FA LA LA LA BLAH!

I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas! Sadly, Sophie and I have celebrated Christmas from a horizontal position! Don't know what it is but I wish it would leave! Fever, cough, sore throat, headache, oh my! All in all we are having a very merry and next year this might even be funny! I will post photos of the festivities later, needless to say I will not be appearing in many holiday photos! Have a great rest of the day!

Thankful

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving weekend! We did not travel out of town for the first time in our almost 13 years of marriage. We were blessed to get to spend the day and eat lots of good food with the Hoods and Goens. It was a fun and relaxing time! The pictures are from Sophie's CLC Thanksgiving and from Thanksgiving day. I like the one of the two little turkeys laying on the rug!

Brilliance

Really.....what's the point of having a blog if you don't brag on your kids? Elijah and Macklin came home today with perfect report cards. Elijah had straight A's again! The kid's really smart! Macklin had straight E's (1st grade A's) in all of the academics. She had an I (improving) on handwriting and talking so she clearly favors her Mother. I thought it was interesting that Macklin's teacher's comment was "She (Macklin) is such a neat person. I just love Mack!" I appreciate the fact that her teacher appreciates her and her unique personality.

While I am bragging, I was pleased to learn from Elijah's teacher the other day that he was the featured author from his class. His work is posted on the writing wall in the hallway outside of the cafeteria for the whole school to see. When I was in Macklin's class helping the other day I went to see Elijah's writing. I was curious who the featured writer was from Mrs. Smith's class and discovered that it was Macklin! Elijah's story was about a one dollar bill named Savuh Buck (they give them the topic) and Macklin's story was if she could be any mammal (besides human) she would be a monkey so that she could swing from trees and because it starts with M like her name! Pretty proud moments.....maybe we are doing some things right!

Gobble, Gobble, HO HO HO!

The assignment was entitled Turkey Dressing and the challenge was to disguise a turkey so that he would not be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. With the help of some spiffy scrapbook paper from Jana (his suit is velvety), I think Macklin's result (with a little help from Mom) was GREAT. Her teacher loved it!

SASSY SOPHIE

Life with a two year old can be quite an adventure! All of these images except the one with Bubba teeth was captured this evening. Nothing like a little Nancy Sinatra, a feather boa and a little blue paint to make and evening complete! Be sure to check out the video below.

A Fest of Fun!

Our Fall Fest was today at church. Our small group sponsored a bake sale with the proceeds going to Operation Christmas Child. We had a good time making the goodies and we almost sold out. Each family took home a couple of things. The kids had a great time and Dann was a good sport to take them to all of the booths and games. Thanks to Ruth. Alan and crew for a well organized, fun event!

The Little Mermaid(s), The Jedi and a Biker Chick

Happy Halloween! We had a good time tonight. We went to the Gibson's house and trick or treated with Collin and Eric (does two years in a row count as a tradition?) and then we went to Pat and Amy's house. Too much candy but lots of cute photos!

We were on a mission from God!

Okay, not really, but we had fun! Saturday night we attended a costume party with Dann's Sunday morning bible study group. Thanks to Tina and Randy Hutchinson for hosting! The challenge was to dress as something from the '80's. We had the Blues Brothers, Greg Alman and Cher, Ms. Pacman, Weird Al Yankovich, Slash (Guns n Roses) and his groupie, Telly Savalas, Janet Jackson, Ann Wilson (from Heart) and more! I think the photos speak for themselves! If you do not recognize any of the above names you are either too young or too old!

The Snake Bite, Ariel Panties and Guilt

It's the most wonderful time of the year (imagine the tune in your head)..........back to school! In reality, we have really had a good summer. We stayed busy most days swimming and hanging out with friends. We are learning new things at our house.......

Sophie is the proud owner of a new pack of Ariel panties and is working hard not to "pee pee on Ariel" (her words)!

I am learning not to panic! Macklin brought Sophie to me the other day with three small cuts on the back of her leg. When I asked Sophie (who was not crying or upset) what happened she replied "the snake bit me". Well, needless to say, it shocked me at first until about two seconds later I figured out that the hinged wooden TOY snake had pinched her!
Whew!

My big kids are really learning things about life.....the other day Elijah said he felt guilty because he talked back to his Dad. Macklin asked "What is feeling guilty?" she thought for a few seconds and then said "It is when you feel bad when you have done something wrong." Pretty good explanation.......now maybe one day she will feel it :) !

