Our week

As many of you have probably heard and seen on the news, the south experienced awful storms and tornadoes this past week.  So we spent several nights camped out in our bathroom for a little while, but our town was blessed and was not hit by a tornado.  A nearby town called Vilonia was hit very hard (it is probably 35-40 miles from our house). So a lot of members from our church spent Wednesday and Saturday doing volunteer service to help clean up the area.  I had to take a picture of our girls camped out in the tub, because they just looked so cute and uncomfortable all squished in there together.  We also brought in a twin mattress in the hall so we could throw it over the girls if needed. Hey it's not the safest area, but it's the best we've got for now. Please remember to keep all of the people in your prayers that experienced such devastation from the storms. And thanks to everyone who checked up on our family.

After the storms past, the sun came back to us once again and the girls had a fun day playing outside together.  Hailey even went for a daring bike ride on the back of Callie's tricycle.

Friday evening we all went on a nature walk on the walking trail by the kaboose. Brad even got to come with us. Of course the girls had to play on the kaboose before we started walking. 

 I have been going to this walking trail twice a week and running/walking with my good friend Amber.  We are part of a Women's clinic called Women Can Walk/Run Arkansas.  I'm glad I joined because it has been a lot of fun doing it and it is nice to get out of the house for a little girl time. And it's a good thing that breastfeeding helped me lose all the baby weight because I haven't found time to excercise more than the two nights I get out a week.  But hey, I'll take whatever I can get at this point :)

Saturday we were invited over to the house of a couple that just got baptized in our church.  They showed the girls all of their chickens, cows and horses and the girls had a lot of fun feeding them and sitting on the horse.  It was so sweet of them to invite our family over.

Easter 2011

On Saturday we all did our family tradition of dyeing the easter eggs.  The whole time Hailey kept thinking that the dye was juice and everytime I'd turn she'd be trying to drink it!  Crazy girl.  I wonder what she would have thought if she would have got a big drink of vinegar and dye.  Kayla was a good help though and helped me keep her out of it.

 Callie made all of her eggs "Princess eggs".  She put princess stickers on all of them and made sure they were all matching just right.

 Kayla used stickers as well, but she also experimented with some glitter glue on her eggs.

 Later that day I made up the girls easter baskets and had them hid in my closet.  Or so I thought.  I guess Callie got in there and was eyeing her loot, because when grandma Ray asked her if the Easter bunny was bringing her basket in the morning she said: "No, my mom already made my basket.  I saw it in her closet.  I don't want the DORA color book though!"   Ha ha... I thought that was so funny when Debbie told me that.  The Dora color book was actually for Hailey ;)

The girls with their Easter baskets Sunday morning.

Later that night we all headed to Grandpa and Grandma's for an easter egg hunt with extended family.

Cousin Kennedi, Kayla, and Callie:

Cousin Kennedi:

Hailey and her cousin Raegan:

Kayla joining in on the fun.  You can never be to old for an Easter egg hunt!

Callie on the pillow swing:

Me trying to get Brynlee to smile for the camera.

Thinking about it:

And we got one!  Isn't she pretty?

Hailey trying out the princess bouncy ball.

Uncle Cory helping to get the dirt out of Hailey's shoe. 

Easter Sunday

I hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday!  We had a very nice one reflecting on our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Here is a picture of the girls in their Easter dresses. It's not the best, but it will have to do.  Hailey was squinting because the sun was in her eyes, and Callie was mad there was a bug on her dress.  Silly girls!

There will be more pictures to come soon of the girls dyeing easter eggs and their easter egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma's.

Kayla's first big trip (without mom and dad)...

Last week Kayla got to go to space camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket center in Alabama.  Her 5th grade class all went together.  She had so much fun, and although it worried me to send my little 5th grader out of state without me, I know she loved getting to go on her own!  Kayla has always been so independent and never afraid to try new things.  They got to ride on a really nice bus with soft seats and dvd players and everything.  Here are some pictures from her trip that I got from some of the other moms.  I still need to develop her disposable camera pictures that she took.

Everyone arriving at space camp:

Kayla with her good friend Lindsey:

Kayla with her two other good friends Emma and Brook (to the right of her):

This was Kayla's favorite ride, she said it was sooooo high!

