Winter Storm Octavia

So as of February 15th, if you had asked me about our winter, I would have exclaimed the injustice of it all. We had only gotten enough snow to barely cover the ground the whole live long winter. I think maybe once we got 3" and school was closed. Spring kept getting closer and it looked like our chances of getting a big snow was slim to none. Then we woke up Sunday morning on February 15, 2015 to news everywhere declaring a winter storm headed our way. 

We were stinking super excited!!!

We had church at 2 o'clock that afternoon so everyone would be safely at home before it started snowing and plus the roads were a little icy from the night before. 

After church we went to the grocery store. Bad mistake, but we were for real out of toilet paper. 

I only needed a few things because we had groceries already at the house, but the lines were long and the shopping carts were scarce. I had several ladies waiting for mine while I unloaded my groceries in the van. I wanted to start the bidding, but decided these ladies may be armed and dangerous. 

We woke up to this Monday morning. 

It looked like my van was sinking. That's a lot of snow. It snowed and snowed and snowed. Maynard called and said his boss called all his Fed Ex trucks back in so Maynard was home by 11 which was nice. Then he didn't have to work at all on Tuesday because the interstates were shut down in places and their main trucks couldn't even get there to drop off what needed to be delivered. 

He still had to get Tara back and forth to work which was rough. We sure was thankful for his 4 wheel drive truck. 

The kids had a blast playing outside. I didn't set one foot out until Thursday evening and that was because our groceries were low. I mean what do you do all week when you are snowed in?  You cook, bake, and eat!!  We had some good meals that week for sure!!!

We had snow cream and "snow" cones. 

Lots of playtime outside for the kiddos!!

Daddy played with them and Tara did one day. 

Amelia was proud of her giant snowball. 

I wasn't much on getting outside and playing in it this year. Last year I almost broke my neck while sledding and I was a tad apprehensive this year so I opted out. 

Poor kid's sled didn't survive last winter so they used whatever they could find. They used tote lids, trash can lids, and their most favorite was a plastic kiddie pool. I kept meaning to get them a new sled and never did and now it was too late. 

School was canceled all week, but my kids still woke up between 7 and 7:30 every morning. They couldn't wait to get outside even though the temperatures kept dropping.

 Yep!!  That's pretty cold!!

Titus would have lived outside if I let him. I had to force him inside to warm up. 

8 days later, after I had only been out for an hour to the store, we had church on Sunday at 2 again. I was happy as anyone to get out of the house. After church I was the last one in the car because I did not want to go back home. I had been stuck in the house and it felt good to talk to grown ups once again. We went out to eat with friends and just took our time getting back home. 

The kids went back to school that Monday. Well, their school did, but the county has still been out for 2 weeks now.   There is still snow on the ground and I'm not sure if it's ever going to melt. The snow is so hard and crunchy that it's hazardous. I made it almost 2 weeks without falling and then I fell yesterday on the sidewalk. Titus was watching from the window and found it quite hilarious. 

I jut wanted to blog about our snow storm because it apparently hit some records of snow and temperatures. We ended up having almost exactly a foot of snow. I think the last biggest snowstorm was in 1994. This will definitely be a winter to remember and I'm glad to have it documented. 

Valentine's Day 2015

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!!!

We had a very busy few days. 

I was asked to help Titus' class at school to celebrate their Valentine party. Amelia and I got there around lunch time and brought Titus a Happy Meal from McDonalds because Josiah's class was having pizza. We all know that it's just easier to bring your child a Happy Meal than to listen to the injustice of it all!!

Then it was time to Party!!

First game was to have a contest in stacking the Conversation Sweethearts. That actually entertained them for awhile. 

They were cracking themselves up by reading the little sayings on the hearts. 

I didn't get a whole lot of good pictures because it's just hard to take time to take pictures when you are super busy entertaining children. 

Then we let them make heart shaped pillows. This was a tad bit more challenging because 13 kids and 13 needles and thread.............

We survived and the kids were super proud of their pillows. 

