2013 - here we go!

Well, 2013 has started off reasonably well. Busy, but that's to be expected in this house! :)

Dylan & Ryan are doing good in school and Cub Scouts. They are getting ready for Pine Wood Derby at the beginning of Feb. Dylan's grades are exceptional and Ryan's are coming WAY up from where he started at the first of the year. Ryan started off struggling and having a bit of trouble with his confidence but I think he has finally found his groove!!


Dylan is prepping for his second acting audition. This time with Town & Gown - a local theater. The play is called "The Broken Statue". A historical play surrounding the Marland Mansion in Ponca City, Ok. His chances of getting into this one are actually fairly slim unless there are very few boys who audition due to him being 2-6 years younger than the ages they are looking for. I think if he can go in and show them what he's got he'll make it though!
We are also in the process of planning his 9th birthday party. He's chosen to have a geology party and learn everything he can about rocks and their formations. I must say planning science related parties is so much more difficult than pizza and bounce houses... It's sure to be a great party though!



Ryan doesn't have too many interests these days other than video gaming which I'm mean and limit. He's getting ready to start a reading tutoring program at OSU that hopefully will boost his reading confidence. He's also interested in karate so we may look into that for an active outlet!

Right now he absolutely loves ANYTHING active! Skating, biking, scooter riding, rocks, dirt, bugs, building forts/huts, outdoor scavenger hunting, etc. These things can & will keep him busy for hours on end!

As you can see in the pic he loves finding treasure. This "ancient pipe" was one he found today while we were in the field next to our house rock hunting


Aydan has a recently found love of all things Thomas (the train). For Christmas he got a train table and quite a few trains to go with it. He now has Thomas jammies that he lives in, Thomas bedding, Thomas movies and a Thomas condutor hat that he loves wearing and sleeping with. His favorite train right now is Hiro.

He's been working hard on writing his letters so hopefully will be fully writing by the time he starts pre-k in Aug. He's super excited about school, but me not so much. It's hard to believe my baby is old enough for school....

He's growing too fast! A few nights ago this kid ate 4 slices of pizza in one sitting and was still asking for more(I cut him off at that because I was afraid he would explode)...


Plans are also in the works for a 2 room addition to be built onto the back of our house so the g-ma's can move in. I've never liked nursing homes and have always said I would be the one to care for them once they could no longer care for themselves. Well, that time is very near... More on this in the coming weeks!

Finished the play...forgot to post

 Well, Dylan finished up the play of Galileo in November. I forgot to post about it though with life just being so busy. He did AMAZING!!! I got to watch the play every night except 1/2 of one night. He has already started talking about wanting to do another play in the future. :)

As you can see by this ticket our seats were in row G, sadly once we got inside we realized there was no row G and had to be randomly seated elsewhere. This made things a bit stressful since we had pre-reserved our spot.

On the last night of the play I got a chance to get Dylan's picture with the other 2 main cast members. Bennett (aka Galileo) and James (aka the grown up version of Andrea Sarti). :)
Do you see how much James and Dylan favor?!?! Sorta freaky! They even walk the same!

This was a curtain call practice on the last night of rehearsal. This is the whole stage cast. Dylan was the youngest of 3 kids and the others were all OSU students I think.

He very much misses the interaction with the cast. He had gotten to know most of them pretty well and was very sad once the play was over. We may check in to more acting options this summer.

Ryan and Champ

Ryan recently "outgrew"(used them to death) a pair of his favorite pj's. They were a pair of stretchy footie pj's with a zip up front. He wore holes in the knees, holes in the feet and made the seams start separating in the shoulders. He actually finally chose to give them up himself because they were getting harder to wear. 

When he gave them to me and said he couldn't wear them anymore he just looked so sad... I knew I had to figure out somehow to make these pj's live on! So I did!

 Champ was such a great helper! He sat so patiently waiting for his "new" pre-loved, re-made pj's!

