Halloween..not just for the scarey people!!!!

Well, truth be told...I LOVE HALLOWEEN! I tried to be a good Christian and see the evil in it all:) But that didn't work. So, instead of being a failure at that, I have decided to just love it! We don't do "Scarey" Halloween...but just fun! The kids all got to pick out their own costumes(well except for Savannah..her Ninny said she MUST go as a fairy!).
So we had a Rock Star, Ariel, Glenda the Good Witch, Spiderman and of course a Fairy(we called Tinkerbell). It was so fun.
We got all ready and ran over to see Mr. Greg, my mom's neighbor. The kids love him. Isn't it interesting how 2 generations can experience someone COMPLETELY different! As my cousin reminded me..I use to tell him he had an older brother that once went into Mr. Greg's yard and never returned!:)



Well, after that we came back to start our first trick or treat event in Castle Hills! It was nuts! It was so fun! I was amazed at how EVERYONE gets so into it all. So from some.. you might think some people are scarey and so on and so forth. Well, my old neighborhood only had a handful of people get into Halloween. So we see it as neighbors wanting to just share in the fun and say hi to each other! And it was. I LOVED hearing kids giggling from down the street! And families just rocking on their front porches visiting while trick or treaters come and go.
We put a double pot of Chili on and were thrilled to have friends in and out while eating and collecting candy! My house filled with family, new and old friends is just how I always pictured it! So the night was just perfect for us! And all but 1 bowl of chili was eaten! I am saving that one for me:) shhhhhh!



The last thing we did was go to see Chloe's Kinder teacher! And we would have stayed all night if Spiderman was not melting:) It was late!
So, even at Halloween, I am blessed by Him with my friends and family!
BABY GLENN MAKES ONE CUTE SLEEPING MONKEY!

Another Birthday has passed!

I cannot believe it was 3 years ago I started this blog(which I have been bad about updating lately). I started just a few weeks before Corbin's arrival in this world. The original reason I started the blog was because I thought it would be the easiest and fastest way to post pictures of our new baby and growing family. Now, 3 years later there are some great memories on this blog.
To add to the bag of memories will be my little boy Turing 3. I entered this day with mixed emotions. I wonder if the pain I feel of him turning 3 is because he is my only little boy. I only got and get to do this little boy thing once. The girls, although each year was hard to see pass by me..I knew I had another little girl to have her first ballet class, first princess party, first tea party, first first first...
But with Corbin I get to do it all one time. Getting to see him kick a ball for the first time. Getting to see him playing in the mud for the first time. There are some firsts I am ok with not doing again. I am thankful for the fact that this is the last first time I have to potty train a boy!
He is doing ok, but if we are not paying attention...wow...we can get a spray!
Well, for Corbin his 3rd birthday was perfect. On his actual birthday he started the day with an annual tradition of a birthday muffin. Then he got to have a birthday donut post breakfast, pre lunch! Then he got to go to a pep rally. Then he got to have a birthday McDonald's lunch! Then he got a birthday cake, dinner, presents and football game! What a busy day!
I loved making his Spider man cake...only because he was so happy to have it sitting in front of him! We gave him a big boy bed the next day that he loved and started wearing underwear! He is so big now! And I cannot get enough of watching him run by in his Buzz Lite Year underwear! This past Sunday we had his birthday party. It was "Corbin's Circus"! I think everyone really enjoyed it. I know he did!
Wow, another year past! In 6.5 years we have celebrated 18(yes 18) kiddie birthdays! Some of them the kids will remember. Some they will not. But I will. I remember the details. Even if no one else does. It may seem like show to some...but at 1 in the morning, when I peek in on my babies...and then I go back to decorating their cake, or make a cd for a party favor that we listen to for the next 4 years...it is something I take joy in. Things I hope my kiddos treasure...even if they only remember it because they see a picture.
So here is to the last kiddie birthday party for our family, this year. We will have birthday 19...That is Chloe's 7th Birthday in December. Then a little rest...Then we start it all up again! I love celebrating the "birth" day of my kiddos. I love telling them about that day they were born on their birthday's...and they love hearing it!

CORBIN IS 3 today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a quick post. I need to add Savannah's bday..but here is Corbin's..so far!

Love that boy!