We are excited about the kid's teachers this year......Macklin has Mrs. Smith (EBZ had her for K and 1st) and Elijah has Mrs. Dunn, who moved up with her third grade class to fourth grade. Sophie will start the two year old class at CLC and I will be teaching a Pre-K class.

Dann is going to teach voice lessons at the Academy of the Arts @FBC on Monday nights. If any of you all know of any one looking for lessons let me or him or Vicki (459-3311) know. (I know it's a shameless plug but who knows?).

So, we are gearing up for an exciting school year.....now if will only feel like fall! My prayer for my children this school year is that they will learn much, have fun and (as I tell them every morning) make their teachers glad to see them!

By the way........the princess did plenty of chores this summer :)!
Have a great day!

Things the Zehr Family learned on vacation

We were blessed to spend a week in Hilton Head with the Norris family and our parents. It was a fabulous time and great weather. I observed a few things that we learned while we were there:

1. Strollers do not float.......Sophie pushed hers into the pool the first day we went to the pool, it sank.

2. It is possible to hit a squirrel on the head with a fun noodle (accidentally, of course). You'll have to ask Elijah for the whole story.

3. After a fun day of surf, sand and sun you can sleep pretty soundly in a bed that had a huge spider sitting in it when you turned back the covers. (I killed it of course).

4. Sophie does not know her planets. At sunset one night we observed the moon and a planet nearby.....after discussing the possible planets that it could be Jeremy decided it was Venus( he is the smartest of us all)......Sophie promptly yelled "I see Venus" only she substituted the "V" with a "P"! Sophie had a quick lesson on the solar system!

5. Turtles are idiots (according to Elijah). He could not figure out why they would swim around the alligator's mouth that lived in a lagoon on our plantation. We really did not know why they did that either.

6. Sophie and Will learned that despite the vastness of the beach and ocean, the sand in the other person's bucket is always more interesting than the sand in your own.

7. There is not a hush puppy on all of Hilton Head Island (one of mine and Amanda's favorite food groups) but.......The Lady and Son's in Savannah, Georgia (Paula Deen's restaurant) has fantastic turnip greens (one of my favorite food groups :) ) and the rest of the food is really yummy too!

So, as you can tell we learned a lot, laughed a lot and made some great memories! Thanks to the Norris family for all of the planning and to Grannie Annie and Papa Ben for making the trip to share some special time with your grandchildren!

HAPPY.....FATHER'S.....DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so I can't possibly write anything about how it is to be a Father. However, I can write about what it's like to have a GREAT one! Most kids come away from childhood with a pretty good relationship with their Dad, but I am pretty sure I could win a prize with mine. My Dad is pretty close to the funniest person on earth. It's really hard to explain with words but if you meet him ever you will know what I am talking about. There were many times growing up that he would tell me things and I would have to think real hard if he was telling me the truth or pulling my leg. Sometimes it would be hard to decide but he usually gave himself away by a twinkle in his blue eyes or a flash of a dimple (it's where Sophie gets them). In case you are wondering, he still gets me. He recently told me they make corned beef by not giving the cows anything to drink for weeks before they slaughter them........I was horrified for a split second until I realized he was kidding. I don't ever remember my Dad getting impatient with us, which is no small task when you are raising two girls, me (the prissy princess) and Amanda (the "determined one" ;) ). The man took me using my Handy Andy tool kit to nail a row of VERY large nails into my bedroom wall in order to hang my purses (told you I was prissy) and Amanda painting a large portion of our bathroom tile (grout and all) with fingernail polish all in stride. Now granted, these events did take place a few years apart. If they had happened on the same day he may have lost his patience but instead he just patched the holes and cleaned the grout and explained to us that we really shouldn't alter the walls of the house without permission. So, if there is ever a Great Dad or Papa Ben contest, I am entering because I am sure I'll win. I love you Daddy!

