Take me out

to the ball game with my hubby and two oldest kids...

Saturday night Mike and I took Kaden and Luke to the Oklahoma Redhawks game (AAA team of the Texas Rangers). They lost to the Fresno Grizzlies but we still had SO much fun. The boys were excellent and had a wonderful time. Everyone around us thought they were adorable as they were yelling out thier baseball knowledge. We sat 6 rows behind the plate! Awesome. And for $12 a seat--I kid you not! I of course took lots of fun pics. Here's a picture for Grandmom, us with Johnny Bench (her fav):

The field:

Luke and Kaden with Rowdy the Redhawk, they got the biggest kick out of this!

Look at the sign on the fair pole (yes I know it's the foul pole, but if the ball hits it, it's fair so in my book that makes it a fair pole) Pretty clever:

View from our seats, not too shabby:

The boys wanted ice cream, of course I said yes. They had 2 helmet bowls there. Yankees, which thrilled Kaden to no end because his t-ball team is the Yankees (THAT IS WHY HE HAS THAT HAT ON, make no mistake, we don't cheer for the Bronx in this house---sorry about that Aunt Jackie!) And then of course the other was the CARDS :) as it should be:

Luke is such a cheeseball, I couldn't get him to smile for real, so this is what you got!

Oh yes and the biggest news. In the first inning, Mike got a foul ball for the kiddos. He about took out a 13 year old girl to get it though. That was a tad bit embarrassing, but what can you do?! The boys were insanely excited about it! We took pics with our cell phone but not the actual camera, when I figure out how to send the photo to my e-mail I will put it on the blog.

***SMILE***

More sweet Josie pics...I cannot get over this girl, she is my absolute JOY!!!

Okay, I need some back up here. Yesterday I had to go to a quick eye appointment to make sure I had no problems with my contacts, which I don't by-the-way. Mike and I met at Burger King and 'swapped' the kids so I could go alone :) Michael immediately starting giving me problems because I dressed Josie like a boy. He said you don't put a little girl in a blue shirt and khaki shorts. I quickly corrected him, it's a blue blouse-shirt with khaki capris. She totally looks like a girl. What do you guys think?! AND YES I need comments here!!!!!

Last night we put in Josie's new car seat, Michael and I are so particular about our car seats that I wasn't about to try it on my own. It took around 20 minutes but it's in nice and tight. When I put her in this morning I asked "How do you like your new seat?!" This was my answer:Are you kidding me? That's too cute. I took some more pics outside waiting for Luke's bus. I had Luke come over to help make her smile. At first Kaden was convinced but Josie was still wondering about it:

And then she cracked to Luke's peek-a-boos:

Think on this:

"...a gracious hand leads us in ways that we know not, and blesses us not only without, but even against, our plans and inclinations."

--William Wilberforce

We girls got presents :)

Monday was a big day for Josie and I! Now that Josie is 13 months old it is time to move her from her infant carrier car seat don't ya think?! We were going to move her straight into Kaden's old car seat but it's only forward-facing and you have to be 20 pounds for that. Josie is still NOT there yet so needs to stay rear-facing. The rear-facing seat we have has basically NO padding what-so-ever but luckily none of the boys were in it too long! (well, maybe Luke..) So I was at Sears and noticed a clearance of last year model and how perfect it was for a little GIRL:

How adorable is that?! How adorable is she?! The seat is denim with pink flowers, are you kidding me? Only in my dreams did I think I would have a pink seat like this!!! :) And Grandmom, those are Josie's new rainbow PJ's I told you about, they are too cute, and they are PURPLE. I LOVE buying purple! :)
And as for me...Mother's Day came early and it's awesome. My loving husband bought me a front load, energy efficient washer and dryer! And here it is, TA DAAAAAA!!!!!

