Saturday Photo Hunt #8 "Architecture"

I spied this while driving down the road, I just fell in love with the design...and this isn't even the best angle, but it's the best I could do driving 40 mph down a busy Dallas Street. In the second picture, there's a huge opening, it goes all the way through, the building is completely open right there, it's amazing and I sooo wish I could have got a picture of it.

TAKS Test

What's that you say? These are the results from the state mandated TAKS test that all fifth graders are required to pass in order to be promoted to the sixth grade. As much as I despise this type of testing, and the effect it has on teaching, we are so proud of miss Ash!

Along with this information we also received notice of a middle school parent meeting that's coming up on the 20th. After reading the "Middle School Parent Meeting" headline, I set the paper in the trash stack and moved on to the next flyer in her Monday folder, when suddenly it occurred to me that this note WAS actually for ME to read. After the screaming alarm in my head stopped, I calmly accepted that YES, I will in fact be a middle school parent in approximately 5 months time. How did happen so fast and where is my little girl???

Wordless Wednesday # 7

Pass The Torch Tuesday

I'm a little late today, I got a little carried away with designing my new banner and just realized it's TUESDAY! Soooo, I could either take the time to write about one of the many incredible moments my children have shared with me recently, or I can copy something from the past and get busy cleaning this house.

Alright, I'm pulling this one from January 5th, 2004.

Sweetest Words
January 5th, 2004

Mark and I tell our children many times a day how much we love them, with only one intention, letting them know that they are loved. Up until recently, those words have never been uttered back to us by our wild and crazy toddler. I'm not sure what took so long, maybe it was because this was the one phrase in which he continuously heard, that he was never propted to echo back to us. Or maybe the time just wasn't right. Well, Friday night those three words made their debut out of his sweet little mouth, unprompted and unexpectedly.

I woke up that morning with a fever and an upset stomach and spent all day in bed away from my babies. By Friday evening, I had had just about enough of staring at the accumulation of dust on my ceiling fan blades, and trying to decipher the echo of little voices outside my door, so I made my way to the living room couch. I must have been laying there for all of 30 seconds before I was turned in to a human jungle gym. Although this may not sound pleasant, believe it or not, I was feeling slightly more human than I had all day. I was being distracted and no longer wallowing in the aches and pains that a fever can cause. So, in the middle of Alex's mommy-acrobatics he paused, looked me in the eye with his devilish grin and said slowly and precisely, "I-love-you." As I took down my toddler defense shields (the palms of my hands) my little human numchuck followed through with the BIGGEST toddler hug imaginable. He didn't get me over my bug by doing so, but he sure did help get me through it.

Mom and Dad's Sports induced coma

I guess with the kids getting older we need to get use to weekends like the one we just had. I, for one, could definitely get use to it. Mark, on the other hand may end up divorcing us all. It started early Saturday morning with Alex's first T-Ball game. 8:30 AM Sweet Mark volunteered to take the boy, while the girl and I slept in a bit. Ironically enough, that happened to be the coldest and windiest morning we've had in a very long time and daddy has the chapped face to prove it. Dedicated daddy battle wounds we'll call them. Fortunately, some very thoughtful mommies brought blankets for the boys to cuddle up under while they sat in the dugout waiting for their time at bat. Too bad I wasn't there to snap some pictures, I can only imagine how adorable that must have been.

Immediately after Alex's game, we packed up some snacks and toys for the boy and headed out to Ashley's basketball tournament. Grams and Pops came and watched every game of the tournament, including the one on Thursday night, and Jason even came to watch one too. Ash's team ended up playing 4 games, and made it to the championship game, where they lost in overtime by 1 measley point. I have to say, if you're going to loose a championship game, that was the way to do it. I think I pumped out more adrenaline on Saturday than I have in years. Now that the season is over, I'm a little bummed. I really looked forward to those Saturday morning games. Fortunately though, Ashley is hooked. This was her first season to play, and the experience could not have been any better. She went from not knowing how the game was even played, to scoring 8 points throughout the season. She didn't even know what a layup was 2 months ago, and now she has it down to a science.

So, we ended up getting out of there at about 7:00 Saturday night, which meant Ashley was 2 hours late to a birthday party, and they were all waiting for her so they could head over to Dave and Busters. Wonderful. While we were ready to just throw in the towel, we still had this one last sprint before our day could officially end. We raced home, Ash packed her bag, I wrapped the present, and Daddy made her a sandwich. Teamwork baby! In 5-ish minutes we were all back in the truck high tailing it over to the party. We dropped her and the 50 pounds of luggage that came with her off and headed home. We crossed the threshold of H.S.H. (home sweet home) just before 8:00, where our adrenaline deprived, flat tookuses immediately turned to lumps of lifeless flesh. A few cereal bowls later, we had dinner on the table, and shortly thereafter our flesh then became one with the leather recliners. Mission accomplished.

*A few pics. to follow soon*