Tailgating Time

Love this time of year when you get to get together and tailgate and hang out with some of your favorite people. We recently had our annual tailgate with our 11th and 12th graders, but this year we joined in with the 9th and 10th graders to expand our fun. We had an amazing night this year. Great weather, sunny and warm for this time of year. Last year we froze to death. Since the weather was so nice we decided to stay for part of the Broken Arrow Tigers games. Katie has been wanting to go to a game all season, so we thought it would be are best chance.

Can't have a tailgate without hot dogs. I think Katie was ready to dig in as she would not stop to smile for me. I can't believe I got Bree to give me a "normal" smile and not a silly face.

"Awe Mom, did you have to take my picture while I was eating"

Still trying to get just one good picture....I give up.

What is a tailgate without a game of football. Katie and Braeden were trying their best to keep up and help tackle.

They were the "mini" quarterbacks helping out Drew.

Chet, Bree and Lydia

Imagination Put to Use

A couple of weeks ago we were in the garage getting stuff ready for our neighborhood garage sale. Katie kept asking for anything she could have to play with and reuse. Chris gave her some old boxes and other stuff. A little while later she came and got me and said hey look at my space ship. You can't really see from the picture but she drew buttons and other things on the box that looks like what you find inside of a space ship. The white things are her "jets" and behind her head in the first photo is a plate she used for the steering wheel. I was pretty impressed with what she came up with when she was given things we were just going to throw away. She can put her imagination to good use.

State Fair

Ok, so it has been a few weeks since I updated the blog. Some has just been lack of motivation and some was not being able to find my camera cord to upload the picks. It seems I have found both now. Here are a couple of updates on us.

Mom and Dad have been with us the past week. They came in for a week to see the girls. It has been fun having them here, even though Katie has to go to school during the day they have been enjoying the day with Bree and then at night they have been spending time with both Katie and Bree. Lots of Chick-fil-a visits, shopping, playing, taking walks, etc.


We did all head out to the Tulsa State Fair last Saturday evening. It has been a couple of years since we last went. Thought it would be fun to all go. Wow! I forgot though how expensive it can be. Prices defiantly went up since we last went, but none the less we had a good time.

The girls with Nana and Papaw waiting in line to ride the bubble bees.

Katie showing off her prize she won at a game all by herself. She wanted to pop balloons with a dart. The guy told us she could play to she wins. I guess it didn't know how skilled our girl was. He gave her three darts and the first one she threw she popped a balloon, the second one she threw she popped a balloon and the third one she threw she popped three balloons. She was so excited to have done it herself. Bree didn't want to play because she didn't like the sound of the balloons popping, so daddy played for her and won her the same animal. Bree requested for no pictures to be taken of her and her cow. Even though I tried she was able to turn away faster then I could take a picture.

Getting ready to go through a castle obstacle course thing. Not sure what to call it.

Heading up the stairs

At the very top walking over a swing bring. Before they get to the swing bridge they had to climb up a rope latter. Katie flew up it and left Bree behind. Bree wasn't quite sure what to do but she was slowly figuring it out. Other kids were pushing by Bree because she was going slow. Katie looked back and saw Bree trying to climb up, so she went back and reached her hand down to Bree from the top of the ladder to help her up, and she even told other kids to stop pushing her. I don't think I have been more proud of Katie. She stepped up and protected her little sister and made sure she was safe. Warmed my heart.

We didn't get to go on alot of rides as it was pretty crowded and lines were long, but we did enjoy some good ole fair food, corn dogs, nachos, philly cheesesteak sandwich, fries, fried butter and that was just for me. Not sure what everyone else had. LOL

Once the sun went down it got a kinda of cold and windy so we went into the QuickTrip center where they had a bunch of vendors. They had a spin art place where they put a frisbee in this box and it spins around really fast and the girls could take different paint colors and pour them in. It would spin the paid and make different patterns. Here is the finished look. I thought they were cute.

