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. :)

Daddy's Great Find

Daddy made his girls day yesterday when he came home with this great find. If you don't' know, Chris is a always looking for a deal on things. He hates to by new unless it is necessary. I always give him a hard time about it, but I have to say he did good on this one. A friend of his at work was selling their trampoline, so Chris bought it off of him for 25.00. When Chris called me and told me, I thought what kind of condition is this trampoline going to be in if he got it for 25.00. He brought it home and it is still in great condition. I have to say great job Dad! The girls were beyond excited that they got a trampoline. It was taking a little while to put together so the girls wanted to jump a few minutes before they had to go to bed. Here they are taking a trail run before daddy put up the net.

Okay daddy, let's try it out. Samson was a little concerned. When they were on the trampoline he was underneath running around trying to watch them. I think he thought they were going to fall through or something.

When I see this picture I can just here Bree's little giggle that she lets out when she is having fun.

Jump, skip, bounce

You can guess what they will be doing tonight. :)

Kitchen - Phase One Complete

Updating our kitchen has been on our to do list since we bought our home a few years ago, so a few months ago Chris and I found a good deal on some solid surface counter tops. We decided to buy the material and Chris wanted to try and do the project himself. After reviewing exactly all that goes into installing new counter tops he thought it might be best to get some assistance. We found a guy named Jim, that does this kind of work and he came out to help us out. A little over 4 weeks ago the project started. I had no idea I would be without my kitchen for 4 weeks, but in all fairness they only worked on Friday and Saturdays so I guess 4 weeks is not too bad, but you have no idea how much your kitchen is the central part of your house until you don't have it. I had no running water in the kitchen. I had to use our bathroom to wash any dishes or if I needed water to make tea or lemonade. It was crazy. We started using all paper products just so I didn't have to wash dishes everyday in our bathroom, we ate out a lot which sounds nice at first but then it just becomes old and having to think of places to go and eat. So needless to say I am ecstatic that my kitchen is back to normal, this was the biggest part of our kitchen renovation, everything else we are going to do is minor and won't require loosing my running water. :)

So here are some kind of before pics, I was out of town when Chris and Jim started on the kitchen so I don't have an actual before pic, but I do have pics of what I came home to.

We had a cream color lament type counter top and as you can see it is all gone. My lovely new sink was put in on the first day. So I got to look at each day dreaming of the day I would be able to use it again.

Here are the after pics. The color of the solid surface is about the same of our old. We wanted to stay neutral. I have to say I absolutely love the new counter tops. It makes the kitchen look so much different to us.

We still have a few things we want to do in the kitchen, we are going to put a tile back splash, add some hardware and trim to the cabinets and paint. We hope to get all this done by end of the year but we will see. For now I am just enjoying the fact that for the first time in 4 weeks I cooked dinner in my kitchen. I definitely will not take for granted the usefulness of my kitchen and running water.

My Extended Family

I am not sure I will every understand why my God chooses to continue to bless Chris and I the way that he does. I mean by no means are we worthy of what he has done for us. All I know is that lately God has shown an out pouring of his love and grace to Chris and I through our "extended family", which is our church family. They have just gone above and beyond for us during this time we are dealing with Brad's health issues.

Last week I get a message that contains a list of people who are bringing dinner to us every day last week. They knew that our kitchen was unusable because we are having new counter tops put in, plus they said they didn't want Chris and the girls to have to worry about dinners if I had to go back out of town again. So last week we has some amazing dinners provided for us. I can't even begin to explain how thankful I was to not have to worry about going out to eat or trying to fix dinner in a kitchen without running water and no countertops to actually prepare the food.


As if this wasn't enough, I get a call on Friday from our friend Sydney and she says she has something for me. She asked if I could pick it up before we left town to go back to Texas. When I went by her work this is what she had for me.


Several of our friends got together and made this amazing basket for my parents full of snack, drinks, some coloring books for the girls, a book of encouragement, a word puzzle book and also gift cards for places to eat. When I gave this to my mom it brought tears to her eyes. She was so overwhelmed with the generousity of people she had never even met. All I know is that we have a great family here in Broken Arrow that supports us no matter what. I love each and every one of them.

First Day of Kindergarten

Today was the big day...the one that seems forever away is now here. Katie was up at 7am and dressed and ready to go to Kindergarten by 7:15am. I think I broke her heart a little when I told her we had over an hour before we had to leave for school. She helped Bree get ready for school and we talked about how this was a big day for Bree as well. She was a big girl going off to school without her big sis. She didn't seem to mind and only asked daddy a few times where Katie was at on the way to school. Here they are before Bree left. Bree told me i could only take their picture if they could sit down. Bree has her "homework" she is doing. She has been pretending to play school lots lately.

Oh, my big girl. I think she looks so much older with her haircut. She is so ready for this day. Mommy and daddy not so much.

Backback and lunch.........that is all she needs.

Giving mommy some attitude.......showing off her new school outfit.

Katie didn't want anymore pics taken before we left, but we talked her into just two more. One with Daddy and on with Mommy. It was very sweet, before we left Daddy said a prayer with Katie. Asking God to give her protection and to be with her in her new school.

We drove our 2 miles down the road to school.........on our way in to go to her class.

Katie leading us to her class. She walked in like she had been there hundred times. Walked straight back to her class. That is one little confident girl.

Outside of her class

Found her cubbie and put her lunch and backpack in. She was then off to say hi to her teacher and check out the room.

Katie with her teacher Mrs. Brown. I got to meet her on Tuesday and she seems like a wonderul lady. So excited to see the kids and you can tell she has a love for them instantly.

We gave her good-by hugs and kisses and then she was off playing.
They had a quick orientation and meet the principal after we dropped off Katie. I just can't believe my first born is now in school on her way to becoming anything she wants to be. I know I can't wait to pick her up and hear all about her day.