He was so good during test fitting and measuring too! :)


Going from a clothing item in size 5 toddler down to  a preemie size isn't as easy as it seemed when I first came up with this idea...and with no pattern just a vision inside my head which isn't probably a very safe place considering the clutter!

It took three and a half hours from start to completion and a few mess ups along the way but they turned out great!! Not sure I'd ever attempt anything like this again, but I had fun this time.


The hardest part were the footies. There were so many holes, but I wanted to be able to actually use the anti-slip fabric that was left on the newly designed set so I had to do some fancy cutting/sewing to get it there without holes!

I had planned on saving them for a Christmas gift to Ryan and Champ, but I was just too excited for Ryan to get to see them!! :) To think I expect my kids to use patience! :P

Ryan was very proud of Champs new duds!

I'm one lucky/blessed mommy to have this kid right here!---->

Andrea Sarti - Galileo's little friend...

Dylan has been enjoying 3 weeks of play rehearsals for Galileo now. He's doing amazingly well remembering his lines/cues/actions. I honestly wouldn't have ever thought this would be something he enjoyed just because he's my out-doorsy guy with a passion for bugs and rocks...okay really anything OUTSIDE. So a stage is not exactly where I pictured him spending his time. He gets along great with all of the other cast members - though I'm pretty sure he thinks most of them are crazy! That group sure does have fun though!

This is a picture I took last week while he was in rehearsal. This is a shot from scene 4.
I'm not sure who all of this group is playing but I'll try to explain a little.

~Dylan is playing Andrea Sarti, Galileo's housekeepers son/an inquisitive little boy who wants to learn all about Mr. Galilei's idea's on the sun, stars and space.
~Galileo is the gentleman in the brown sweater and red kool-aid shirt with his back to Dylan.
~Lady on the far left is Mrs. Sarti - the housekeeper and Andrea's mother.
~Director is the gentleman walking off stage in front of Mrs. Sarti
~Gentleman in the army green shirt on the mid-right of the picture is going to be the one playing the older version of Dylan's character. I must be honest - it's a bit freaky how much Dylan favors this kid! Yes I say kid because he can't be over 21!!... But he and Dylan look sooooooo much alike and this was NOT planned durring casting!

I can't remember who the others are, but that at least gives a little info...

Dylan is in scenes 1, 2, 4, 8, and 14 if I remember correctly with 8 being only to switch with his older self and 14 being a different roll as another child.

Fun Stuff! :)

Aydan is growing like a little weed these days! He's getting to be quite the mouthy little dude with huge opinions on everything, but still as sweet as they come. He's very helpful too! Right now he's practically counting down the days until his birthday and tells everyone it's in November then proceeds to ask if they are coming to his party.

Dylan and Ryan are now in Cub Scouts. So far they have been very much enjoying all of the fun activities! We've gotten to go to a day camp that included a fishing tournament, learning to use a crossbow, and shooting bb guns.
We also enjoyed Scout Day at a local aquarium as well!

They just finished up popcorn sales and both did reasonable well! (Considering how little time we had to work on it.) We will be getting it in soon to start deliveries!

Right now we are looking forward to a full weekend camp out called Spook-o-ree. They are super excited since this will be their first time to camp in a tent. I on the other hand dread it because I HATE being cold and the weather doesn't look like it's going to be giving me much warm support...   :/
As long as they have fun is what matters though!

Actor in the making??...!!

So much for this thing of trying not to add more hectic-ness to my already overflowing plate!!

Last night Dylan auditioned for a role in the OSU theater production of Galileo and 2 hours after his audition (we were at a cub scouts pack meeting) I received a call from the director saying he wanted to cast Dylan. He said Dylan did a wonderful job on his prepared reading, reading from the script and switching roles suddenly when asked. As many of you may know Dylan has absolutely no acting experience, but has an amazing ability to be good at everything. (you know the only kid you remember from elementary school that you hated for being perfect??) From the time he was around 18 months old he has been interested in space and astronautics, around 2 1/2 he became interested in entomology, at 5 architecture, at 6 geology, and this past summer right after turning 8 started showing an interest in acting. He spent the whole summer making up and preforming plays for me.

