The Circus!

       Intermission-there were Elephant rides, pony rides, and face painting

                            Tiger jumping through the ring of fire!!

                                             Here's the tight rope walkers

We had the Circus come to town on Wed. March 16th.  I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the Circus.  I didn't get very good pictures because of the lighting and holding Shelby-but we had lots of fun.  Holly's favorite was the Acrobats performing Little Mermaid and they were dressed up like Mermaids-of course.  Carson's favorite was the dirt bikes racing inside the ball.  I liked the balancing acts and dare devil performances-those were crazy.  I was so worried they were going to fall!  The tigers were neat.  It was a fun family night out and the kids first experience.

Little Hurricane in Sutherlin

                                                         This is what happened to our shed!

                                                      Our shed use to be covering all this stuff!

On Sunday March 13th we had a bad storm.  At first it wasn't that bad-you know-some rain, some wind.  Chris noticed in the distance some really dark clouds and we knew it was going to be a thunderstorm.  However, we had a Hurricane!  It was hailing and the wind was blowing at about 60 MPH.  We lost our shed-the wind picked it up and threw it into our neighbors field.  Our trash cans got tossed and cans went everywhere.  I saw our trampoline lifting and I'm surprised that didn't go flying.  So-after the heavy wind died down some-I ran out there and started picking up cans that were all over the field.  I noticed that big metal thing in the neighbors yard and asked Chris what it was.  He took one look at it and said, "That's our shed!"  I didn't know at first.  I couldn't believe it.  There were trees down all over Sutherlin. A lot of trees completely uprooted.  Chris' parents had 3 trees fall down-one fell and hit the side of their guest house.  Other people had trees hit fences, cars, houses.  Shingles came off roofs, metal roofs blew off, a tree fell and took out the powerlines.  We saw three poles down and the lines in the street.  We were without power from 2PM-until 2 AM-and that means water too.  I'm glad that no one was hurt in our family and that we had minimal damage.  Some people I talked to weren't as fortunate.  Oregonians can handle rain-but we have really mild climate-just a lot of rain, but never like this.  It was crazy.  We spent the afternoon cleaning up everything that was exposed and getting prepared if the wind started up again.  I'm glad it didn't.  So-we ate over at John and Soozee's-they cooked on the BBQ and we ate by candlelight.  Then the kids slept with us-All 4 of us in a Queen size bed-not very comfortable-but Holly and Carson felt safe and that's what matters most. 

Coaching Basketball

                                                                The Yellow Panthers

                                                            Holly's first year of Basketball

                                                        Last Game of the season

                                                      
Chris and I had lots of fun coaching Basketball this last season.  Chris said he wants to do it next year too.  Now we are more prepared and know what to expect.  This year I think we did pretty good though.  Chris did all the coaching and I was his assistant.  So my job was calling the team, making schedules, making flyers for invites, etc.  I took pictures of the team and individual pictures of the kids-which next year I will get a professional photographer.  We had an end of the season pizza party and all our kids came (which was great!) and we handed out their pictures in these neat Basketball frames and their metals.  I think the kids had a great time and we enjoyed our group of kids.  I'm looking forward to next year when Holly and Carson can play! 

Shelby is growing SO fast!

Look at my happy baby!!  She is growing so fast and she loves to sit in the walker now.  She is having so much fun learning new things and to use her voice more.  She gets so focused on something and grabs for everything. Tonight she was trying to grab Chris' ice cream-she really wanted it.  You can tell already-she is so determined and wants to learn more and more.  Have I said already that she is the best baby!! 

Shelby is talking

Shelby is already talking.  Last week she started saying a lot.  Her first word was DADA! She says MAMA, DEDE, NANA.  She has been laughing-I have yet to record that-but it is so cute.  The other night I was playing peek-a-boo and she was cracking up laughing.  She is such a happy baby.  She's still not rolling over yet, but I think she doesn't really care about that.  She also does this really funny "dance" (that's what we call it), when she is laying on her back she wiggles her entire body kindof like Stevie Wonder-it is so funny, but she wouldn't do it for me entirely when I was recording her.  I will have to record her doing her dance-because she will do it for a while over and over-it makes all of us laugh. 

Valentine's Day Surprise

Chris surprised me today with this!  I was at work and came out to my car to all of this.  Chris wrote all over my car and put roses and a sample of Tim McGraw cologne inside.  It was a big surprise.  It definitely made me laugh and then I had to drive around with this on my car.  I went and picked up Carson at preschool with my car like that.  It was fun.  Chris went to the store and bought dinner makings too.  So I get to enjoy a gourmet home cooked meal from my man as well.  He made today fun!  Thanks babe-Love you! 

Holly's Birthday

Holly turned 7 on Feb. 8th and on her actual Birthday we took her to Dairy Queen for an ice cream and let her open presents from us and Grandpa and Grandma Jones. The entire week Holly was excited for her Birthday and then her party on Sat. 12th. Holly wanted to do a "Tangled" Theme. We had the party at the church again and had lots of fun. We ate pizza and Cake (of course), had activities of coloring pages, making a Pascal party blower. I got all these great ideas at DisneyFamily.com. On the website they had the activity sheets of drawing a nose on Flynn Rider, drawing Rapunzel's hair, and making the party blowers of Pascal. The blowers were great since Pascal is a cameleon-I got pink party blowers- like a tongue-and the kids loved that. Then we played tug-a-war with yellow rope that represented Rapunzel's hair. The kids thought that was great! All the kids at the party even took on Chris. Then I had some blonde hair headbands that I got at the Dollar Store to give out to the girls and the boys got paints, and the gift bags were already pre-made. Wal-Mart carried all the "Tangled" party stuff for inexpensive-so that was good. They had a great time and Holly had about 18 friends come-I think next year I will probably need a bigger bouncy house for her age group! I had fun preparing for Holly's party, but I'm glad it is over. Now I don't have to worry about kids Birthday's until September.

Here's a little video of Chris taking on a bunch of 7 yr. olds at tug-a-war.