Another Great PTA Event!!

Last night was the PTA Family Math Night, and it was a huge success! When we have to hold a general PTA meeting, we always try to conicide it with a family event. This really helps with the turnout and last night was no exception! My friend Kathleen worked with the Math Vertical Team to organize this event. Every grade level offered a couple of math themed activities or games that the children got to bring home at the end of the night. Even though we don't have a Kindergarten-er, we never made it past this table! LOL! Of course, Emyley thought it was great to take home the two Kindergarten games that she, daddy and Hayley played together. Oh, and we can't forget all of the students' favorite game....the estimate jars! Whoever guesses the closest gets their name on the morning announcements and wins what was in the jar!! Our historian, Trish, was unable to attend, so I volunteered to take pictures for her. Sydney helped me out with that, so I thought I would share a couple that I got of my girls with you all!

Meme Tag, I'm It!

Well, Joni, if you are a nerd for looking it up, then want some company?? Oh, and thanks so much for the tag…this one was actually hard! ;o)

I don’t usually do these things, but since Joni is sick and needs something to read, then I’ll give it a whirl.

Finish the sentence with the 1st thought that comes to your mind.

I know.... this is a hard survey!

I believe... in miracles, Peter Pan and fireflies. LOL!

I fought.... my conscience about doing this survey, and lost. LOL!

I am angered.... when people break the rules.

I love.... CHOCOLATE!!

I need.... Clean Sweep to come take over my house!

I take.... too long to make up my mind over simple decisions.

I hear.... my children arguing.

I drink.... way too much Diet Pepsi.

I hate.... slow drivers on the interstate that cause traffic to back up.

I use.... my library card 2-3 times a week.

I want…. a makeover.

I like.... quiet.

I feel.... lucky to have healthy and sweet children....except when they are arguing!

I wear… my pajamas almost everyday.

I left.... dirty dishes in the sink for 3 days. Ew!

I do.... as little as possible to accomplish tasks.

I hope.... I get to travel more in the future. Ireland would be great!

I dream.... crazy dreams every night! Too crazy to go into here!

I drive.... to school and back, to school and back, to school and back. Oh, and the library, too!

I listen.... to Carrie Underwood while cooking dinner.

I type…. very fast thanks to my wonderful typing teacher Mrs. Terronez!

I think.... I may be slightly agoraphobic. Or maybe just a homebody??

I wish…. for a maid and a chef.

I regret.... not doing more before we had kids.

I care.... about my family and friends….even if sometimes I have a hard time showing it!

I should.... clean this room!

I am.... pretty boring.

I said.... have a great day to my kids this morning when I dropped them off at school.

I wonder.... if I could ever write a novel.

I changed.... the toilet paper roll this morning. Sorry my mind was stuck on this one!

I cry.... during love stories (reading or watching).

I lose.... my patience all the time!

I leave.... my bed unmade unless we are having company over.

Whew, that was tough! I feel like I have just jumped a huge hurdle! ;o) I will tag four people: Brandy & JenS because they both love to blog and Kathleen & Stephanie because they haven't blogged in a long, long time!

My Hometown the Series, Part 2

This is the house where I spent most of my growing up years. Actually, that isn't quite right, I'd say I spent just over half of my growing up years there, now that I really think about it. When I was born, we lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in the country. I know, most of you probably think that all of Chandler is "the country", but this house was about 2 miles off the main highway...actually in the country. We had about 4 acres of land with 2 ponds that my dad and I would fish in occassionally. We had blackberry bushes, peach trees, a garden and pecan trees. We had several dogs and a couple of siamese kitties. It was really fun. Most of my childhood memories are of that house and just playing outside all day long and catching fireflies at night. We had a couple of trees that sat at the top of our driveway, and my dad put in a monkey swing for me that we had bought on our vacation in Virginia. So fun!!!