Before we arrived for the audition Dylan was a bit nervous. He had a few times over the weekend he told me he didn't know if he wanted to do it or not. I just kept reminding him that it was good to try new things and he doesn't know he won't like it unless he tries it. So as we arrived there was an immediate panic attack as we realized Dylan hadn't brought the paper along for the reading he was supposed to do. So some of quickest make shift print action ever was done. We were the third audition sign up and Dylan was taken with two others to the stage to do their thing. After 30 min the 3 returned and Dylan's face was just beaming with excitement! He right away started talking all about how much fun he had and what he did. So when I told him he got a part his response was "YEESSS!"

I was told he got the role he read for at the audition. Andrea Sarti, Galileo's house-keepers son. Me, as a mother of an 8 year old first time actor is really really really (I could go on with the really's) hoping it's a small part as to not over do him on his first time having to learn lines and ques. I know he'll do amazing though no matter how big the part.

He starts rehearsals tomorrow evening and continues until the play opens mid November. It's going to make my already overbooked schedule even worse, but that's okay! It's worth it to see my kid get to open his world just a little further!

Please ignore the misspelling in the above picture, we'll find out what's up with that tomorrow! :P

No posts?? Here's why...

Wow, long time no post!

Life has just been sooooo incredibly busy! Dylan & Ryan are both in Cub Scouts now with many scouting events going on as well as popcorn sales, all 3 boys are about to start karate and Dylan is preparing to audition for a role in OSU's theater production of Galileo. (Which I'm not expecting him to get since this is his first time to do such an audition, but the experience will be good for him!)
Grannie is doing fairly well, but this time of year starts our round of check ups for all her past health issues.

Daytimes are booked with work, dr. appts, cleaning or school events. Evenings with work, cleaning, scouting, or other kids events. Weekends with working, Grannie's shopping, scouting and cleaning. Honestly 10-15 min spans between events....

I must say filling the role as Mom has always been my dream. Now the 70+ hours of work with my job along with parenting each week and another 14+ hours of cleaning up from work was a little more than I planned for. Seems I've gotten myself stuck in a rut of over-booked-ness that I can't seem to get out of. Where I used to maybe once or twice a year feel stretched to breaking point this year has been far more often to the point of an almost weekly break down as I just sit and wait for myself to actually snap. I once heard someone describe a rut as being a "grave with the ends dug out" - kinda how I'm starting to feel.

I've started randomly planning nights away for myself to stay in a hotel with no begging or screaming children, no toys to trip over, no cleaning! Usually I turn my phone on silent so I can spend my quiet responsibility-less time watching movies and sleeping! Sadly those free nights are getting fewer and the last couple of free nights I've had I made other plans then they were wiped out on such short notice that I missed my de-stress time - leading to more stress. Now I'm looking at 3 months before my next chance at some free time fun....so I'm irritable to say the least.

I fully understand how much complaining I'm doing here and how shallow it all sounds - as it is, I know... Sometimes though a person can only bare so much responsibility for everyone else for so long before they need to start caring for themselves once in while and need moments of not being needed for anything.

So there, that would be the reason for delayed posting. Sorry for the rant....

Kitty Update:

Bubblegum made it home. She is a cute little kitten who is mean as can be. She thinks her job in life is to eat people. We had her declawed in the front to prevent the injuries she was causing, but she still has back claws and teeth... :/ She sleeps very little, eats a LOT and is always ready to attack! She is very full of personality!

Baby Bubblegum

 Bubblegum is getting bigger and fluffier! These are two pictures her current family sent us this week.

 9 Days Old

12 Days Old

Her eyes are now mostly open and she's starting to move around!

