nostalgic

i've been slowly packing up "studio A" for the past few days now, but today i finally finished. and i haven't felt sad about packing... until today. i got to all the memories i've just had tucked away for the past 3 years....cards, letters, pictures and scrapbooks.

photo of the day #210

memories

colby and i were sitting in the middle of the floor tonight looking at scrapbooks. he was looking at his pitiful 4-page book (my fault) and i was looking at one my friend {and partner teacher} in terrell, texas made for me when we moved from there. looking at that brought back memories of all the good times the teachers there had together even though it was a tough place to teach.

it just made me think of all the places i've lived and all the friends god has blessed me with in those places. without all those wonderful people, life would have been just plain boring! god is so wise in bringing just the right people into our lives at just the right time.

quote of the day: "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good."~Jerome Williams

sandy

today the boys decided to play in a big pile of sand that was in front of the new house they're building across the street. i remember how much fun it was to play in the dirt when i was a kid, so i didn't mind.

they had a blast burying each other! but when they were finished, they were FINISHED! the nerds tried to come in the house covered in sand......wrong! i told them they could strip down and hose themselves off in the backyard or go jump in the cold water at the neighborhood pool. they opted for the pool!

somehow i got colby to let me play with his hair at the pool!

i made horns.

i made crazy hair.

but my favorite of all was the alfalfa hair!!! he looks just like him in this picture!!!

photo of the day #209

the new alfalfa

quote of the day: It's the merry-hearted boys that make the best men!~ Irish proverb

still packing

i got 8 boxes packed today in studio A, and i'm about half-way done! yikes! that's a lot of stuff!

the only picture i took today was of these puffy storm clouds on the way home from church.

photo of the day #208

storm clouds

quote of the day: "Mom, do you have any string, paper and a hole punch? I want to be a jungle man!" ~Colby {He wanted to make a loin cloth!!! Where does he get this stuff? Don't worry....no jungle man around here today!}

boxes

today we made two trips to get boxes from a friend whose office moved to another building. we had so many boxes the second trip that there was barely any room to sit....especially for poor, little colby!

photo of the day #208

where's colby?

he kept passing me notes between the cracks in the boxes. "please, help me!" and "save me!"

the last one was so funny to me! it's my quote of the day.

quote of the day: "Just go on without me, if you can."~Colby

and so it begins

we're starting to get things ready to sell our house. yuck. i don't like the work involved in selling and packing a house. oh well. you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

daryl and i completely cleaned out the boys' rooms today. that was an ordeal! they've been threatened to keep their rooms clean or else!

we had a nice little shower this evening, and after it there was a tiny rainbow in the sky. this is actually the only picture i took today.

photo of the day #207

little rainbow

quote of the day: "Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true." ~Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

weekend at pappy's {and grammy's}!

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life is good

{photo by spencer for me!}

yesterday i took an unplanned trip to mom and dad's. i was taking my niece back to edmond anyway, so i called them to say i was coming to spend the night and bringing the varmints with me! {i did give them 12 hours' notice!}

when i called them on friday to tell them we were coming, pappy had just caught a turtle in his yard. i asked him to put it in a box or something until saturday so the boys could get it. i've been promising them that if we saw a small, non-snapping turtle somewhere that we could get it for a pet. the only ones we've seen have been on the way to school, so we've never stopped and gotten one. so i thought this was the PERFECT opportunity!

unfortunately, the other parent in my house didn't share my excitement about finally getting a turtle! poor spencer cleaned out a cage to take with us so we could bring him home. daryl said we couldn't have another pet since we're getting ready to move. so i said we could bring it home, keep it a couple of days and then let it go at the ponds. he still said no! can you believe that? {ok. yes, logically i get it. but turtles are just so stinkin' cute!} see for yourself! how cute is he????

when we got to grammy and pappy's the turtle was waiting for us in a bucket on the back porch. needless to say it was friendship at first site! the boys and i were immediately attached to him! the boys named him Squishy, which i thought was perfect.