Please don't read this as sarcastic because it totally is NOT! I actually enjoy doing laundry, don't mind it all, but I hated using all that water and my dryer is not working so well right now, I sometimes have to dry 2 or even 3 times. That is not good when you have 6 people you are laundering for! When the new tax relief came my Mom planted the seed about a washer/dryer, I looked around and found some 07 models that were clearanced (does that sound familiar?!), they are Bosch and they are super nice. The company was just trying to get rid of them because we are almost halfway through 2008! Ultimate Electronics bought like 108 pairs of them at a great price and are in turn selling them for a GREAT price. Normally the machines are both over $1000 and we got them together for $1300 :) AWESOME! They are that silvery color which actually makes them more expensive. 2 of the coolest things: the washing machine weighs your clothes and figures out how much water to use, you never set a water level AND it has an internal water heater inside to help the water get crazy hot for a sanitation cycle meant to rid stuff of germs and sickness/ etc. AWESOME! And the dryer has the crazy sensors that stop the cycle when the clothes are dry. I am way excited, can you tell?! They could be in as early as Thursday. Yippee! By-the-way, Ultimate has sold 60-some pairs of these this week!! Afterwards we went to the Outback and had a great dinner. The kids were excellent and we celebrated my Mother's Day gift. I'm such a blessed Mom!

Quickies

I promised that I would be a much better blogger and though I have tried, things have slipped through the cracks of time so I figured I would do a little quick catch up.

Last Wednesday had 2 big milestones! First of all I got contacts! Yep, I am still SUPER excited. I can pretty much put them in and out now with no problem. Every once in a while everything goes blurry but as soon as I blink a couple of times my vision goes back to normal. (this usually happens when I am reading!)

Right after my eye doc appointment I headed to church with Luke and Kaden for our 2nd to last week of AWANA! I cannot believe it is over already. We had the Sparks Awards that night. (K, 1st, and 2nd, I help with the 2nd graders) Luke received his award and was thrilled. For those of you familiar with AWANA he is almost through his first book, just 2 green jewels left! He should have those done the first week of AWANA in the fall :) AWANA is a program centered around memorizing bible verses and Luke did such a great job, I am so proud of him. I took some pictures, they didn't come out well, but here they are anyways:

This Wednesday is the Sparks party and Kaden will be having his Cubbies party and awards, I won't get to be there for his pics :( Maybe I can figure out a way...

Last Thursday I went to the ENT again. Remember from months ago (years ago actually) I have a hole in my eardrum that requires surgery to fix it. Well because of my pregnancy with Josie and my nursing we put off the surgery and now it is time...ugh. So we are awaiting my insurance approval and then we schedule. Hopefully the end of this month, right after the boys are done with school (May 21st! That is crazy, I will have a Kindergartner and 1st grader!!! WOW!) Surgery should be no big deal, out-patient with a couple of days to recover. I can do that, right?!

Last Thursday night Oklahoma City had terrible weather, a couple of tornadoes touched down, and our house was hit by 2 hailstorms. We had tennis ball size hail, I have never seen that before, CRAZINESS!!! Mike and I were a little freaked, we got everything ready to head to our storm shelter in our garage--WHAT A PEACE OF MIND THAT PROVIDES!!! The kids didn't blink an eye. Hail pinging off the windows and even Josie didn't get upset. Glad they aren't afraid of thunderstorms like their Momma! Mike took this pic of the hail outside, about golf ball size then:

One more fun photo! Sweet girl riding on her Daddy's shoulders, if you look carefully on the side of her head by her right ear, you can see HAIR wisps! It's very exciting!

Hallelujah!!!

Mark it down--May 3rd, one day shy of Josie's 13 month b-day---SHE STOOD!!!! She pulled up on the fireplace this afternoon! It was utterly exciting. I instantly teared up. Michael and Luke were clapping for her. Josie kept getting into the wipes box so mean ol' Daddy put it up on the fireplace---that didn't stop her, she headed over there, pulled up onto her knees and then all the way!!! Yeah!!! I ran and got the camera. Way to go sweet baby girl! (and yes she did it more then once and also she is now crawling about half the time on her knees and just half army crawl!! AWESOME!)Here is my sweetie playing with Kaden-man:

Josie was trying to help Daddy play his Rock Band drums:

Bath Buds

Josie had her first bath with (some of) her brothers the other day. It was pretty cute. Kaden and Gabriel were thrilled at having her in there with them:Josie was NOT thrilled to be the first one taken out: