They're safely home, whew!

Christian left for Scout Camp last Sunday and arrived home Saturday. Savannah left for YW Camp Tuesday and returned home on Friday. I missed them both terribly and even Ty was desperate for their return. Shawn drove the scouts to camp on Sunday and then was able to return back to camp on Thursday to finish out the week with the boys.

Christians favorite badge was Archery. He was great at it, and might I add a handsome archer to boot!!

Yep! There's my creative guy. Typical Christian... sees 3 arrows embedded in a target and thinks...'let me see if I can squeeze up in here, HAAA, I fit! Take a picture dad.'

I laughed out loud when I saw this picture. I needed NO explanation. Hummm, looks like 'somebody's troop' forgot to make a troop flag. Hurry fellas, stick something, ANYTHING, on a stick and call it a flag... and so was born Troop 76's flag... the 'Gatorade Patrol'!

And... sadly... Troop 76's cabin. Please no judgement! He does NOT take after me, and I can't even blame this one on my neat freak, meticulous, husband. Christian comes by this very much on his own, not that this is ALL his, but I recognize ALOT of it, grrrrr. I blame this also on his creative side, hopefully, someday, this gene will serve him well, but for now... this is eerily familiar... whimper... it looks just like his bedroom at home, sigh! But even with his lack of organization skills, he's a keeper and I'm glad he's home!

I got a promotion!

I think I reached 'SuperHero' status today. Savannah left for YW camp early this morning with my mom. A short while later I recieved a call that Savannah had forgotten to take her personal cooler. She loves to take her own snacks to camp and takes along some cold juice boxes too. BUT the critical mistake was that she also had chilled Reeses cups in the cooler. How, oh how, could she survive camp without her favorite sweets?! I rushed to get dressed and ran the cooler to Cari, my sister, who was going to the camp later in the day. I bet Savannah was so surprised when Cari arrived with the cooler. She probably thought that the cooler was not a necessity, so she would painfully have to do without it. But NOT with a SuperHero like me on the scene, tee-hee. I included a sweet note to my SWEET girl and I hope when she opens the cooler to get a little jolt of chocolate and pb... she will think of me and know how much I love her. By the way... in case anyone asks... I would like my SuperHero cape to be orange, I love that color, giggle, snort!

Darn duds!

The poor hen in our barn has been sitting on dud eggs, bless her heart! Eggs should take only 3 weeks and they are WAY overdue. Yet she still sits, what dedication. Now we need to catch her off the eggs grabbing a quick bite to eat and swipe the eggs so she will know to move on. Just seems sad to me... I'm being told I better toughin' up where these animals are concerned, grin. We get our two goats this Saturday. I didn't want to officially get them until Savannah is back from YW camp... she is the true expert in our family and I feel much safer with her around! I'll post pictures of the goats... Jack and Amelia soon. PS - I about NEVER got Shawn to finish the goat fencing. The guy is a perfectionist... which in his career bodes very well for patients, but to just get a simple fence up for a couple goats... well, lets just say, good thing I love my husband to pieces or I would have pinched him... HARD!!!

No.1 Parenting Perk...

I love being a mom. And I also love that almost daily I am given an opportunity to be a HERO. Today was no different. We woke up early and headed out for a family fun weekend. After hours of travel we pulled into the Birmingham Zoo. But wait, my No.1 son has a look of extreme panic on his face. He had just realized that he jumped in the truck this morning without his SHOES! Oh NO!! So here is my chance to be his hero OR a stark raving screaming lunatic... luckily I took a big breath and started laughing. WHO jumps into a truck for a trip out of town barefoot?! Christian, thats who! So with lots of laughter, and some intense teasing on Christian, we threw it in reverse and went looking for a shoe store. We found a cute shop in downtown and Christian and I hopped out to snag some treads. We found some great crocs for him, and on sale to boot, yeehaw.

Here is a much relieved Christian sporting his new crocs. Do you see the absolute love in those gorgeous blue eyes for his hero of a mom? Or is it just a look of surprise that mom didn't flip over the 'oops, no shoes' episode? I choose to believe the HERO senario!