even honey liked squishy! friends at first sight for them, too!

squishy is such a smart turtle that he learned a trick in a matter of minutes! spencer would say, "squishy! play dead!" and then flip him over. squishy immediately dropped his head backwards and laid perfectly still! it was so funny! {yes, i realize that's probably just a natural turtle reaction, but it was still funny to see!}

i had a blast doing a photo shoot with squishy in the backyard! he is so fast for a turtle! {we could have entered him in a turtle race and he would have had all the other turtles eating his dust!} every time i set him down in the grass, he tried to escape! he ran the opposite direction from my camera. i was laying down in the grass with him so i could get a good shot. this first picture is of him getting ready to run. the second picture turned out perfect! i love it!

besides squishy, grammy and pappy have an awesome yard and creek for taking pictures! i took so many photos on just a short walk down the creek. here are a few of my favorites:

look! this tree is smiling!!!!

after supper last night at this really yummy hole-in-the-wall catfish place, we drove around north edmond looking for deer. grammy lead us down some back roads that were loaded with photo opportunities! fun, fun, fun!!! old wagons, cows, wild turkeys, red barns.....

even today after church we saw some more wild turkeys!!!

photo of the day #206

gobble, gobble

quote of the day:I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. ~ Dory from Finding Nemo

p.s. when colby went outside this morning to play with squishy, his bucket was over-turned and squishy was gone. {sniff, sniff}

either a raccoon had a squishy midnight snack, or he helped squishy escape. i'm choosing to believe the second outcome.

american idol concert review

tonight, daryl and i went to the american idol concert at the BOK center in tulsa.

photo of the day #204

this............is american idol!

#10 michael sarver

i expected him to sing some country songs, but he didn't! his performance was good, and i still believe he should have gone a little farther in the competition. he's still a cutie patootie!

#9 megan joy

what can i say? she hasn't changed much except that she moves around the stage more. i still don't know how she made that far in the competition. she is one strange performer.

#8 scott macintyre

i never liked scott during idol. i thought he just got a lot of sympathy votes, but he was REALLY good tonight! i enjoyed his performance!

#7 lil rounds

she had a lot of energy tonight, but i didn't really care for her song choice. she sang a beyonce song about puttin' a ring on it. they had the lyrics going on the screen behind her. good thing because i didn't understand a word of what she was singing! not one of my faves tonight.

#6 anoop desai

great performance tonight! loved his songs....he opened with "always on my mind" and closed with "my prerogative". i always liked anoop, and he didn't disappoint his fans tonight!

#5 matt giraud

totally awesome tonight! i would love to see just him in concert! he was in my top 3 performers tonight! he's a cutie patootie, too!

#4 allison iraheta

definitely a rocker chick! it's hard to believe she's so young. she's got a great voice, but it's just not my kind of music. her duet with adam was really good, though.

#3 danny gokey

i've been a gokey fan since his first audition! he has tons of energy on stage, and i enjoyed every song he sang....especially the last one. it was "my wish" by rascal flatts. {the lyrics are amazing! i'll have to share them sometime in another post.} since i haven't listened to country in the past few years, i had never heard the song.

he talked about his time on idol, and the tragedy of his wife's death a month before he auditioned. he said he learned not to let a moment define his life but to let that moment be a defining moment in his life and move on to be better. well said.

danny was also in my top 3 tonight!

#2 adam lambert

still a freak. gave me the creeps.

