Parenting!

I love my children dearly - more than I can even express in words, but sometimes they are just really challenging. I am living what my parents must have lived raising me - every parents dream for their child I am sure! Haleigh is a real challenge for me. She is so much like me that we constantly butt heads. Mark claims that he uses "creative parenting" with her, and that I need to get more creative with her in the form of punishments. Haleigh just really likes for things to go HER way, and I really like for things to go MY way. So...what do we do about that? She behaves beautifully for everyone else, and people just can't believe that I struggle with her. I see so much of me in her - good and bad. I just want her to have all the good and leave the bad. What I need to do is stop modeling the bad, huh?!

Morgan - well, she is entering puberty. What joy. She is starting to test the waters a little bit on how she can speak to me. She got a quick lesson in how not to talk to me when she decided to mouth off to me on Saturday. Of course, she is the drama queen, so I got a tearful rendition from her about how she thinks that she is "the worst person in this family". I just love those hormones!

Jacob - he still sleeps with us almost every night. Not all night, but at some point he comes to our bed. He doesn't just come to our bed - he takes over our bed. We are just too stinking lazy to take him back to his bed, so I guess we have to pay the price.

The funny thing about all of this - I complain about some of the things they do that get under my skin, but I will miss it terribly when they are no longer in my home. I will miss butting heads with Haleigh, I will miss Morgan's drama, and I will miss Jacob sleeping with me. Someday they will be doing those things will someone else. The journey of parenting is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and it goes by too fast. I think I will enjoy the journey while I have it!

Basketball

Well, we are apparently on a winning streak! Morgan's team pulled off another victory. We played Springtown, and it was quite eventful. The coach from Springtown got thrown out of the game because he got 2 technicals. I was so embarrassed for the girls on his team. Anyway, Morgan's team is now 3-2. We have one more game this Saturday. I guess they will be in the tourney too since will be at least 3-3 (minimum record to make the tourney). Haleigh's team pulled off a substantial victory against Slidell. Haleigh scored 30 points. She was on a roll! Slidell didn't even have 30 points for the whole game! She was really proud of herself, but she doesn't follow all the 1st and 2nd grade rules. She is not supposed to steal or block shots, but she forgets! She got called on it twice - especially the time she tackled her opponent to the ground and took her ball! She is ready for those 3rd and 4th grade rules! We had to remind her of the rules and encourage her to play nicely:)

On another note, we got a very pleasant surprise this morning at church. I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see Jaymie (Spencer) Phillips and Mary Beard (I don't know what her married name is). They were in town for a girls weekend with their college friends. They are friends with Kayci Ross, our preachers daughter in law, and they were all staying at Rick and Beverly's house. We were so surprised and so excited to see them. What a blessing! It was a great weekend!

8 Wonderful Years of Haleigh

Today (January 15th) is Haleigh's birthday. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from her life so far! Here is Morgan meeting her for the first time - back when there was still great love between them. Now it is more and more rare!

Here she is with my little sister Becky - she was 5 months old in this picture. Wasn't she just the prettiest little baby?

Here is her first trip to the water park - she was tired and needed that paci!

I just adore this picture of her - she is like snow white with that fair face and dark, dark hair.

Here are a few pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park - she is so cute!

When Haleigh was four she had to have her tonsils taken out and a cyst removed from her neck. This is a picture of her the night of her surgery after we got home and took a bath. She doesn't look too happy, but the surgery was well worth it! She tries to use that pouty lip still, but it doesn't work too well on me!

Haleigh in true form here at the Ranger game!

Haleigh's first day of kinder.

Haleigh in Port Aransas two years ago. She loves the water!

This summer in Colorado. She has grown so much and turned into such a...well, a mini me! Enough said...Happy birthday Haleigh!

more basketball and a birthday celebration

We started the weekend with some exciting basketball! Haleigh had her first game, and it is quite enjoyable to watch 1st and 2nd graders play ball - they are just beginning to learn the game. It is fun. Haleigh did fantastic. She scored 12 points for the team in her 2 quarters of play. Mark's dad and his wife were able to spend the day with us to watch some b-ball and celebrate Haleigh's special day. Here is Morgan and Twala (Grammie) at Haleigh's game.

And Jacob and Don (Popop) at the game as well. Jacob was a bit giddy all day since there was so much excitement - we had a long but fun day!

Haleigh is #3 (blue jersey). I have a hard time getting my camera to take a good picture inside a gym. This setting is the sunset setting, but it was the only one that would lighten up the shot. If anyone has a suggestion of what setting to use inside a gym with bad lighting please let me know. I have tried the sports one, the automatic one, the sunset one...no success so far. I thought it turned out kind of cool though. She played great, and so did her team.