Well, one day in early January when I was in the third grade, my mom and I were on our way home from a Brownie meeting, and our house was on fire! It didn't look all that bad, and my sisters, brother and parakeet made it out of the house just fine. One of my sister's boyfriends kept going back into the house and getting things out of the front room for us....some pictures, coffee table, letter jacket. I remember that most of all. We spent the night at my aunt's house.....9 of us crammed into her little 2 bedroom, 1 bath house! We were notified during the night that the firefighters made two more trips out to our house and on the third trip, they couldn't save anything. Yep, the whole thing burned to the ground! Of course as a little girl, the most important loss for me was my toys....spefically a baby doll....Happy Baby...I had gotten less than a month before for Christmas! My mom let me buy her at Wal-Mart and all was right in the world again! We got so many donations from everyone in town, it was really quite overwhelming!

We found a little rental house that got us by. My mom came to me one day and asked how I would like to live next door to one of my friends. I was ecstatic! So, we moved in February to the house in the picture. We thought we were uptown to be able to live in a house that was "in town"! It had 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths and a garage!! Woohoo! ;o) I had to share a small bedroom with my two teenaged sisters until my dad finished out the garage for a room for them. For my birthday that year, my parents held a scavenger hunt for me that led to a brand new bike! That is one of my favorite memories in that house!

Anyway, we have all since moved out (and back and out, etc)....gotten married had lots of kids and now my parents are finally redoing their house! I can't wait to see what they come up with! It is so nice to have a home to go home to when you need it!

Whew, that got emotional for me there! Anyway, like I said, I'll just be playing this by ear, so I hope you all enjoy it!

My Hometown the Series, Part 1

First things first....Bill and I both grew up in a small town in Oklahoma called Chandler. It is located on Historic Route 66 about halfway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. When we lived there, the population was around 2000 people, that has since grown to over 2800. I plan to talk about the landmarks and events that marked our lives, so I made a map to help you follow along. I am sure there are many, many things I left off that map, but it will get us started.....

I have also found a few links, if you are interested in learning more about the town:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler,_Oklahoma#Demographics
• http://www.chandlerok.com/index.php
• http://www.city-data.com/city/Chandler-Oklahoma.html

I hope you all enjoy this trek through my hometown!

Long time....

Wow, I didnt' realize it had been so long since I had blogged! When we went to Chandler this last time, I decided that I wanted to do a special blog about our hometown. Well, coming up with the execution of the plan has had me stuck, so I haven't blogged! So that's my excuse!

Things are going pretty good here. Sydney and Hayley both came home last Wednesday with awesome report cards!!! We are so proud of them!

I started teaching an after school camp for six girls. The subject is beginning embroidery...which is new to me, too. I only started doing it myself last year! It is fun, and the girls seem to really be enjoying it. Emyley is a big helper in the class and can't stop talking about one of the girls in the class. It is too cute!

Bill had his 35th birthday on Friday. And while he didn't get the PS2 and Guitar Hero that he wanted, I did get him a couple of power tools. He has a 'building-bug', so I figured tools would help accomplish tasks more than the PS2!! ;o) He did put together a work table from scratch on Saturday, so I guess I was right! LOL!

Oh, and for those of you who like to cook or just enjoy new recipes.....a friend of mine and her mom's group has started a great recipe blog called Hot Moms Cook! And she even took my suggestion to have recipes with just a few ingredients to heart...thanks, Joni!!!

Okay, coming soon, I will begin my hometown series. I think I have my plan, but I may just have to play it by ear!

Side Note: Bill likes for me to have an actual picture in my blog posts because then it shows up on his google page with a picture. Well, I didn't have a specific picture for this post, so I used our old family picture from Nov 2003! Let's see if I can figure this out....Sydney is almost 7, Hayley is 2 1/2 and Emyley is almost 1. Yes, I'd say we are overdue for a new portrait!

I Can Drive Big Red Car?

As inspired by http://icanhascheezburger.com/.

New Year, New Goals??

So, it's the new year. The holidays are behind us, finally, and the kids have gone back to school. This is my last semester to have Emyley all to myself. I am pretty excited about that now, but ask me in about 7 months, and I may tell a different story.