I was amazed at how some of the kids took to it so easily. 

After spending so much time sewing and concentrating we went to the gym to play another game with our heart candy. 

The object of this game was to fill your spoon with candy and then put the end of the spoon in your mouth. Walk to the other side of the gym and drop your hearts into your team's bowl. 

The boys took on the girls, but the girls beat them big time. 

 The gym floor was covered in candy hearts. 

After that game we went to the kitchen to decorate cupcakes. 

They loved decorating their own cupcakes. Their sweet teacher bought bright blue and pink icing. These kids were covered in icing. 

Time was running out so they went back to their classroom and passed out their valentines and treats. 

I had to include this in my blog because Titus was so excited about this valentine he got. He came up to me and grinning ear to ear. He said, "This card says Will you be my MAN?"  It struck me so funny. 

Amelia was happy to be included in Titus' class party. She worked really hard on her Valentines. This was her first year signing her own cards. It was kind of a big deal. 

Check out this heart hairdo I gave her for the party. 

I was also proud of my first Pintrest treats for their class party. 

 

Here is a picture from Josiah's class party his teacher shared. 

His classroom was decorated super cute!  He said he had a fun day as well. 

Saturday afternoon I made more Valentine treats for our Sunday school parties while Maynard cooked us a big breakfast. He also had bought me flowers and candy. He even washed all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen back up. What an amazing man!!

That afternoon my Mom came over and suprised my kids with bringing my nephew Cameron with her. She offered to watch the kids while Maynard and I went out for Valentine's dinner. We ordered them pizza and hightailed it out the door. 

We met up with 2 other couples and drove to Lexington. It was fun to hang around other adults for awhile. My friend Heather even offered to cut up our food if we needed her too. Ha ha. We were all used to having our kids with us. 

We ate dinner at Cheddars and then done some shopping. I hadn't bought Maynard anything yet and he lucked out at Kohls with a new shirt and sweater vest off of the clearance rack. 

We were getting calls that the roads back home were getting slick and we decided we better head back. 

We had to make a small detour though because of this:

Who wouldn't stop, right???

Got some festive donuts to bring back home to the kiddos. 

I had a blast with these ladies!!  They have took me in and loved me when I needed loved the most. 

I am also grateful for this man!

Besides the Lord, he's the best thing that has ever happened to me. 

Sunday we ended up only having one mid afternoon service because of the weather, but I decided to go ahead and have my Children's church class a party anway. 

They ate treats and played games and had a good time. I only got one picture and it's not a good one. I literally was hopping and moving around the whole time that I never had time to take pictures. 

I had a table decorated with lots of pink and treats and even failed to get a picture of that. This was their craft and game table. 

A tribute to Jack

April 2005-January 2015

Jack chocolate lab

We got Jack when he was 4 yrs old. We have a home video of when we first got him. Josiah was 3 1/2 and Titus was 18mths old. It was love at first sight with Josiah, but Titus was terrified of him in the beginning. 

http://youtu.be/5ph_gDj2UCk

Here's another video of Josiah playing with Jack just a few days after we got him. Josiah was playing with him and I noticed that Jack had chalk all over him. If you listen close enough to the video you can hear Josiah say, "That dog is bad. He needs to straighten up."

I asked him if he colored on his dog with chalk and he said, "Yep, because he's a Chalkolate dog."

http://youtu.be/l_jiwDUS_6U

The bond between them just continued to grow. 

When Titus was a baby and would walk around in the yard, Jack would follow him to protect him. Once Titus fell down and Jack tried to pick him up by nudging him with his nose. 

Also, the boys were never allowed to go back behind the house when they were smaller. They had to stay in the front yard where I could see them. If they did go to the back, Jack would come to the front door and start barking. He was such a tattle tale, but he was just protecting them. 

He was so gentle with the kids and put up with a lot of tough love. He was a horse to the kids more than he was a dog. 

Amelia was born almost a year later and Jack was responsible for another baby to watch and love. 

She became pretty bossy, but he learned to deal with it. 