I am also blessed to be married to a man who is a great Dad! There are many examples I could give but last night is the most recent one that proves it! The kids wanted to take Dann to Johnny Rockets at Opry Mills last night for supper. This seemed safe because it is a really loud hamburger place. Well, we get in the van for our little adventure and Sophie is just amazingly grouchy (she is never this way), she won't even talk she only grunts. So we make it to Opry Mills and get out of the van (a five minute process). While walking thru the parking lot Macklin (who is wearing a very cute pink, short sleeved sweater) hands me a string and says "Here Mom, I didn't want this string on my sweater." Now, we all know that you don't pull loose strings on sweaters, ever. I immediately turned and said "Where did you pull the string from?!" Well, all she had to do was move her arm for me to see that her sweater was literally split in half from side to side. She was now wearing a (too short) halter top. At this point, all we could do was laugh (really hard) and make a quick trip to Children's Place to buy a new shirt. The girls working a Children's Place had a good laugh at our antics also! So, after all of that we finally made it to the restaurant. The guy who seated us gave us two kids menus and one pack of crayons. When you have three kids there is no way this will ever work. When our server came to take our drink order I explained the situation (I thought) and he said he would bring more. To distract from the fact that we did not have enough menus I gave Elijah and Macklin a nickle for the table top juke box. Well, Elijah's nickle got stuck, so we spent the rest of the meal with him trying to dislodge it, insisting that he must hear "Locomotion or Tequila" and Macklin reminding Elijah that she still had her nickle. When the server returned with our drinks, without additional menus, he had neglected to put lids on the kids drinks! I asked him for lids and he assured me that he would bring them right out! (He didn't). I am not sure how things could have gotten more confusing and then they started bringing out our food (after all the tables around us, who all ordered after us had pretty much finished eating). He brought onion rings......then he brought ONE plate with a few chicken tenders on it.......where are the fries?, Oh they are coming......I dropped a bunch of orders because another server swiped over my card (now I am assuming that this was a computer thing because there was no great crash of dishes or food flying). So, as our food trickled to our table we just started eating whatever he brought and ended up with way more than what we ordered (I guess, at this point I couldn't really remember what we ordered.) How does this prove that my kids have a great Dad? Great is the Daddy, who in spite of it all, can happily eat his BLT and onion rings and act like that this is the best Father's Day dinner ever! I love you, honey!

By the way, we got the lids for our drinks. When he brought refills right before we left! :) Also, Elijah got his nickle dislodged and also dislodge a quarter ( which caused the trouble in the first place) so he made a profit!

PRINCESSES DO NOT DO CHORES

Well, yesterday was the first "official" day of summer break and we survived! We started the day by going to the school and picking up Elijah and Macklin's report cards. I could not be more proud! Elijah made honor roll every six weeks and made straight E's in every subject except one S+ in reading one six weeks. A parent couldn't really ask for more. Macklin mastered all of her Kindergarten skills except tying her shoes (she is a lefty, so that is a challenge and she flat refuses to wear socks of any kind so she rarely wears tennis shoes!). Her teacher also indicated that she could use some work on her "excessive" talking :) and waiting her turn but declared her more than ready for first grade! She is already reading past a first grade level! We could not have been blessed with better teachers than what the kids had this year! Elijah's teacher is looping to the fourth grade with the entire class so we are very excited about that!

After going to school we came home and the requests began! "Can we go swimming?"....etc. I had to say no on the swimming because unfortunately Macklin is also beginning summer break with an ear infection so we need to wait until it is better. I did tell them that we would try to find something "fun" to do after we did some "work" around the house. I have decided to expand every one's abilities this summer by teaching them more jobs than just picking up their things and putting their clothes in the hamper. It was all going pretty well until Macklin got a little restless.....it was at that point she informed me that "I am a princess and princesses do not do chores!" Well, as the Queen, I informed her that if she intended to survive the summer that she should learn quickly how to do chores! She complied (to the best of her ability, she is Macklin after all!) and the rest of our day was spent in virtual harmony (as much as you can have with 3 kids). Our fun activity was meeting Jana, Colin and Eric at Chick-a-fil-flay (Sophie's version) for lunch and play place time!

So, here is to summer break, swimming, harmony and princesses who do chores! Have a great day!

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Happy birthday, Mommy! I am so happy to be home! Since my typing skills are a little rusty I enlisted Sophie (and her Mommy's) help to tell you Happy Birthday. Since we didn't know your passwords to post on your blog we had to use Ashley's. I hope this is your best birthday ever and I love you!

Jadyn

Welcome HOME!

We are so happy that Jadyn Grace Hood has finally come home! Most of you reading this are familiar with the process and patience that it has taken to get her here. It was such a joy to see her last night (and her family :))!

