wow - it's been awhile

Like the title says, it's been awhile.  Things really got busy back in March, nothing in particular just life.  Then comes May and we found a house that is just perfect for our family.

In order for us to leave our beautiful house both Mike and I had some stipulations.  It must have a three car garage, 5 bedrooms, an adequate sized living area, a kitchen that is comparable to mine already, a bigger laundry room, and most importantly it had to be in the same neighborhood as I was not going to make Lauren change schools.  Then blamo - there was a house that came on the market that I just happened to see on Zillow.com.  Come to find out it is a house of a family that we had known a few years earlier.  I knew they moved out of the area but had no idea that they kept the house.  They also had triplets plus two other kids.  They built this house to accommodate their family of 7.

So long story short, we close on the house on the 14th of June.  Our house is already sold too and if we can pan out a couple of issues this week then we will close on this house on the 25th of June.

In May my sister and I concocted a plan to have me fly home for the weekend to surprise my Dad for his 75th birthday.  I had previously thought about it when she had mentioned the dinner plans, but after looking at the prices of the flights I quickly talked myself out of it.  But when she called and she brought it up (20 minutes after we offered to buy the house) I thought I better give it another thought.  By that time the price had jumped $400.  Luckily Mike had plenty of frequent flyer miles for me to use.  The week of the trip was so busy that I had to keep a list of all the things that I had to do that day - each day was a whole page worth of things.  It was such a crazy week.  But I'm so glad that I went for the weekend.  It was so wonderful to spend some time with the family and have no responsibility for anyone but myself.

Of course, we had to stop at Rockford for some dogs and a beer.

Surprise!!

This is what's called a wet burrito - Yup I ate the entire thing!

Dad and Bob doing a karaoke duet!

It was so good to surprise Dad and to see everyone.  I actually surprised everyone - no one other than Brenda knew I was coming in for a quick visit.

Ever since Mom passed away Brenda has taken over the duties of cleaning up the grave sites of our grandparents, great grandparents and aunts and uncles.  I was able to help out that weekend, but we got a late start and was only able to make it to one cemetery but it was the important one; where mom is buried.

Dad supervising the work!

As since I'm really into the genealogy of the family Brenda suggested that we stop and take pictures of my great grandparents farm, which is right around the corner from the house where I grew up.  It was pretty cool to walk around the property and listen to Brenda tell me what she remembered when our great uncle lived in that house.  I've always heard the stories from Dad, but Brenda had some great ones as well.

Then we headed to the house where Dad grew up; again right up the road.  We stopped and talked to the owners of the house and they were very excited to show us the work that they did on the inside of the house and allowed us to take pics of the farm.  They even came across an aerial picture of the farm but didn't know when it was taken.  As soon as I got home and showed Dad the picture he was able to guesstimate that it was taken in the late 60's early 70's.

Whew - another post done.  I promise not to take so long to update next time.

My blog is not forgotten

I've just been a little bit busy!  We bought a bigger house in the last week and it's been crazy ever since!  I promise more posts...very soon!

Weekend trip - Fossil Rim

It seems as if we make a trip to Fossil Rim every year, probably because it's so fun. The kids really enjoy it and look forward to feeding the animals, especially the zebras and giraffes. It was a BIG disappointment that we didn't get close to the zebras and giraffes. We were about 10 minutes too early. They were off in the distance and made no effort to come our way until we moved to the next set of animals and there is no turning back. You know what that means right? Another trip this year ;-)

One of the animal keepers was chuckling at seeing the boys hanging out the window.

I tried to be brave and feed the ostrich - but at the last minute I rolled up my window and both Lauren and I were screaming!

Travis driving thru the park

Logan's turn

Ian giving us directions!

Ian had to wait until the very end of the tour to see one of his favorites - a Wildebeast

One of the many Rhinos

I know my entries to this blog are few and far between.  It's been quite the change to the household since the boys are no longer napping.  No longer do I get to pick up the house for the 2nd tornado and dinner is never prepped - and therefore my blogging has suffered since I'm so exhausted after the boys go to bed.  But sport season is coming up and the boys are playing blastball and Lauren has already started Lacrosse.

I forgot!!!! Halloween 2012

Looking back over my blog I see that I totally spaced out putting up what we did on Halloween. I also noticed that I was having trouble with blogger so it's not totally my fault ;-)

pumpkin carving

I wore Lauren's costume from last year for a costume party.

The scooby doo gang (well minus Velma)

Scooby doo gang and a referee

Christmas 2012

There were many activities this Christmas and since it's now mid January as I'm finishing this post I probably can't remember what we did.  So I will just leave with with a ton of pictures that I already have uploaded!  Man, I really need to get better at this ;-)


Logan and Travis "helping" put out the outside decorations.....notice the shorts???

Travis and Ian putting decorations on the tree.

Logan was asleep and I had to wake him up to decorate the tree.

Lauren and Kayla at the band winter concert

Let the chaos begin...at Nana's house on Christmas Eve

The big hit of the night....the castle.

Christmas morning

Logan with his new white puppy!

Ian

Lauren was just as busy as we were at opening the plastic from the boys toys.

Hungry, hungry hippos!

AND...we got snow on Christmas Day.

See Travis on the right of the pic...yup he slipped on the ice/snow and landed right on his bum.

New Tab...New Project

See that tab at the top of the postings?  Yeah the one that says Project 365.  I've been thinking about doing this project for a few years and I just haven't done it; you know I have nothing else to do.  I've finally decided to start the project next year on January 1.  The deal is that I will take a picture every day of the year and post it.  It could be of the kids or something cool that I find that day.
I'm hoping that I can keep up with it after the honeymoon period.  The boys and Lauren are growing so fast that I sometimes feel that I'm missing things and maybe sitting down on New Years 2014 and reviewing the pictures will become a tradition in the Scott household!

Christmas photos

As the boys get older we get out during the holidays more and more. This year we have been busy with all the activities a big city offers around the Christmas season.

This picture was taken with the gingerbread man in McKinney during their Christmas celebration called "A Dickens of a Christmas"

I happened to stop by for some personal items at our local pharmacy chain store...and who do I run into? Our lawn maintenance guy, Jimmy. He was dressed as the Grinch and was offering pictures. I got my picture taken too, but I'm not posting that one! He encouraged me to bring the boys up..almost insisted!























These pictures were taken with "The Big Guy"! He is famous in these parts of the woods.  We travel almost 40 minutes just to see him.  And he is in this cool bookstore and the line is minimal because you can check in online.  Wonderful advances to seeing Santa!!

I soo love this one!  This Santa takes his time with each kid!!

The kids are home for the next two weeks and Travis woke up this morning asking "where we going?" UGH...it begins. The boys keep asking if it's time to go to Nana's house (for Christmas Eve)...it's Halloween replaying over and over. I do so remember the days leading up to Christmas being so slow!

 Merry Christmas!