Here is the collar Ryan bought for her. We've made an agreement with our kids that if they have a pet they have to pay at least half of every cost that comes along with owning that pet. So Ryan happily bought this collar with mostly his own birthday/Christmas money and this summer we will be coming up with creative ways for him to earn more money to get her spayed! :) We don't wanna have our own set of babies!

Picture Updates/Meet Bubblegum!!

 A couple weeks ago we went to visit some friends and hit a few garage sales with them. Found this nifty little thing for Aydan. His first bike for only $10!!! He loves it! He's a quick learner and is super fast on this thing!!

On Ryan's birthday him & Dylan got to visit a car show which they greatly enjoyed!! Dylan really enjoyed looking at all the really awesome cars and Ryan enjoyed bashing the wrecked car with a bat - imagine that! :) 

(Hard to believe these two are only 2 years apart, but Ryan has been growing a little!)

 Recently Dylan's 2nd grade class put on a play "Follow the Drinking Gourd" while learning about the underground railroad. He played "Samuel" a little boy whose family was trying to escape slavery. He was so excited to dress the part in his holy jeans and stained up dirty shirt. He did such a great job!!

 Aydan loved having his bestie Roderick come to visit. When these two were babies they looked almost identical, red hair and everything!! Not even related! I met Roderick's parents while both his mom and I were still preggers. Aydan is almost a month older but I had so many times of having to do double takes while keeping him for daycare. They still look so much alike but are starting to change a little as they grow up so far less twinage!

 Ryan's Super-Kids Day injury.... He and another child ran head first into each other at the award ceremony... His poor little cheek - I missed getting a picture the following day but it turned green which wasn't a good look!  

 Ryan on "Dress Like A Pirate" day at school. Kindergarteners have so much fun!!

Do you know how hard it is to get an excited little pirate to sit down and smile?!?! He had to make himself smile using his hand! :P

 A few nights ago Ryan asked to sleep in my bed with me. This is something he hasn't done since July of last year. He used to join me in bed EVERY night from about 2-3am because of his difficulty sleeping. He'd wake up every night and be awake for around 2 hours just unable to sleep so he'd come lay in my bed and sing to himself quietly or play with his fingers until he wore himself back out enough to sleep until he woke up at 6. This was after going to bed around 11:00-11:30. Luckily since July of last year he has been able to sleep through the night from 9pm until 6-7am!!! Its amazing!!!

I just couldn't resist a photo op. It's not too often I get a picture of him being still!! :)

Aydan and his girlie friend Kennie. These two are a hoot to be around!

Last, but certainly not least.... Meet Bubblegum! Ryan's new kitten was born on May 6th. She is the little calico cutie! He is soooooo excited!! We had to go yesterday to buy her her very first collar. He wanted to get her a black collar with metal spikes and was very disappointed when Petco didn't have any for sale.... He ended up with a pink one with black sculls and cross bones (the child is crazy!! j/k I love that strange little dude!) In 5-7 more weeks we get to bring her home!! :)

Ryan's birthday fun....

Ryan's day through pictures!

 I went in to wake him up for school and he just looked too cute next to Champ to not get a picture!

Champ is officially 3 years old now! It was his b-day too!

 He wasn't pleased to be woken up via camera flash! :P
So he just shoved his hand in front of the camera....

 Getting some practice on his new set of wheels! (Yes he has a helmet...somewhere...)

 Settling down watching some tv before bed after ridding bikes for over an hour...

Getting ready to end his busy day heading back to bed. Yes he was fake sleeping...lol...love this kid!

For dinner he picked to eat at McDonalds, but I forgot to get pictures..

Also we told him we were getting him a kitten as well, but that it wasn't born yet. He didn't have too much of a reaction which seemed a bit odd considering he's been asking for almost a year! I'm sure he'll be much more excited once he can actually see it! Hopefully I'll have kitten pictures soon!! :)

Overall we had a great day! Can't wait to celebrate with friends and family on Saturday!

Happy Birthday little Prince!

It's so hard to believe Ryan is now 6 years old - well as of 4:16pm he will be. (Trying not to rush it any faster than we have to!)