New PJ's

We were at Ross the other and they had some really cute winter pj's so the girls each got to pick out a pair. Katie picked princesses and Bree picked Dora. It was good timing because that night was one of our first cold nights here for fall. They girls put on their new winter pj's. They had sat down to watch a cartoon when Katie asked to take a picture of her and Bree. The next thing I know it turned into a photo shoot as they wanted to keep posing with Samson.

I have one showing me happy, one showing me angry and then one just hidding.

I think Samson just didn't want his picture taken, or maybe he's just sad he couldn't make a silly face to match the girls.
Can you tell yet who has the spunky personality in our family? Bree can no longer just give me a simple smile. It has to be some type of face. She is my silly girl.

Finally one of our boy...Bree was playing peek a boo behind Samson.

Dancing with Our Stars!

Saturday night Chris and I got to go to a wonderful fundraiser for Hospitality House of Tulsa. Hospitality House is an organization that opens their doors to families in need of a place to live while their loved ones are in the hospital. They provide an apartment, food, laundry services and most of all loving support and people to pray for them and with them.

This years fundraiser was called Dancing with Our Stars. They recruited local celebrities(local news reports, pageant winners, meteorologist, etc). Each celebrity worked with a dance instructor and performed their dance live that evening. Votes were based by judges, we could vote as the audience by donating money for a couple, and then off course text voting was part of it as the celebrities videoed their dance a week in advanced and it was posted so others could vote.

They also had other fun ways of raising money. They had both a silent and live auction. I got some nice wall art in the silent auction. They had some of the professional dance teachers going around and if they asked you to dance you could accept for a 25.00 donation or if you declined you had to pay a 50.00 donation.

It was a great night, lots of fun. We got to dress up go out and enjoy a evening with great friends and help a great cause.

I had one of our friends snap a quick photo of Chris and I outside on the patio.

Party Fun!

Saturday morning we headed off to go Sam's birthday party. Sam is turning 3 and he loves fire trucks, so we started the birthday party off by visiting one of our Fire Stations. The fireman talked about all that the fire truck did, they gave us a tour of the fire station, they talked to the kids about what fireman do, asked the kids some questions, they even called dispatch and had them sound the alarms so the kids could hear the different alarms.


Once they finished the tour we went back outside and one of the fireman was dressed up in their gear. He wanted to show the kids what a fireman could look like if they had to come into their home to get them, so they wouldn't be afraid. The kids were fascinated by the mask and him breathing through the mask.



Bree wouldn't go up to the guy all dressed up. I looked over and poor Bree is still holding her ears afraid that the alarms were going to go off again. One of the fireman came up to here to try and reassure her that they weren't coming back on but she wasn't believing him. I told Sam's mom Mary, that I would be sending her the therapy bill. :)

The kids still enthralled with the fireman's gear.

Group photo before we left to head over to a park to let the kids play and have cake.

Behind the Scenes

Last Thursday our zoo had Member Appreciation night. They open the zoo in the evening from 5:30-8pm. They give behind the scenes looks at some of the animals, meet the keepers, check out the vet hospital, etc. We have never gone before so I thought it would be kind of cool to take the girls. One thing I totally underestimated was the number of people that would be there. So we didn't get to do everything we wanted to but we got a few things in.

One of the good things of the evening was they had free wagon and stroller rentals, so we took advantage of that so the girls didn't get lost in the crowd. As usual, I can never get straight smiles anymore...


When we got there we went ate some dinner, listened to music and let the girls make birthday cards for some of the zoo animals. Once they were done with the card they got to give it to one of the zoo keepers to deliver the card to that animal.

We then moved on to check out the behind the scenes for the elephants. The keeper was there talking about all the elephants. One of them was pregnant, Katie asked where the baby was. Ha!

The elephants were really friendly and would come straight up to the rails. They had four females and one male. Bree had a death grip on me as she was not sure what to think seeing such a big animal so close. I thought it was so cool. The elephants would look you straight in the eye and try to reach out to you with their trunks.

Here's Katie as we were leaving, Bree was being a party pooper and didn't want her picture taken.

We also got to ride the train for free, so we decided to ride the train back to the front of the zoo.

Before we left we let the girls ride their favorite thing the carousel....also free that night. :)