Sing. Sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out long.

For Christmas Jon and I struggled with what sort of gifts we wanted to get for the kids. In particular I was struggling with not wanting anymore big plastic toys to clutter up the floor, especially since we are preparing to move and will soon be trying to get rid of some of our excess stuff. I didn't want them to have "No Christmas" just couldn't justify buying a bunch of junk so they'd have stuff to open!

On Black Friday I struggled with what I was going to be shopping for...but finally decided that I would just buy them some games for their Leapsters then keep my eyes open for something else that would be suitable. While my friend Jamey and I were at Toys R Us, I saw something that I thought would be just perfect--not just for the kids, but for our whole family! It was a karaoke machine!!

How much fun could we have with this??? My kids LOVE to sing, and having a microphone to sing into only makes it more fun, right?? Plus, I thought it would be fun for Jon and I to play with, or to use when we have friends over... I snagged one on a great sale and crossed my fingers!

Well, the kids opened our gifts before our trip to Oklahoma and then we left the next day. They took their Leapster games with them, but we didn't really get to use the karaoke machine. Then we came back and had a thousand errands and field trips and other things to take care of. Then we went to Honduras for a month. I thought we were never going to get to use the darn thing!

Well, the other night Jon was working late so I decided to hook it up and let the kids play with it for a while. They had so much fun singing and being silly. We don't even have any karaoke CDs, they were just using the microphone to sing and talk. I took lots of videos, but here are just a couple of them.

The first one is of Lawson singing a Spanish song he learned while we were in Honduras. He doesn't quite have all the words right, but for memorizing a whole song in a language he doesn't know I think it's great! The second one is of Jordan singing Blue Skies and Rainbows.

Enjoy the videos....I may post more later!

Cousins in Green

Jon's parents came over and brought Maddison to visit during her Spring Break this past week. The kids had so much fun playing together, and we also got to go to the St. Patrick's Day Parade together! Huntsville puts on a great SPD Parade and the kids LOVED it! It was a beautiful day and I had some fun taking pictures of these kiddos in their green shirts!


Waiting patiently...

Still waiting...
The parade pics look like, well, parade pics. Fire trucks, police cars, dogs, marching bands, bicycles, dancers, etc...So I'll just wrap up with this one of my sweet girl:

They're lucky I didn't leave them there!!

Where??? At the zoo!! Some days these little monkeys drive me nuts, but I love them to pieces! We had a great day at the Nashville Zoo yesterday with our home school group and some of our good friends. It was a beautiful (and kind of HOT) day, and we enjoyed ourselves so much! At the end of the day the kids and I were all exhausted, but it was SO worth it!
The other kids we walked around with--my friend Amy and her 4 boys, along with Amy's sister-in-law and her 3 girls. The adults were definitely out-numbered this day!
I LOVE the flamingos!
My kiddos in front of the giraffes (wayyy back there!)

Jordan chose the carousel animal with two baby gorillas, and she was the middle baby gorilla!! Lawson had been saying all day that he wanted the giraffe, but in the end he chose the flamingo.

I was excited when a passer-by asked if we wanted a picture with the three of us in front of the sign! What a great way to end the day!

Retreatin'

Over the past several years, Jon and I have gone on many trips and retreats with the youth group at church, and we have always arranged for someone to come stay with our kids or for our kids to go to someone's house. We just want to make sure that we are going to spend time with the teens, not use up all of our time taking care of babies/kids.

The weekend after we returned from Honduras, however, was the last big retreat that we will get to do with the youth group and we had just spent a solid month with the kids. We didn't want to ask family to come watch them, and we didn't want to just leave them, so we decided they were big enough to take.

They did GREAT!!! They sat quietly during the quiet times, and they played like big kids during the playing times. They slept great in the bunk rooms, and they had a ton of fun! We got several compliments on how well-behaved they were, especially how they sat quietly during the worship times. I was SO proud of them! One thing's for sure, though, this is a definite sign that they're growing up!!

On the bus ride there...they had talking to the teens and playing their Leapsters...
During one of the class times for the teenagers I took the kids out by the campground's lake. They had fun walking around on the dock and then playing on this huge muddy hill. I cringed at first, but hey, they're just kids, right?! And clothes will wash. Mostly clean.

We were supposed to be playing "Mud Football." The kids were super excited about this and we brought special clothes just for them to get muddy and gross. When we got to the field, though, it turned out that it was just going to be "Wet and Cold Football." They were a little bummed, but they still had fun squirting each other with the hose and getting wet on this wonderful 50 degree day!