#1 kris allen

another cutie patootie and definitely in my top 3 tonight! great songs and he's not a freak!

finale

the top 10 sang journey's "don't stop believin". love that song anyway, but they did a great job!

quote of the day: "If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile..." ~from the song my wish by rascal flatts

monty python

no, i wasn't watching the search for the holy grail today. that's the name of clayton's snake!

we went to clayton's and adrien's house tonight for food and fun. they have a beautiful house that they've put a lot of work into! we had some yummy food, and then we played bananagrams and mexican train dominos. {so fun!!!}

after supper clayton got monty out of his cage and let us hold him! at first the boys wanted NOTHING to do with holding monty. but after i held him and they saw that it was safe, they both held him.

brett even brought him up to his face and pretended to kiss him!!!

so when brett was taking my picture with monty he kept saying, "bring him closer to your face!" this is as close as monty and i got because i told him if he stuck his tongue out at me i was going to drop him on the hardwood floor! once we had that understanding, we were fine! {don't worry. i asked clayton if it would hurt monty if i dropped him......just in case.}

photo of the day #203

monty python

quote of the day: "What? Brett has a mustache! I want to be like Brett!" ~Colby said that when i told him to wipe the ice cream mustache off of his face!

freddy's

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freddy's

the boys and i ate lunch at freddy's today. they even offered to use their money to pay for it because they knew we are on an eating-out ban!

to me, freddy's is a happy place. it is decorated in red, black and white....like a diner. their fries are long, thin and crispy. colby loves to dip them in his frozen custard. ewwww!!!!

spencer gets his frozen custard all over his face! i don't know if he's saving some for later, or what. when i tried to take his picture, he wiped his face off! when i didn't have my camera out, he didn't care that his face was a mess. when i asked him why he wouldn't let me take a picture of his chocolatey face, he said.....

quote of the day: "Reality only lasts for a moment, but a picture lasts forever!" ~Spencer

nothing....

i did a lot of nothing today.

slept late.

ate frozen burritos for lunch.

watched antique roadshow.

fell asleep watching antique roadshow.

knitted.

ate supper.

knitted some more.

the boys were just as boring as i was today. they played on the computer and the wii most of the day. so while i was making supper i told them all technology had to be turned off until after supper. colby got mad and went to his room crying because "there's nothing to do." a few minutes later he came out with bubbles in hand, and then went to the backyard. not long after that both boys were hollering at me to come outside and see something.

somehow they'd also found a can of silly string! i told them if they tried they'd find something to do besides video games. even after supper when the technology ban was lifted, they went outside on their own and were playing together!

photo of the day #201

silly string

quote of the day: "There's nothing to do without technology!!!" ~Colby

blast from the past

check me out! looking pretty stylish, huh?

my friend, ashley {on the right}, posted some pictures from our youth group on facebook last night. i've had such a great time reliving memories of the 2 years i was in the youth group at the church in mckinney, texas.

those 2 years had such an impact on my life. i wish i could have been there longer, but that wasn't in god's plans. i'm very thankful, though, that god brought those people into my life.

the following picture was taken in one of the houses at medina children's home. our youth group went there for a week and helped do a VBS at the church in medina. i stayed in a cottage with ashley and stefanie. they are the ones that made me look like this! ashley said it was all in the name of love! {i was trying to impress a certain young man in the youth group.}

photo of the day #200

lookin' good

quote of the day: Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~From the television show The Wonder Years {loved that show!}

swan lake

swan lake isn't just a ballet.....thank goodness!

tonight i had dinner with lisa and gina. then we were on our way to utica square to walk around and take pictures when lisa said, "there's swan lake." i had never been there or even heard of it. so gina turned the car around and we went to swan lake. it is like a secret garden in the middle of tulsa.

it is beautiful! it's a pond surrounded by all kinds of plants and flowers, and there is an actual swan that lives there! there are also some adorable ducks with adorable orange feet! {did you know that ducks scratch their heads with their feet just like dogs?}

i kept trying to get a picture of the swan, but he was too busy biting himself the whole time we were there! he just wasn't cooperating. but i still got some really awesome pictures! {at least i think they're awesome!} check lisa's and maybe gina's blog for some more awesome pictures!

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i just like this row of pots

the best part of the evening wasn't all the awesome pictures we took. it was being with people that i love. the older i get the more grateful i am to god for the people he puts in my life. i love my friends. {eyes are leaking.}

quote of the day: "If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart. I'll stay there forever." ~Winnie the Pooh