UMM, err, uhhhh... did I mention that even heroes need new shoes once in a while. Lo and behold, in the shoe store, they were also having a sale on RocketDog flipflops. I got TWO pair of adorable floppers for $15.00! Wow! Being a hero sure feels great, giggle!

We ran away from home!

The Callahans are finally healthy and we decided to run away for the weekend. The kids wanted to go to the Birmingham Zoo. We had a wonderful time and Savannah was our official photographer for the weekend.

Can you see the fear in my eyes? The kids were so proud of me for even going into the bird cage... and I managed to really enjoy it instead of running away screaming like a little girl. And best of all, the little birdies were very nice to me and did not scare me with their pointy beaks, grin!!

Roos ROCK!

EEEEEEK!

Here are our very handsome men, pooped out at the hotel after a very long day. We stayed overnight, went swimming and slept late the next morning! A wonderful family weekend.

Cough, Choke, Wheeze, Whimper...

Blog architect is temporarily out of commission with a nasty yucka! Hope to return soon, 5th day on antibiotics, very optimistic!

Pitter, Patter, Squish... Splatter!

Cast of Characters

Oreo - family kitten, surviving well by avoiding anything or anyONE that tries to squeeze her and make her eyeballs bulge!

Noah - nephew, aka squeezer of certain things cuddly, furry, and making the sound of meow.

Taylor - niece, aka little miss mommy

Ty - eyewitness to the following play by play

Me - aunt, that laughed and laughed over 30 minutes at the wonderful chaos!

On the last Fridays of each month I have offered free babysitting for Noah and Taylor so their parents can go to the temple or on a date. This past Friday was the long awaited day and both Noah and Taylor were able to come play. After dinner we went out front to wait for the fireflies to come out and run, run, run.

Taylor found this stick and used it to poke at everything and point at items that she needed me to see. She dropped her stick on her foot after playing with it a while and decided it was no longer so wonderful... she kicked it into the grass, good ole hissy fit from a Southern Belle!

I just love a baby in a saggy diaper. Noah walked up and down the sidewalk over and over again. I think the texture felt different on his toesies and he enjoyed it. Our kitten Oreo was very curious about Noah and Taylor and got real close to see them but Noah wanted to give her loves and Oreo was NOT interested.

Good news... its not the USUAL brown stuff you see oozing out of a baby's diaper... just good ole MUD! I missed the events leading up to this mess but Ty said that Noah got Oreo by the tail. She bolted and Noah pursued... right into a huge mudpuddle. Ty was laughing so hard because he said Noah went airborne and then splat.

Noah would just stand still and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle his toes!


It all went south when Taylor started to scold Noah for the HUGE mess.. 'no, no, no, noah!' He was offended and insisted on Taylor giving him loves. With a look of 'OH NO YOU DON'T' Taylor ran from Noah but he needed a hug. When she took her eyes off him he hugged her from behind and then Taylor was so very upset... now SHE is a muddy mess. So both were bawling at the same time. Neither could be consoled.

They both continued to cry during the stripdown, the dunk in the tub, and the scrubdown. It probably wasn't helpful that Ty and I found this whole thing quite hilarious and laughed the whole time, which caused both Noah and Taylor to get higher pitches of wailing!

Ahhhh. Clean, sweet, non-crying Taylor. I brought back her happiness with some good ole grapes.

Noah held a tad bit of a grudge for Aunt Dawn and Taylor but he accepted some spoiling from Christian. Ty picked out two of his tshirts to give to Noah and Taylor for nightshirts. This otter shirt is a hand-me-down clear from Phillip and the shirt he got for Taylor had a soccer ball on it because he thought Uncle Jared would approve.

So... there hasn't been the sound of crying babies in my home for quite some time. I think I was quite calm through the whole ordeal, even quite tickled. I hope Noah and Taylor forgive me eventually for thinking they are so cute in head to toe mud AND even with tears! It was the best evening I have had in a long time, so looking forward to next month.