Monday, August 15, 2011

First day of School 2011-2012

First day of school 2011-2012
Parker 3rd grade/Peyton & Paige Kindergarten


We've reached another new chapter in life. As of today, all three of our kids are now in school all day. They attend our churches Christian school, Bethel Holiness Christian School. Parker is a pro at school now, but this was something new for the twins. They all went to bed early last night without any problems and hopped right out of bed this morning. I can only hope they get up that easy every day! :) They were so excited when we got to school and I just made myself not think about it and survived without any tears being shed.


I'm excited about everything I am going to get done on my days off while they are at school. I have great plans to clean out closets and reorganize! I'm sure I won't get it all done, but I do have high hopes...


However, things will not get organized if I continue to sit here on my laptop...


Off to clean out the boys closet....



Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter from the Walden family!



Friday, March 25, 2011

Our romantic date....I should say not!!!!!!

Several weeks ago, Valentine's day weekend to be exact, we had some excitement around our household! (What's new, right! Something is always happening around here!)

Jonathan and I had been planning for weeks to have a nice, quiet Valentine's day date. Mom had agreed to watch our kids and I was dreaming of a juicy steak dinner. When the day arrived, I began to feel a bit guilty about not taking our kids with us so we decided to drag them along! First mistake of the weekend... ;o)

We decided on Outback Steakhouse in Indy and had a bit of a wait before we were seated. My nerves were somewhat frazzled already. As we were sliding into our booth, the waiter was greeting us and asking for our drink orders. I was trying to do the waiter a favor and asked if he could bring Parker an adult size sweet tea! (2nd mistake of the weekend...) The waiter brought our drinks back to the table and began passing them out. Parker was making a huge deal over getting the paper off of his straw and all of a sudden....crash! His entire glass of tea toppled over and came pouring across the table at me, landing in my lap! Lovely.... :( My stress level instantly rose dramatically and Parker was in tears. The waiter tried to make Parker feel better by telling him that once he spilled a glass of pop in a customer's lap and it was that person's birthday! It didn't help...

Parker then gets a kids cup with a lid, much to his dismay, and still managed to knock that one over as well! He dropped utensils, etc. during the meal and I was pretty sure he had butterfingers by the time the night was over. It was a stressful meal indeed but the steak was awesome!

Late that night, after we were home and ready for bed, Parker decided to poor himself a glass of tea! You guessed it...............he spilled it all over my kitchen counter! What in the world?!?!

We crawled into bed after midnight anxious to get a good night's rest before Sunday! For some strange reason, I woke up a little after 1am and needed to use the bathroom! I had just gone at midnight and I never do that! (I'm pretty sure now, that God woke me up!) I went to the hall bathroom, which I never do either, and as I came back into our room, I heard a strange sound! (Not Jonathan's snoring either!) :o) I couldn't figure out what it was so I woke Jonathan up! I asked him, "What is that noise over there on your side of the bed?" He listened for a few seconds and came flying out of bed and said, "It's a leak!" I immediately looked up at the ceiling and even in the dark room, I could see a horrible sight! I turned on the lights and to my dismay, I saw a HUGE mess! Something had leaked all over our ceiling and was dripping through the ceiling and onto our carpet, just a few inches shy of hitting Jonathan in bed! Jonathan spoke up and said, "If our ceiling looks like this, then our upstairs is flooded!"

(All of a sudden, I had a flash back of a conversation that Parker and I had earlier than evening! Parker had told me that he had stopped up the toilet upstairs, but that he had "fixed it!" I remembered asking him if it was okay now and he said yes so I congratulated him on taking care of it on his own!) 3rd mistake..............

Jonathan and I bolted upstairs to find the toilet completely overflowing from out of the top of the bowl and onto my bathroom floor. The water was going down by the baseboard and right into our bedroom! We quickly got it unclogged and all the water sopped up and went back down to figure out what in the world we were going to do!

I tried to soak up the water from the ceiling by throwing a towel up there. 4th mistake.......... I poked a hole in the ceiling!!!!!! Water came pouring out! A 911 call to my dad was made and we figured out it was probably good that I had made a hole! We listened to it drip all night and fill my kitchen trash can nearly half full!

I didn't dare tell Parker it was his fault. He had enough problems earlier that evening to cause self esteem issues to last a lifetime! ;o)

My ceiling is still a lovely shade of brown and is about 10 feet long. Peyton declares it's the shape of a giant's foot! ;o) I need to get it repainted but am really dreading the huge mess as the entire ceiling has to be painted. Ugh.....

So, even though I haven't blogged in months, crazy things have still been happening around our house. I just haven't sat down to take the time to blog about them!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Operation Christmas Child project!

A few years ago, our Junior Church took on the Operation Christmas Child project. It's something that we look forward every year. We get donations of items and money for shipping from people in our church, then we get together and assemble the boxes. After we are finished we pray for the children that will be receiving these boxes. We pray that they will be a blessing to each child and that they will somehow come to know Jesus. (It has always been a dream of mine to one day get to go overseas and help deliver these boxes! It would probably tear me up seeing the children, but I would love to experience it!)
Parker enjoyed putting a box together for a boy.

Our group of workers with out finished products...
32 boxes this year!

We always order pizza and listen to Christmas music while making these boxes for the children. It's a fun evening and everyone enjoys helping out, even our kids!

Monday, October 25, 2010

September happenings...

Parker's 8th birthday was on Sunday, September 19th
I can't believe we have an 8 year old!
He chose this theme when the Reds were still in the playoffs!!

World's biggest baseball nut!

Parker with his siblings and cousins!
Brycen Thompson, Kerrigan Anthony
Peyton, Parker, Paige and
Carter Thompson

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Here comes double trouble...

Paige and Peyton, 4 1/2 years old.
Today, August 17th, 2010 marked the first day of school for our twins, Paige and Peyton. They attend Asbury United Methodist's "Children's Morning Out" on Tuesday and Thursday. They were so excited to start back to school and eagerly jumped out of bed this morning. I know that before too long, I'll have to drag Peyton out of bed for school. However, there was much excitement in the air today at our house as we quickly got ready for school and ate a good breakfast. The twins are in the Red Room this year and Mrs Hollie is their new teacher. I'm hoping that they learn a lot and that this gets them all ready for Kindergarten next year!
Look out Miss Willard....you're gonna have a busy year next year!!!


He's growing up too fast...


Monday, August 16th, 2010 marked the first day of school for Parker. He is now a 2nd grader at Bethel Holiness Christian School. He was excited about going back to school and seeing his friends but said he just wanted to be able to go to school, but not do any work. I took him to school and asked him if he needed my help in carrying his stuff into his classroom. He replied..."NO, Mom! I can get it just fine, you don't need to walk me in!" :( So I said my goodbye and drove off. I began to think about how quickly he is growing up on us!
He will be 8 years old in September and weighs just shy of 100 pounds! Jonathan looked up in his school book to see how old he was when he reached 100 pounds and he was in the 7th grade! I had to buy him size 14 shirts and his "husky" pants from last year are quite snug around the middle. I wonder how big he'll be, will he be bigger than his Daddy and what will he one day become?!
On that sentimental note...I hear laundry and housework calling my name!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

A peek at our family vacation...

We had a great time together as a normal family on our vacation to Wisconsin Dells! We had ten wonderful days together but by the end of the vacation, I think we were all on Daddy's nerves! :)

Of course, we couldn't let this trip get by without a crazy story or two! You know me...

One day the twins wanted to ride the inter tubes in the "lazy river!" I thought it sounded like fun so said I would take them! I got in the water, grabbed a double raft, and then proceeded to try to jump in very graceful like!!! I was a bit awkward to say the least. I was feeling mighty proud of myself for finally getting onto the back of that thing when all of a sudden...my inter tube did a complete flip backwards and down I went! I came up sputtering and looked at Jonathan who was about to die laughing at me. It was then that I realized that I had lost my glasses in the current of the river! Oh no.... I am blind as a bat too!!! I let my inter tube float away and grabbed the twins. Jonathan proceeded to climb into the river and go searching. He did end up finding my glasses quite a ways on down the river. They weren't broken and I was thrilled. That experience wasn't very "lazy" for us that day!!!

On Wednesday night, the weather had been bad and it was really storming outside. They kept talking about tornado warnings in certain counties. Of course, we had no clue what county we were even in that day!! The sky was black and winds were strong, thunder and lightening flashed but we didn't let that stop us from sleeping soundly! All of a sudden, Jonathan and I woke up to an ear piercing sound of the fire alarms going off in our resort! We both quickly got dressed and I went out in the hallway. People were staggering out of their rooms in a daze wondering what in the world was happening! I began to try to wake the kids who hadn't even moved since the sirens began blaring!!! Talk about extremely sound sleepers... Parker wouldn't budge and I was trying to figure out how in the world we were going to carry these kids down 5 flights of stairs! The sirens stopped as I was trying to wake the kids and I told Jonathan to go downstairs and make sure it was really something big before I woke up our kids!!! Ha!!! He took the elevator downstairs of all things!!! Said it was total chaos in the lobby and people were asking what time it really was! Would you believe it was only 11:22pm!!!!! Ha Ha!!! The storm had actually knocked the power out a couple of times and that caused the alarms to go off. It took us a while to settle back down and sleep but the kids never knew it happened!

The next morning the kids were looking out our patio door and saw some debris on the patio. As they looked below, Paige saw that a huge pine tree had fallen just below us! Good grief....

Click on the picture below for a photo journey of our vacation!


Wisconsin Dells...July 2010

Thursday, July 8, 2010

4th of July weekend!

On July 4th, we got to visit TaMerra Edwards...
Daniel & Angie Edwards new baby girl!
She's precious...
Paige thought she was hot stuff cause she got to hold baby TaMerra!

Parker fell in love with the farm cats at Jonathan & LuRhe's and wanted to bring one home!
Lucky for us....Paige came in from outside and her eyes were almost swollen shut! :)
I do believe she has a cat allergy! So...no kittens for this household!

Parker & Peyton having the time of their lives on the Edwards 4-wheeler!
I had several mini heart attacks that day! :)
Parker did a great job driving Peyton "slowly" around the farm!
He just HAD to take me for a ride!
I think Daddy enjoyed his ride more than I did!
Paige had her cousin Jesse wrapped around her finger!
Boys will be boys...

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

I'd do it all over again...

It was a beautiful summer day, on July 6th, 1996. A day I had dreamed about for many years. I was about to become Mrs. Jonathan Walden! We had fallen in love at a youth camp in July of 1991 and had 5 happy years of dating.

He proposed to me in July of 1995, in the middle of a wheat field, on a huge John Deere tractor, on his sister and brother-in-laws farm.

I thought our wedding day would never arrive. We were counting the days and the hours until we would be married! I was afraid the Lord would return before we got married!!

That beautiful summer day finally arrived and our wedding was a dream come true. I was the luckiest girl in the world! (I still am by the way!)

Now, 14 years later...here we are...."So happy together!"

Happy Anniversary Jonathan. I love you SO much!

Thanks for letting me be your wife and for choosing me out of all the girls in the world! I'm so glad you did!

I Love you!




Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Char-broiled...

Last weekend was an extremely busy weekend for me. I had a baby shower for a girl at work on Saturday afternoon and had been busy preparing my house for the shower all week long. On Saturday morning, Jonathan had gone golfing with a friend and the kids were spread out with a couple of different sitters. I had a fun day with the girls away from work and was cleaning up after the shower when the phone rang...
Jonathan was calling and wanted to know if I felt like having company that evening. He thinks every time the house is clean, we need to invite someone over! :) I told him that would be fine and we quickly decided to grill out hamburgers and hot dogs on his new grill that he had gotten for Father's day, just 6 days earlier! I ran to the grocery story and grabbed what I needed and hurried home to begin supper.
(I want to throw in a tid bit of info right here... Chuck and Mary Jane McGuire highly recommended the type of grill that we chose and said that we would never even have to use a squirt bottle on it!!!) :o) Hold that thought...
A short time later, I had the side dishes cooking and Jonathan went out to start up the grill. He turned on the grill and heard a slight hissing sound. He said he thought the gas was just going through the tubing since the grill was new. (However, we had already used it twice the weekend before!) He then proceeded to flip the "ignite" switch and all of a sudden... huge flames began to shoot out of the back of the grill! He ran around to the back of the grill to see the entire gas tank engulfed in flames!!! He immediately sprinted towards the door, and in his haste, pulled a muscle in his calf! I was in the garage getting something, and all of a sudden, Jonathan came busting in the patio door, screaming..."I need a fire extinguisher!!!" Of course, my first reaction was "WHY???" He proceeded to quickly run to the pantry and say "The grill is on fire!" I had no clue where the fire extinguisher was at that moment but he found it within seconds. We have kept it right inside the pantry door ever since we got married! Glad he was thinking straight because I sure wasn't!

Back out the door he went, doing the "PASS" acronym to quickly put out the fire. Pull the pin, aim, squeeze and sweep! The fire immediately went out as soon as he started to spray it. The next door neighbors quickly came running out to see if we were okay! They had seen the excitement from their kitchen window. After Jonathan's heart rate slowed back to a normal rate, he then surveyed the damage on his brand new grill. :( It was now covered in a white powder, my side dishes were basically done, company was on their way and we had raw hamburgers and hot dogs!

Jonathan ended up cleaning up the grill and reconnecting the gas tank. I can't believe he would even try to light the silly thing again, but he did and it worked just fine. Evidently there was leak in the connection from the tank to the grill. It's a wonder we didn't blow up our entire street!

The hamburgers and hot dogs were delicious and we had a good time that night with our friends despite all of the excitement! We had several good laughs and made more hilarious memories! Someday, I'm going to write a book of all the hilarious happenings in my life...

Monday, June 21, 2010

Happy Father's Day...

to my wonderful husband of nearly 14 years...
The kids and I got him a new gas grill that he picked out!

We had dinner together today at Mom's and it was delicious!
Jeff and I are posing with the best Dad in the world! :)

Jeff with his two boys, Carter and Brycen.
Kerrigan was celebrating with her Daddy today.

My four favorite people in all the world!
Jonathan celebrating Father's Day with his three gifts from God!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Our room...almost finished!

New bedspread from Kohls. My birthday present from Mom and Dad.
Not kid friendly... the kids are not allowed to sit on it!
I didn't want to put our wedding picture away forever, but I'm not happy with the gold frame.
Jenny Grissom says I can paint it white and "distress it!"

My favorite picture ever of my kids!
Thanks to Jenny Grissom...

My purchase from IKEA...
(Now I need to get one for Jonathan's side to match!)
Another picture courtesy of Jenny Grissom!

A purchase from Kirklands...

Lamp from Hobby Lobby...

Hobby Lobby find...
I love these rub on's...

I dug this out of the basement...
The window treatments are not purchased yet and I still need to find curtain/swags.
I was afraid that if I waited to post these until after I get the windows done, my walls would need painted again!!!