The thing that struck me last night is how someone you have never met before is not a stranger to you. She has not even been here 24 hours and it just seems like she has always been a part of our lives. (okay she has for two years but not physically). We went back to Pat and Amy's house from the airport and it just seemed so natural to look over and see her sitting in Pat's lap or reaching for her Mommy. I love the way her eyes light up when she sees her "Bubbas"! She is a very blessed little girl who came from very unfortunate circumstances but I believe our families will be receiving more blessings from her! I am looking forward to see what God is going to do in her life!

Welcome Home Sweet Baby! We love you!

(Thank you Amanda and Jeremy for sharing your photos with me! www.norris-family.org)

Happy Mother's Day!

I sent my Mom a card this year that told her how much I appreciated her. Now, I am not a mushy card person.....at all, but something about this card just appealed to me. It's not that I don't appreciate her but the card was about how I didn't realize all she did when I was growing up. Well, how true is that! I don't remember a time that my Mom did anything without first thinking of her girls. This is the work of a Mother. I almost lost my Mom several years ago (and my Dad three years ago). I am so thankful that the Lord saw fit to spare them so that my children could have them as grandparents! I often get to the end of my day after making sure everyone got where they needed to be, ate three semi nutritious meals, had showers and baths and got into bed on time, (not to mention everything else we do) and wonder "Do my kids even LIKE me? Well, of course they do.....they just don't always show it! They may even get to the end of their day and wonder "Does my Mom even LIKE me? But as families go, we know that we love each other without condition and without fail! So, maybe by the time my kids are 35 with kids of their own they too will realize that there is nothing about my day that doesn't first begin with thoughts of my children. Even if they don't.....it will still have been worth it. Have a GREAT day!

I AM IT!

My friend(?) Becca (2ND family from the right)tagged me and then said she wasn't sure that the people she tagged would follow thru! Well, I kinda feel like I am a cheap pawn in a chain letter but I refuse to let a good challenge go by so here is my response to the game. Here are the rules. Each player starts with seven random facts about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about the seven things and the rules. You need to choose seven people to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

Since she took half my blog list I may not tag seven so if I tag you I expect you to go :)

Seven Facts about Ashley

1. My Aunt Peggy's stepson (so my step cousin?), don't know only met him once, played Flash Gordon in the movie in the '80's. This fact greatly increased my social status in the fifth grade.

2. Also, in fifth grade (it must have been a good year for me), I hit a boy (Eric M.) across the side of the face with my very large purse and knocked him down. (He was really bothering me) Horrified at my actions I immediately went and told on myself. The teacher replied "That's okay honey, somebody should have done it along time ago!" He was a real pest!

3. In college I went to a John Cougar Mellencamp concert and was pictured on the MTV News. (If you want the whole story you will have to see me!)

4. My favorite sandwich is peanut butter on white bread (no jelly).

5. My life's ambition when I was a little girl was to be a waitress at the Pizza Hut.

6. I had many, many Barbies growing up (they were my favorite toy) but learned the hard way

that you cannot use a blow dryer on their hair.

7. And last but not least, I would love to own my own business someday: little cafe, frou frou gift shop, you know someplace that makes people happy. I'd only be open for lunch so that I could still take care of my family......so if you know any investors or venture capitalist.......:0) Really, my life's ambition hasn't changed much since the Pizza Hut dream.

So that's me....I can't tag Amy because she's in China so I tag Alison, Amanda and Laura.

Well, good morning! After much procrastination I have finally posted something! I am sure you will all be thrilled! As some know, I have had a blog established for quite some time but have never actually posted anything. In fact, until this morning I was unaware that there is a new version of Blogger and the old version has officially been sent to the internet graveyard. So, after jumping thru several hoops to get a "Google account" (whatever that is) I am now writing my first official post. In reading about this new and improved Blogger, I learned that I can now post in Hindi. Boy, am I glad I waited! That should come in VERY handy! It could be that since I was in the old school blogger that is why I was having difficulty posting comments! (Sorry, Rodney, my comment was really funny. I'll try again.) Anyway, I digress, (those of you who know me know that is not uncommon. I consider it part of my charm :) ). I don't know if I will have anything intersting to say but would consider it an honor if you would like to check from time to time.......Being a married mother of three that teaches preschool AND works at a mental institution something worth posting is bound to happen! Have a GREAT day!
AZ