well... (Once again, I should've known better!) Paige had gotten down from the barstool and was coloring on my white ceramic tile with a purple crayon!

So...the crayons are on top of the refrigerator and I don't know if she will ever get to try out her artistic abilities again!
Are all girls like this??? Thank goodness for boys who go outside and play ball!!! (Although I do recall when Parker was little, he wrote all over the upstairs wall with an ink pen and drew down the entire stairway wall on his way down!) Guess it is just kids in general!

I know...this too shall pass!!! But when?????????

"Breathe Honey!"

Jonathan went to our hospital on Monday night to have a sleep study done! (I have been bugging him for months now to do this!) He was looking forward to a good nights sleep "alone!" The technician got him all wired up just a little before 11pm and then it was night-night Jonathan!

He woke Jonathan up a little after 5am to unhook all the wires and Jonathan asked him how he did! Jonathan said, "So...was it obvious? Did I stop breathing?" The technician not wanting to violate any HIPPA laws told him, "Yes" but wouldn't elaborate!

Yesterday afternoon, the doctor's office called to talk to Jonathan and let him know his results! (Are you ready for this all you nurses????????????????) The lady told Jonathan he has SEVERE sleep apnea and during the night on Monday he stopped breathing 341 times and slowed down his breathing 312 times! (That averages out to about once every minute!) At one point, his oxygen level was 66% "Oh my word..."

Needless to say, he is returning for a CPAP fitting the Wednesday after Thanksgiving! I told him, in the meantime, the less he sleeps, the greater his chances of survival...

How much is that doggy in the window???

Well, Jonathan tried! He really did, but Buddy is going back to Kansas! He called my Aunt Carol tonight and explained our situation with the dog and she has consented to take him back! Parker is okay with it, he has found out how much work it is to take care of a little dog! We all agree that we are just not ready for a dog at this point in our lives! It was a great try but we just aren't home enough to take care of Buddy, and have enough spills and messes from our own three kids! Carol will be coming out for Thanksgiving and that is when Buddy will say his goodbyes to us! It will be kind of sad for the kids but we feel they will be okay with it! Thanks so much Carol for briefly giving us one of your dogs! It was fun trying it and we have had some funny experiences with him for sure!