Joy School

Koy has been doing Joy School with some of our neighbors.

He loves it.

Here is his first day of school.

They made caramel apples at school one day and then Koy wanted me to take tons of pictures of him.

Dinner Invitation

Come one, come all-

Everyone is invited to a dinner party at our house.

However, only one of you will be treated like royalty.

We've recently added a "Royal Throne" to our dining room.

We did some re-decorating and decided the toilet looked

A-W-E-S-O-M-E

in the kitchen.

Yum.

It just makes me want to eat.

And eat.

And eat...

and then puke.

The first time we tried to eat a meal with the toilet in the kitchen, I dry-heaved.

Just once though.

My loving hubby moved it back into the bathroom.

Whew!

Oh, why do we have a toilet in our kitchen?

(Besides the awesome factor)

Our house flooded.

And no, the rains didn't come down to make the floods come up.

The guy that owns the field behind our condo took a vaca on Labor Day

and over-irrigated his field.

(Or forgot he was irrigating...)

We had just gotten home

and Justin noticed the water as it was creeping up the patio and then

BOOM!

Water was coming through the walls.

Now that, was awesome... not.

Oh well.

The demolition happened the day before we left for TX.

The day Justin's family was here doing corn.

I felt so bad to have everyone here to see the mess and that

Scott and Kim had to deal with it.

Blech.

They survived it and I guess we will too.

For now, we feel like we are living in the money pit.

(Anyone remember that movie? Fuuuunnnny!)

Everything is bigger in Texas...

Including my waistline.

Wow.

There were some good eats goin' on down on there

and

we flew home on Sept. 11th, and lived to tell about it.

My brother got married this last weekend in Houston.

It was big.

The city was big.

The other part of the city was big.

The area where I would have gotten lost driving was big.

The mall was big.

The food was big.

The wedding was big.

(Even though it was technically small in Houston wedding terms.)

The awkward silences were big.

(Yeah, a bunch of Mormons at an intimate cocktail party = awkward x 10)

The bills on dinners were big.

The church was big

and the laughter was big.

It sure was fun to spend time with my siblings and their spouses.

They are funny and I almost peed my pants quite a few times.

Only my oldest brother's two kids and Titan came so it was quiet

compared to when everyone is together.

Anyway, we had a great time and Koy had a great time with Bonca and G'ma Kimmy.

We sure did miss that kid and we are SOOO happy to be home.

So here are some pics from the big event.

Big T in Galveston

Givin' Dad loves on the paddle boat. So sweet.

The Colonel

The after-the-rehearsal dinner flowers.

This meal was my favorite.

I will remember that food the rest of my life.

The dessert. It was freaking good.

Sweet. Love.

The bridal luncheon for the ladies.

It was fun to just have the gals to mingle with.

Hey sista, soul sista...

Insert pics of the church and flowers here. I didn't take any.

I was so terrified the priest would tackle my husband if Titan

cried during the ceremony that I couldn't think of anything else.

Center pieces at the reception.

My brother dancing with his daughter.

The view

Titan's girlfriend Kate.

She was so sweet with him and

basically loved on him during the whole reception.

I took a pic of the boys all standing at the window because

it reminded me of high school dances where everyone would

just line the walls and not dance.

Maybe that was just at my high school though....

The happy couple. We are really happy to have Mindy in our family.

She has a cute southern accent and I seriously could listen to her

talk all day.

The happier couple... we just hide it from the camera.

Wow. Photogenic are we...

This is the ice cream place where the ice cream came from

on that delicious chocolate dessert.

It was crazy.

Upside down pics on the wall.

Angry looking ice cream scoopers.

A girl who had her collar bone pierced and bright pink hair.

A napkin holder with "Call for a good time" and phone number on it.

A tip-jar labeled "We need more tattoos."

(I just don't know who "we" is b/c all the worker's canvases were full...)

Homeless people outside.

DANG good ice cream

and this crazy delivery van.

The cow costume reminded me of someone close to my heart.

You know who you are. :)

Some beach...

Rewind time about a month and you would

find us here soaking up the sun and getting a

SWEET

sunburn!

Ow! Ow!

Koy loved playing at the beach with his BFF.

Yes. She's a girl.

He likes her.

A LOT.

It's nearly an obsession.

She's pretty awesome herself.

And quite funny.

They have the connection of a love of Thomas the Train

and funny personalities.

Cute kids they are.

Notice the little ham on the left?

That cheesy smile cracks me up.

Thanks for comin' to play friends!

K-O-Y

(First off, isn't it funny that Titan's head is almost as big as Koy's?)

This morning Koy came and climbed in bed with me.

He wanted to sing made up songs... he thinks it's hilarious to make up songs.

So we sang made up songs and any other song he could think of.

Then he asked me to kiss his eye better.

I looked at his eye and nothing looked wrong with it

so I asked him what was wrong.

He said, "My dad bruised it." Followed by a sad, sulky face.

Ha, ha, ha.

He's such a terd. There is no bruise.

He's just full of it.

And to top it off, he's been calling me "babe" today.

A 3 year old calling his mom "babe".

Where did he come from?

Meet Chubbs

We are not pet fans at our house.

Not. One. Bit.

So this caterpillar makes the perfect pet.

We don't have to touch it.

(I scooped him with the lid into the jar because Koy wouldn't pick him up.)

He's not hard to feed because we don't know what he eats.

We're pretty sure he didn't eat any leaves or the stick we put in his "cage"

and now he's made a cocoon.

And the best part-

After all of our hard work watching him in a jar, he'll turn into a beautiful butterfly

(or ugly moth)

and fly AWAY!

Remember when...

Remember when you were little and you did something kind of stupid? Well, I don't. I was pretty much the golden child at our house. Not! I was the whiney tattle tale. Plus, Millie was always tougher than me so when we got in fights, I was the first to cry but that's beside the point. I remember doing a lot of stupid things while I was pretty young but two stick out in my mind today.

The first: I downed a WHOLE bottle of chewable Tylenol. Thankfully, my mom was blessed with 6 other crazy kids and she always had Ipecac on hand. Yep. That was fun. My mom stayed surprisingly calm... it was probably a good thing she was an EMT for a while because she has seen some sick injuries in her days as a mom.

The second: My sister and I completely emptied a whole bottle of lotion in our hair. Ursula rubbed something in her hair on the Little Mermaid and so we figured that would be something fun to reenact with a full bottle of lotion. We were GREASY. Sick. However, I don't remember my mom getting mad. I remember my brothers being mad, but not my mom. I always wondered why until today.

This morning while I was getting Titan dressed, I wasn't paying attention to Koy. Then he says, "Mom! Look at my spiky hair!" Boy, it was not even close to being spikey. It was c-a-k-e-d with baby lotion. Oh my heck. The best part was that he was so proud of himself. He had climbed up on the vanity and was looking in mirror with the biggest grin on his face. I was laughing so hard. He looked so gross but he had just gotten out of the shower and I didn't want to have to bathe him again. So for about 5 minutes we sat on the floor and I would rub my hands in his hair and distribute the lotion I gathered between the 3 of us. We smelled goooooood.

So, now I know why my mom didn't get mad at me. Somethings that kids do are just too funny. It does make me nervous to think of the things Koy and Titan are going to do... especially now that I know things Justin did as a child. There is such a thing as "middle child syndrome" and I'm afraid our boys have inherited it...