Happy 17th to Ian!

WOW! It's really hard to believe Ian is 17 years old. But April 24th, 1993 he joined our family, and we've survived a whole 17 years together! Wahoo! This year was a bit unusual for his birthday...the band trip to Disney was during his birthday, so we celebrated a week early.

Cole made Ian a card. He really worried that Mr. Teen-Attitude would just blow it off & not like it. Well, a picture is worth a thousand words...














Cole's reaction is priceless!






Here's a few more pictures of the birthday fun which included bowling with the family & his friend, Van.









Does this picture say 'I'm 17 & own the world' or what!!?!?!





And some pictures really just defy description...

Flamingo Fun

Our U-TURN student ministries just started a new fund raiser....they are 'Flamingo Flocking' yards. You can buy a flock and send them to a friend's yard...done in secret, during the night. What a surprise to wake up to! OR you can buy 'Flamingo Insurance' - in hopes of preventing your yard from being flocked. Either way - it's lots of fun. (All the funds raised go towards summer youth camp at the beach.)

Cole had lots of fun playing with the flamingos...until they attacked!!!!!!

And I had a little Photoshop fun, too! =)

Backyard Critters

Some of our Backyard Critters....

Humming bird





Barred Owl (Comes to Pop's backyard every morning to check out the squirrel buffet.)














Beautiful Blissful-Roxanne Butterfly - native to Colorado, can be found by following the sounds of giggles, glee and extreme silliness, known to be very musical and sometimes chooses to dance instead of fly.








Common Yard Apes...relaxing in their natural habitat.Be careful - they are dangerous. Often eat you out of house & home.




Rare Blue Flying Goober... only seen near trampolines... on Easter.



















Rare Ian-Stinker - hasn't been seen in many years. Suspected of changing his appearance,by shedding his skunk-like skin and evolving into another kind of stinker...a teenager.

Spring Break 2010

Spring Break is in full swing. Instead of camping, this year we've opted for a Spring Break at home...but have plenty of fun. We started off the first evening of the break with a Friday night movie...the new "Clash of the Titans" - a pretty good remake of the classic. The boys gave it 2 thumbs up.

Then Easter.... It was really a lovely day. Unlike the past several Easters, this one was quite warm. The kids had a great time playing on the trampoline. Cole & Alex were rather sluggish when they finally hunted the Easters eggs because it had progressed from warm to just plain hot!










The warm weather has brought out the flowers AND all the song birds. The gold finch colors are getting brighter every day. I took these pictures from our kitchen window.





Wednesday we all went to West Point Lake for a day of fishing. Blake had gone last Saturday & caught a whole ice chest full of crappie. We were hoping for the same kind of luck on Wednesday. The first fish of the day was mine. Wahoo! And the trend continued! While Blake & Cole caught a few, for whatever reason - the fishing luck was with me that day. I haven't been fishing in years....I usually send Blake & the boys & stay home to sew, but Wednesday I caught bass, bream, and crappie! Wahoo! Towards the end of the day Blake got a bit too comfortable in his chair and fell asleep. The only thing that woke him up was a catfish tugging on his line!! Cole made friends with a Canadian goose. The goose was too wild (these lake geese are not like geese at parks) to take the food directly from Cole's hand, but it did finally did get pretty close. Ian doesn't really care for fishing, but he enjoyed the beautiful day - he's happy anytime he has his MP3 and some Chex Mix!








The one down side, but really amazing side of spring break was the pollen. The official pollen count on Wednesday was around 5000+. (A count of 100 is considered extremely high.) The air was so thick with the pollen you could actually SEE clouds of it floating across the lake every time the wind blew. It was like campfire smoke swirling around in the wind. It covered everything - even spider webs. I bet spiders HATE springtime. I told Cole to thump the pine blossoms to see what happens...PUFF! The edges of the lake were covered with the floating ick. Wherever it collected in the little inlets it was actually decaying...a sickly smell, EXACTLY like a dumpster! ICK!!! It was awful!

Today we made a special trip to Carrollton just for Ian. He took the test, passed and now has a Learners Permit to drive! Wahoo!!! Congratulations Ian! We're proud of you. Afterwards we stopped at what use to be our favorite Restaurant, The Lazy Donkey. It changed hands recently & just hasn't been the same old Donkey...so we call it the Jackass Palace now! But it was still a good meal & great way to celebrate Ian's accomplishment. Consider yourselves warned....he'll be on the roads!!!

We have a couple more days of break - Friday, Saturday & Sunday.... no special plans. A little bit of lazin' around, MAYBE a little housework, and a little more fun all sound good to me!

Signs of Spring 2010

Today is BEAUTIFUL!! The sky is brilliant blue and the sun is shining, the temperature is mild, the flower blossoms are popping out, and the birds are twitterpated. It's just so stinkin' pretty we HAD to go outside with the camera...or should I say cameras!!

This morning we played 'dualing cameras'. Blake had one camera - with the big 200mm lens, and I had the other - with the 'regular' lens. Both of us took pictures of the various flowers in the yard...violets, clover, dandelions, and our peach blossoms. Here's a sampling of the results. Can you tell who took the picture???

(Hint - right click on the picture...the properties 'name' of the picture has a "B" or a "D" to identify who took the picture, but a couple pictures don't have this ID, they were Blake's.)

Enjoy....

















This is my favorite sign of spring....Blake taking flower pictures!

Our Lucky Day

Lately, it's feels like every day is our 'lucky' day!

Cole & Blake went fishing. On the first day they caught nothing. The only fish they brought home were the greasie fastfood kind. BUT the next day they went back and Cole came home with this....













Cole thought he was hung on a stump, but that 'stump' starting fighting & wahoo ~ what a whopper! We estimate this crappie to be 2+ lbs, and it measured 15" long. I'm not sure who got the most thrill out of it - Cole, or Blake...or me!



Ian has had some 'lucky' days lately, too. I'm very proud to say while spending the weekend at D'Now, a local Youth event involving youth from all over the county, he decided to rededicate his life to Jesus. He's been maturing in amazing ways lately - I'm seeing glimpses of the truly awesome man within the growing teen. His whole 'aura' has changed lately - he's laughing more, enjoying life, and has found his joy.God is amazing, and its even more amazing to sit back & watch Him at work on Ian!








Blake and Cole found the first four-leaf clovers of the year today. Cole must have inherited his Daddy's ability to spot those elusive four-leave tokens of luck because he spotted several on his own. I swear, Blake can walk across the yard & say ' There's one. There's another. Here's 3 more' without even slowing down. He just SEES them!











And finally, here's some spring pictures - the birds at Blake's backyard buffet. The first violets of the year, and my annual bouquet of daffodils.