He was just part of their outside play. I know they are gonna miss him awful this spring. 

Jack was all doctored up by Titus in this picture with toilet paper and duct tape. Nothing was wrong with Jack, but he was happy to be Titus' first aide patient. 

He loved going on walks with me. He recognized my tennis shoes. If he seen me wearing these shoes then he would head to the road and wag his tail happily. He actually made me feel safe when he walked with me. Sometimes dogs would come at us and he would run them off. 

There's only 2 things I can think of that he was afraid of. 

1) Fed Ex or Ups trucks terrified him. I have no idea why. He literally would growl and bark so loud that the drivers were terrified themselves to even get out of the truck. Maynard drove his Fed Ex truck home one evening and Jack did not appreciate that one bit!!!

2) Fireworks!!!!  Jack was terrified of fireworks. I guess you could say the 4th of July was not his favorite holiday. 

Mom was over one day and I guess the neighbors were letting of fireworks and Jack jumped in her lap. Even though he is a huge dog and definetly not a lap dog. It was hilarious. By the time I got their picture he had moved behind her. I guess he knew she was a Mamaw and Mamaw's are made to protect. 

He also hated taking baths. 

Here he is right after he got a bath. As soon as we turned him loose he ran straight to the weeds and tall grass and rolled and rolled. He finally came back and laid in the yard, but was all pouted up. You can tell by looking at him in this picture he was sulking. 

He loved it when it snowed. He couldn't wait for the kids to come out and play when it snowed. We also have videos of us sledding down the hill and he would run down after us. 

Here he is coming to tell on the kids for being in the neighbors tree house. 

Jack was also a hunter. We always found lots of dead critters in our yard. 

I'm guessing this leg used to belong to a deer. Jack must have thoroughly enjoyed his snack because he was licking his lips. 

Probably one of my most favorite memories of Jack was that he was the neighborhood theif. He brought home the bacon so to speak. 

He would bring home bags of dog food all the time. Sometimes half opened bags, sometimes brand new bags, little bags, or huge bags. That's not all though!  He even brought home bowls for us to pour the food in. It was hilarious. Well to us anyways. I'm sure the other dog owners didn't appreciate the disappearing dog food and bowls. 

He knew what time we ate supper. It never failed that when I opened the back door he would be sitting patiently waiting for leftovers. I caught myself today throwing out chicken bones. There was no Jack to eat chicken bones tonight. Josiah offered to throw scraps out Sunday and realized Jack was not there to eat scraps anymore and he started bawling. It was so sad. 

His favorite thing in the world to eat was BBQ rib bones from Sonny's. Of course he didn't get them often, but oh how he loved them. We brought leftovers home once. They were laying in the floor behind the driver's seat. When the kids opened the door to get out Jack grabbed the whole box and took off with them. We had a dinner catered by Sonny's last year and we brought tons of rib bones home for him to eat. He ate so many that he was miserable. For weeks I would fine rib bones laying in the yard and he wouldn't go near them. He was so full and miserable he could barely move. 

I know I'm rambling on, but y'all just don't understand how good a dog he was and how much my family loved him. This post doesn't even come close to telling y'all how good a dog he was. 

He loved us and protected us. He actually was our whole street's neighborhood watch dog. If someone pulled into their house and he didn't recognize them, then he raised cane until he knew the coast was clear. We always felt safe here because Jack would always let us know if someone was out there that wasn't supposed to be. 

Once Titus was riding his bike at the end of our road and driveway. We live on a deadend road. Anyway, a UPS truck was backing up out of a driveway and was coming awful close to Titus riding his bike. Jack went crazy. He ran from Titus to the front of the truck barking and then would run back to Titus to make sure he was ok then run back to the front. Me and Maynard both watched in awe at how Jack was trying to protect Titus. 

We will also never forget the time Jack protected Amelia from the stray dog in our yard. I will put the link here:

http://itsbeginningtolookalotlikechaos.blogspot.com/2013/08/dog-gone.html?m=0

He fought and fought that dog to get it away from the kids. Amelia ended up with 3 bites, but she was ok. I am thankful it wasn't any worse. 