Kayla's space camp group that she roomed and toured with:

Having a pizza party:

Riding home on the bus:

  I'm sure she'll remember this trip forever!

Turkey season

Last week Brad had the opportunity to go to Kansas with one of his good buddies, Paul to go Turkey hunting.  They had a great time, saw and heard tons of turkey and even shot a couple.  I'm so glad he got the experience to go. 

 While they were gone, my father in law shot him a turkey as well! I'm so proud of them all.

It's that time of year again...

First off let me say that I like living in Arkansas, but the one thing that I don't like about living here is the STORMS.  Maybe it is because I grew up in Wyoming where we hardly ever had storms, well not wind, rain or tornado storms anyway.  Mostly I'm just used to snow storms :)
So anyway, I've never considered myself one of those people who gets scared in a storm. Lightning and thunder typically don't cause any fear in me.  But let me tell you, Arkansas can produce some nasty storms.  And when you hear one is coming you better prepare.  Because the grocery store WILL be empty, the power WILL go out and you can count on the fact that you will be sitting in your safe room at some point of the night (lucky us ours is in our bathroom).
So I was watching the news last night and they said something about some storms coming through while we would be sleeping.  So I didn't think to much of it other than "Great I'll be sleeping through it".  Brad was also out of town because he had gone turkey hunting.
I was awakened at about 2:30 in the morning to crazy rain and wind beating against our house.  It was so bad water was coming in the kitchen door and the garage door.  So I was laying towels down to soak up some of the water and all of the sudden it got a lot worse.  So bad I thought the window was going to break.  I rushed back to our room and grabbed the baby out of her crib fearing that the window might break over her.  The winds were so strong I instinctively knew this was tornado weather.  So I woke all the kids up and we made a nice little bed in the bath tub.  I tried to turn on the tv or internet to see if there was a tornado warning and couldn't get either to come on.  Tried calling my husband and couldn't get through at first.  I finally reached him and he said that the news said there were three tornado warnings going from here to Cabot.  Anyway, we sat in the bathroom for a while and right as it began to die down Kayla said "I can't believe we didn't lose our power from that..." and before she couldn't even finish her sentence the power went off, ha ha...
Well, we all made it safe through our first big storm without Brad.  So I am happy about that.  I was sad to read this morning in the news that some people in Little Rock and surrounding areas didn't escape the damage.  You can read the article here:
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Update-5-dead-as-strong-thunderstorms-leave-a/I1nc6V4RGUmwonVKXAHy0A.cspx
I'm thankful we were all protected.  Kayla's school was canceled today due to the power outage and as I drove down mainstreet I saw about 7 trees that were completely uprooted just on that street alone. Crazy.

Little Rock Star

This week at Callie's preschool is "Childrens Week".  There will be several days that they can dress up and they have a lot of fun activities planned for the week.  Yesterday they had a magician come to their school.  Today is "RockStar" day because they are having a DJ come and play music for them.  So we dressed Callie the best we could, even though her preschool wardrobe didn't include many "rockstar" items.  I think she turned out pretty cute.  We even crimped her hair.  After Grandma dropped her off at the school, she said there was a flock of little girls around Callie saying "Ooohhh,  Awww.... Callie your so pretty!"  I'm sure she loved the attention.

 Giving her "peace out" sign.  Kayla was trying to tell her how to pose.

 

Kayla has been doing benchmark testing this week.  She has been nervous about it, but I'm sure she will do great.  Last year she scored advanced in Literacy and Math.  We are so proud of her.

Brynlee will be two months on Monday.  I can't believe it.  Time really has been flying by, especially since we've be so busy.  Here are a couple videos for my dad, since he hasn't gotten to see his little grandbaby yet. (I can only get short ones to load).

The Old mill

Well I had heard about a place  in Little Rock called the Old Mill where you could go and take pictures.  But I kept putting off going there because nobody told me how BEAUTIFUL it was.  Last Saturday was a really nice day, so I decided to stop and try and get some pictures of the girls before we headed to a birthday party.  It was really hard trying to get all four of them to hold still since I was all by myself taking them, but this is what we got.  I think they turned out pretty good considering how hard it is to get a picture with wiggly little ones. :)