Morgan's team played an awesome game too! They won, and they were so excited. They had two great practices this week, and they really did well on the things they practiced. Morgan didn't make any points, but she had some really critical defensive plays! She did great. We played in Springtown this week, and we will finally get a game in Decatur next weekend. Morgan is the blur at the top of the key in the blue jersey!

After the games, we had Haleigh's birthday party. She is turning 8 on Tuesday, and we celebrated a few days early. She had friends come to the church building to play in the youth room. There's an air hockey table, a pool table, a video gaming system, basketball, etc. She had a great time.

Here's the silly birthday girl!

She had a great time opening her gifts, but there was something that she was really wanting that she didn't get - well, Popop and Grammie pulled out an extra "surprise gift". She's trying to rip open the box to see what it is...it's tough work!

I guess you can tell by the look of delight on her face that she got exactly what she was hoping for...the raccoon webkinz. Haleigh is obsessed with webkinz, and she has had this raccoon on her "wish list" but we could never find it. Well, Popop and Grammie found it and really made her day! At this party she received 4 webkinz, so she was quite happy with her successful party!

Haleigh shares a birthday with our good friend Shelly, and Shelly's favorite place to have a birthday lunch is Red Lobster. So, after church today we all drove to Denton to have their birthday lunch together (just a couple days early). Here is our waitress letting the kids "play" with the lobsters in the tank. If you'll notice, Jacob is nowhere to be seen in this picture - he was frightened by the lobster once it was out of the water! It was funny to see him take off in the other direction when she lifted it out of the tank.

Haleigh loves crab legs, so that is what she ordered at Red Lobster. Well, the manager happened to be walking by our table and noticed that Haleigh was having trouble cracking her crab legs, so she stopped and helped her. She spent about 15 minutes at our table helping Haleigh get out her crab meat - as soon as she would get it out of the shell for her, she would gobble it up and be waiting for more. It was so sweet of her to do that - the manager is allergic to all shell fish, but she still helped her (with gloves on)!

She got a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and ice cream. Shelly got cheesecake! (I didn't take her picture though).

She has had a great weekend of birthday celebrations, and it's not even the actual day yet! Happy birthday anyway Haleigh! For her birthday (from us) she is getting ballet and tap lessons (they go together). She will be starting Tuesday, so I will hopefully get some pictures of that to post. She can't wait!

Basketball and Bowling

Morgan's 5th grade basketball team really stinks! They only scored 9 points during their game on Saturday, and 8 of them were scored in the first quarter. That's right - we only scored 1 point during the final three quarters. I didn't even know you could miss that many baskets - they are making about 1% of the shots that they take. They cannot make a basket! Here are a few pictures from her game on Saturday. Here they are warming up - Morgan is #2.

You can see Morgan on the left - wide open yelling "I'm open"! Hopefully we can pull off a win this Saturday. Haleigh's first game will be this Saturday too.

After the ball game we decided to go bowling in Denton. We had a good time. Morgan, my drama queen, had a minor breakdown because she thought she wasn't good enough. That lasted for a little, and then we all went on to have fun!

Here is Haleigh bowling - she had a great time - she loved it!

I thought this picture was funny - I don't think Jacob sat down the whole time - you can see him in the bottom right corner showing Mark how to bowl!

Here's Morgan - I thought this picture was cool with everything blurry in the background.

This was Jacob's approach to bowling - just walk up to the lane and chunk it. With the help of the gutter guards he actually did quite well!

We need a vacation destination!

We need help - where should we go for vacation this summer? We know we want to go somewhere with a beach, but we just can't decide. Do any of you have any ideas? Please help with your suggestions!

A visit with the cousins!

Just a random picture, I know, but this picture is funny to me - Jacob is in the bathtub! He got "tub tints" from Santa that change his bath water different colors. Well, he got tired of the regular red or blue bath, so he decided to dump in all the tablets that were left. It looks gross, but he had a lot of fun watching all of the colors mix together to make this deep teal color.

My sister, brother-in-law, my neice and nephew, and my brother all came down to Texas for a quick visit since we didn't get to go to Colorado for Christmas. They brought more gifts, and I thought it was important to show Jacob's gift! Too bad the Broncos had such a bad year - there's always next season!

Here's a picture of all the cousins outside Chili's.

Emma, Jacob, Haleigh, Carson, and Morgan.

Morgan, Emma, and Haleigh. Aren't they just so cute!

The kids always get matching pj's for Christmas from my mom and dad - here's a picture of the girls in theirs.

And the boys in theirs...Spider Man!

Well, today kind of feels like the last day of vacation for me. Tomorrow we are back to our normal schedule of basketball games. The break has been nice, but I am ready to get back to normal. I guess this will have to be my last day to still be in my pj's until well after lunchtime!