I've racked my brain and that's really all I can think of to write about him for now. 

Maynard and the kids think Jack will be back any day. He has been known to wander around and had many neighborhood girlfriends. He's never stayed gone this long though. I noticed he was acting funny and he refused his food for 3 days. He only wanted water. We left to go out of town overnight and when we got back he was no where to be found. We have searched the woods and the neighborhood. No one has seen him. I read online that dogs know when they are dying and sometimes go off to hide in order not to hurt their loved ones. I don't know if that's true or not, but it makes me even sadder to know we didn't get to say our goodbyes or give him a last hug. Maybe it was easier on the kids this way though. I can't even imagine how traumatic it would be for them to have found him dead in our yard. So I guess it's better this way. 

If he does decide to come home y'all will be the first to know and then I'll save this post in my draft file for when he really does die. Lol. A bit of humor there, but my instincts tell me he's gone now. So I guess this is my closure I need to accept it. The kids want another dog.  But I believe we will wait until spring time so they can enjoy one better. 

Hope y'all enjoyed reading my tribute to Jack. Everyone deserves a good pet in their lifetime and he was definitely ours!!

A Birthday and girls night out.

When we left my parent's house on Christmas night, I told everyone bye and that I would see them again on Easter.  Usually we never drive down again before then, but we found ourselves headed that way again last weekend. 

My youngest sister Melissa was turning 30 and wanted all her sisters accounted for that day. 

We drove up Saturday afternoon and met  my family at a Mexican restaraunt for lunch. Amelia was all too excited to see Melissa get whip cream all over her face. 

Maynard may have encouraged the singers to go all crazy on her. That's ok, he has a birthday coming up soon!!!

My sister Angela suprised her with a Betty and Veronica cake. Ever since she seen Josiah's Archie and Jughead cake she declared she wanted a Betty andVeronica  cake.  

I thought it looked great!!!

We did a quick exchange of pick ups and drop offs and then it was just all us sisters and Mom headed to the Derby Dinner Playhouse in Indiana. 

We had a lot of interesting conversations in the vehicle that evening. Trust me. Don't ask.......

We arrived an hour early because we were warned that there was gonna be a lot of road construction on the way. It ended up not being bad at all. 

When they opened the doors they escorted us to our seats and Melissa was suprised to see balloons on her chair. She said, "I feel like they know it's Birthday, but I don't know how."  What she didn't  realize was that Angela had called and added the birthday package to our tickets.  

Our dinner was a buffet style so we got in line to get our food. I liked everything pretty good, but the food wasn't amazing though. 

Angela thought to take a picture of her food. Well, she actually sent the picture to her husband to taunt him a little bit. He in return sent a picture of frozen pizzas he and Maynard and all our kids were having. Ha ha

After we ate the show began. 

It was a cute play about a young woman who was overweight and her beautiful sister kept setting her up with dates much to her dismay. 

During intermission our waitress brought out another suprise for Melissa. It was a birthday cake with a sparkler on top. 

We had the hardest time keeping the dessert menu away from her. She kept insisting it was her birthday and she should be allowed to order dessert. We knew the cake was coming and she didn't. When Melissa was away from the table we asked our waitress to not ask us to order dessert so we could suprise her with her cake. 

We enjoyed the rest of the show. Well kinda!  I couldn't quit staring at the lady behind me who was ridiculously enjoying herself. I mean seriously. It was a bit extreme. However, entertaining to say the least. 

We had some hilarious conversations and I believe we made Mom blush more than once. 

It was so good to spend time with my Mom and all my sisters. I was excited to get away and have a girls night out. It was long over due and we all decided that we needed to get together more often like that. 

We stayed all night at Angela's house and then went to church with them Sunday morning. They had an awesome service where a young lady was filled with the Holyghost. 

It was a great weekend and glad I was able to spend Melissa's 30th birthday with her.