 He's becoming such an amazing little boy! His sparkle, his zest for life and curiosity never ceases to put a smile on my face. 

I truly can't wait to see what he does with his life. I know with his drive and determination he can do anything he sets his mind to!

I Love you my sweet little Prince!  :)  

Happy Birthday!

Dylan "Star of the Week"

Last week was Dylan's week at school to be "Star of the Week". This is where for 1 week he gets to bring an item that is special or important to him each day to share with the class. Then we as parents get to (be punished by :P ) send a snack for the whole class each day.

• Monday Dylan wanted to take a few things from our Florida trip. He took his shark tooth necklace that he picked as his souvenir while we were there, a few shells we found while at the beach, and a post card I had to scrapbook with that showed a map of where we stayed. He was so excited!
  J.D. had stayed up pretty late the night before making some homemade peanut butter cookies for his snack - which Dylan was excited about too of course!
• Tuesday he took his box of crystals from when we went to Meramec Caverns in 2007, as well as a large crystal Grannie neighbor gave him.
  For snack we sent some fudge stripe cookies and some creme wafer cookies(yes we cheated via WM). But there was a mis understanding and they only got to eat the fudge stripe one because his teacher thought he had brought 2 days worth of snacks, but there were only enough to have 1 cookie each so she handed out chocolate animal crackers with them. Dylan came home VERY bummed out, but we got it all worked out...
• Wednesday insects were his item of choice. We worked very hard Tuesday evening pinning some of his favorite insects we had been storing in the freezer. He picked 5 to pin in a cigar/pencil style box.
  
  For snack I made brownies. I actually got up first thing Wednesday morning to make these. (I was waiting on a response from his teacher after the cookie incident just to make sure brownies were okay to send so I had waited until the last min. since I hadn't heard back yet). So the plan was that J.D. was going to drop these by the school on his lunch break for Dylan's class for snack, but on the way to school Dylan let J.D. know that they actually do snack in the mornings!!! So J.D. quickly returned home to help speed cool the brownies using a second sheet pan with ice in it. We were able to cool a 13x17 inch pan in like 10 min! We got them all cut, wrapped and he rushed them back to Dylan's school to ensure they were there by snack time.
  
• Thursday he wanted to take a couple of his Wooden Nutcrackers. He's trying to get a collection of these. So far he has 3 of his own & I hear he has one in the works! ;)
  Snack consisted of the missed cookies from Tuesday & Apple slices.
• Friday was the day to bring the penny collection! This one has always intrigued me... Dylan just loves to collect pennies from those machines that squish them w/ a picture on them like the zoo, aquariums, museums etc. He has a nice little collection and always searches for these machines when we go to new places. He always has the hardest time deciding on which design to get as well (each machine normally has 4 to choose from).
  Snack for his last day were snowman cookies. I started baking these around 5pm Thursday evening and finally finished decorating around 4 hours later - luckily J.D. helped. We don't have all that great decorating skills, but they still turned out cute!

He's just Ryan!

For a while now Ryan has been going into the bathroom each morning before school and fixing his hair. Today was no different except for the fact he insisted on me hair-spraying it for him. I told him I needed pictures and these are the 4 I got before he hopped in the car to go to school.

Ryan has come a long way from that tiny little 6lb 11oz baby we had a little over 5 years ago.

He sure has kept us on our toes! At five months old I caught him climbing a bookcase in our living-room and he's only gotten more active!

He's finally made it to 30lbs though so we are super proud! He's also 3ft 5in. tall now too!
He's growing!!

A little boy who didn't sleep more than 45 minutes at a time until he was 11 months old, ate non-stop from birth(and still does). A little boy whose growth was so slow that he sent Dr.s on a wild goose chase to find out why. A little boy so active that I still get up each night to check on him to insure he's still safe in his bed. A little boy who has the ability to melt hearts with his smile! - He sure is a blessing!
Sure do love this little boy!