I have not really been big on resolutions in the past, but after reading my friend Kathleen's blog about resolutions, I started thinking. There are definitely some things in my life I would like to change. Okay, okay resolutions for the new year:

• Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle - Okay, if you read between the lines there, you know I mean lose weight. But it is so easy to get caught up in the numbers, that the fact that your body is getting healthier falls away. So, I want to eat better and get active, and let the scales do whatever they may....but they better go down! ;o)



• Be Money Smart - Again, reading between the lines, I am tired of being broke! Everytime we seem to breakthrough the money barrier, we get lost again. So, I want to be smarter with the way we budget and spend our money. Oh, and build up some savings, yeesh!



• Be Patient with my children & my husband - This would of course be stop yelling at the children and getting frustrated with my husband. I have not quite figured this one out, yet, so any ideas send them my way. ;o)



• Don't be so serious, have fun everyday, more quality time with family, get rid of guilt, blah, blah, blah!

I am sure there are many others, but off the top of my head those are what stick in my mind the most. I went to the library today and since I couldn't find any good fiction books (SHOCK) to read, I picked up a couple of recipe books and a finance book. I'll be sure to pass on any tips and recipes I find.

Christmas Eve at Nana & Joel's

It has been our tradition for a couple of years now to spend Christmas Eve with Bill's mom. She got married this past year to Joel, so it was the 7 of us for Christmas Dinner. The girls opened birthday presents, even Hayley gets one so she won't feel left out. Then we ate a scrumptious dinner of turkey, homemade noodles, dressing, broccoli casserole and mashed potatoes & gravy! Yummy! The girls couldn't wait to open their Christmas presents, and they were so excited to get new outfits from Nana! Of course a fashion show was in order! After presents, we had yummy chocolate cake and apple pie for dessert. It was a great time and this is one of our favorite traditions! And, of course, now that I am a movie maker, this blog wouldn't be complete without a movie of our afternoon at Nana & Joel's! Enjoy!!

Disney Scrapbook

I promised to show you all pictures of our Disney Scrapbook that we ordered from Disney's Photopass, and I got sidetracked. And now that I am learning to make videos, I decided that a video was definitely in order here! ;o) Overall, we were very pleased with the quality of the scrapbook, and my only complaint would be that I wish there were more background choices. It is an awesome keepsake, and well worth all the effort it took to create it! Enjoy the movie!

The Much Anticipated Bike Video

I finally sat down and sorted through our bike videos and compiled, edited, & pared them down into this one video. We got the bikes for Christmas and it was Sydney's first time without training wheels, and Hayley's and Em's first bikes period! Enjoy!!

Christmas in Chandler....or Stroud....where ever!

This past weekend we made the trip to Chandler for Christmas with my family. But because my parents are re-doing their kitchen, my oldest sister, Cara, volunteered to have dinner at her house. We usually do sandwiches for our Christmas dinner, but her stepdaughter, Tiff, wanted the whole she-bang. So, we did it up with Ham, Chicken and all the fixin's you could imagine! I made Ms. Shimek's Texas Truffles, my sister made Grandma Gilliam's No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies and there were many, many pies for dessert. It was a great time with family, conversation, lots of food and many, many presents! I did manage to get a few pics, so enjoy the show!! The picture here is my parents van loaded down with food (under all the presents) and lots of gifts!

Merry Christmas, Papa!

Today we went and celebrated Christmas with Bill's dad by meeting him for breakfast. Since we are on our trip to Okla to visit my parents, he agreed to drive up and meet us at a restaurant here in Chandler.

The restaurant we ate at is called B's and is located in the Econo Lodge Motel.

We enjoyed omelettes, french toast, eggs and conversation. However, since watching Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay, I must point out that he would have a field day in this restaurant, especially with the daily specials that are written in shoe polish on the glass wall inside the restaurant! Sorry, didn't get a picture of that one. You may just have to visit it to believe it!