NEW HOUSE

Keep our new information! We want to hear from you:) We are pretty settled. We took the kids on a hunt to find our statue Lydia. She left a note that after spending the spring in my mom's back yard, she was afraid for her life because of incoming golf balls. She had us look for her at a friend's house. The "Sugars" said she had come by to play but left to see a real Dragon. So we headed to a park with a Dragon. We played and looked for her there. No sign of her! Finally Chloe found a note in the Dragon's nose! It was from Lydia and she said, "Dudley the Dragon was so fun, but she heard there were Pirates to play with down the street!" So we went to the pirate park and looked. No Lydia. We managed to play for a while and Chloe found another note at the Pirate Ship. It said she had fun but was tired and found a garden to rest in, at the end of the street. So we went on a walk, and found her there! Chloe found another note! This one said that she loved this garden and wanted to stay. She also said there was a surprise inside. We walked in the house and the kids took a while to figure it out! They had NO idea we were finally moving into a new home! They saw pictures of themselves and figured it all out! I added some pictures of the day! It was so much fun!

http://jtsparks.zenfolio.com/p263545436

If you have a pair, you need your match!

So, this is something that has perplexed me since high school. The first time I saw this, I was riding in the car with Christina and Emily. I believe we were headed to Shane McFarland's house because his mother had gone over seas to visit his father for a while. Hmmm. I think to this day Mrs. McFarland is one of the smartest mom's I know. Always had a hand on her boys...but looking back...not so sure trusting her sweet innocent boys with her house while she was out of the country was the smartest idea! Boy that was a fun summer! Can I get a whoop whoop from the crowd!

Anyway, I'll get back on to the subject at hand. I remember riding home from, most likely, Denim and Diamonds, and seeing a shoe laying in an intersection. We all looked at it and contemplated why this shoe would be out in the middle of no where, and on top of it, without a match!

Throughout my life I have seen things that are clearly needed in pairs, but have been separated! Just recently I was driving home from dropping Chloe off at school. Once again, I saw a sneaker by itself in the middle of the road. So what I have to wonder is this, how exactly did it occur?

1. Did someone just get annoyed with the smell of their friends sneaker and throw it out the window? Maybe one food smelled worse then the other?

2. Did some angry person decide to throw there shoe at another car in a fit of road rage. I thought that kind of thing only happened to the president?

3. Do you think some yahoo had their foot hanging out the window and their shoe just flew off? Wouldn't you go back and get it? Otherwise you are 1 shoe on, 1 shoe off all day!

I am not sure why that shoe was there...I find it really interesting and odd at the same time! But I do know this. Things that are suppose to be in pairs, need to have their match. When they get separated, it just throws off the axis of the course!!!!!

Caterpillar Caterpillar...where have you been?

Well,I finally told the kids that the caterpillar was dead. No one believed me. I explained to them what they looked like in Chloe's class room at school and it was very different. I explained to them how the one's at school, that seemed to be the same age as ours, were already butterflies that had been let go. I began to turn our container upside down to show them that the "coffin" was not doing anything. I expected it to fall.
Well to my surprise, when I began to turn it over I saw this small brown thing. It shocked me! Low and behold there was a small moth hanging upside down, fluttering its wings away! We all got a good look. And I might have been more excited then the kids! We took some pictures and let him go. He took a while to get going, but he is officially gone.
So, i can't help but think a little deeper about this. 1st, I thought he was dead... the reason I was sure the caterpillar was dead to begin with was because it wasn't moving. Well, I found out that was because he was about to enter a new amazing process. Isn't that just like us? Have you ever thought, wow...I am in a routine day to day rut. But then you turn the corner for some new adventure. Some welcomed, some not. 2nd, I saw him in the chrysalis and had hope. But when I saw the other chrysalis at school, it was nothing like ours. How superficial. When someone doesn't appear just as the majority, we often assume something is wrong with them. Could it just be, they are exactly how God intended? Unique and designed in a way to teach us something the majority can't? 3rd, when all that time went by and I didn't see anything, my assumption was, it failed. He never became anything. Everything takes time. Each bag of popcorn takes a different amount of seconds. Every baby takes a different amount of days to be ready to enter the world. Every person takes a different amount of time to become what they were intended to be! Time doesn't = failure... I think it usually = wisdom. And last, for all my mother's out there on mother's day. Mother's intuition. From the minute that my kids brought that crazy caterpillar to me, I told them I was pretty sure it looked like a moth caterpillar, not a butterfly. They didn't care and said it would still have wings and be pretty. Sure enough it was a moth. And sure enough they thought it was pretty. The eye of a child is something to be in awe of!

Cod Fish Ball

With all that we went through in the NICU with Savannah, I am crazy about her hitting her "mile stones." She had not rolled over so I made a deal with her...Watch the video to see....