1st day of school 2015

Off to school for the start of another year.  These boys will do awesome. 

I'm still trying to decide if I'm a terrible mom because I didn't cry.  Didn't shed a single tear.  I sorta did a happy dance.

I love these boys with everything inside of me but I also love the start of a new school year.

If you can't tell by the awesome hand signals I made them do I'll tell you what grades they are in

7th--dilon

5th--grifin

 1st--dax

 and me and this kid are going to stay home and enjoy!!!

We have a hole!!

We have a hole!!!! Woohoo!!! Get ready for a plethora of posts on the building of our new home in the months to come.

I love my comfort zone

So I went about as far as a person can go out of their comfort zone yesterday.  Me and my comfort zone were on different sides of the globe.  Universe, really.  

Nate decided it would be a great idea to do a float for the parade this year to help get his name out more for his City Council run.  Great.  Go ahead, it makes no difference to me.  I'll help decorate a cheesy float but I had one rule.  DON'T MAKE ME RIDE ON IT.  I didn't want to one little bit.  Don't get me wrong here.  I fully support Nate running for City Council.  It's something he wants to do so I'll back him 100%.  As long as I don't have to do things like ride floats.  I do not like the spotlight.  Center of attention, no thanks.  

I just want to say a great big thank you to all of those who made me feel so dang guilty about not riding on it with him that I caved and got on the stupid thing. 

 Somehow Steph and Greg ended up on it also.  Lets just say they were less than thrilled as well.

If you can get past the look on Dax's face in this picture take a glance at Nate.  That is him trying to awkwardly smile and wave to the crowd when he ran out of candy.  I'm pretty sure I recall saying to him on several occasions: "Honey, you need more candy."  to which he would say:  "no, this will be enough".   At least I waited until the parade was over to say I told you so.

Good times had by all.  Now on to Dax doing the mutton bustin' at the rodeo tonight.  That I really am looking forward to. 

I'm done with goodbye's for the week

Please no more goodbye's this week.  It was hard enough saying so long to the house I've lived in for the last 10 years but I also had to say so long to the house I spent a huge chunk of my childhood at.  

I grew up living next door to my Grandma and Grandpa Petersen.  It was awesome.  When my grandma passed away a few months ago it left their place empty.  No one in the family wanted to buy it so they threw a  For Sale sign in the front yard and it closed the same week my house did.  

I spent so much time sitting under my Grandpa's big walnut tree. So many memories. All I can picture is my cute grandpa sitting there in his lawn chair waving every time I ran past him into the house to see what kind of treat I could get from my grandma. 

I had to take the family out for one last picture there.

I'm darn sick of taking last pictures so here's a first.

First picture of our new (soon to be) home sweet home. Isn't it great?  Don't worry, it will be.  Fingers crossed that there will actually be a big hole there next week. 

School shopping -- check!

Let the school bells officially ring!  I am done school shopping with 10 days to spare.

One reason I LOVE having all boys is they are so easy to shop for.  Minus the fact that Grif had a mini meltdown that no clothes would fit him because he has gotten a little bit husky this last year. It was (mostly) smooth sailing today.  First and last trip out.  The boys were much better than I expected, probably because they were hauling in the goods.  

We were done in 3 hours.  3 glorious, fast-paced hours.  Mostly because they didn't need too much stuff.  Their closet is busting at the seams as it is.  I don't know if it's because they have too many clothes or because four little people are trying to share one closet in this crap hole of an apartment. 

  I will now officially document the goods bought so Nate doesn't question my money spending.  We raked in:

**4 pairs of shoes

**2 ($0.99) flip-flops

**2 pairs of jeans

**1 backpack (how did that happen with 3 kids going to school? The older boys don't care about new ones and the ones they had from last year are amazingly hole-less.  See!  The beauty of having boys.) 

**8 pairs of shorts

**7 shirts

**2 packages of unders

and a partridge in a pear tree!

all for only $301.92 (dang shoes were almost half of that).  If my terrible math skills are correct that averages out to just under $12 an item.  Nate, according to my receipts I saved over $200.  You should be very proud of this rock star wife of yours.  

Who knew goodbye would be so hard

I'm done being an adult for now.  I'm throwing in the towel for a week or two.  I feel like I have had so much to post about but no time/energy to do it.  

We moved out of our house Saturday into an apartment where I don't dare touch anything even though I have lysol wiped it about 20 times, but hey we have a roof over our heads and for that I am thankful.  I really do feel like I have been running non-stop ever since we moved.  I don't know how working moms do it all.  Seriously.  I am used to pretty much doing what I want when I want.  I usually have 4 little people in tow with me but it works.  I haven't even had time to go to the grocery store.  Tonight's dinner: frozen waffles, tomatoes, and chips with cheese.  Not necessarily together but who knows how the kids chose to eat it.  I just threw the food in front of them and they had at it.  

And my checkbook.  I'm scared of what's going on there.  It hasn't been balanced for like a week so fingers crossed I'm not bouncing checks left and right.  

I'll tell you one thing though.  My house--soon to be old house (*tears*)--is shining like the top of the chrysler building.  

Oh my house.  I had no idea it would be this hard to say goodbye.  Emotionally (and physically) I am more than ready to let it all be done and over with.  Good thing we sign papers in the morning.  I have caught tears welling up in my eyes more than once while vacuuming.  As I was mowing the lawn for the last time all I could think was this is the last time I'll ever mow this.  Or this is the last time I will open this cupboard or clean this big beast of a tub I hate but now I miss because I can't ever take a bath in it again. 

Ten fantastic years were spent there and I'm getting all sappy letting it go. I asked Nate to go walk through it with me one more time and he wouldn't.  He has already moved on.  Ooooorrrrrrr..........it's too hard for him and he doesn't want to cry in front of me.  Yes, that's it.
  I've made the boys pose for too many "last" pictures there.

I love this first picture.  Mostly because I know what it took to get it.  Grif struggled and struggled to get up on that ledge all by himself.  Didn't happen.  It took me and Dilon lifting and pushing to get him up there.  Good times.

Then I told them to all go to their rooms and give me one final picture with them in it doing something totally awesome.  This is what I got

(don't judge me.  I have no clue what that stain is on the carpet and it wouldn't come out. The new people can just cover it with a bed and all will be well)

Goodbye my cute little house.  I hope the new people are as great as we were to you.  Yeah right.  We were the best.

Scott Wright Reunion 2015

So now that the oven is clean and I'm eating Eggo's for the second time today (I gave up on the Totino's) I'm ready to blog about the Scott Wright Reunion we just had.  If you are completely confused read my previous post and you will be all caught up.

We spent 4 fun-filled days at Cub River with 34 Wright's under one roof.  One very dirty roof.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I am awesome as always and forgot my camera.  Again.  I really need to start leaving it in my purse at all times.  I did manage to take 2 whole pictures with my phone and Cassie was nice enough to send me 2 she took of my kids so this post won't be completely photo free. 

Since we had the whole famdamily there we took the opportunity to wrangle the grand kids together with Grandpa and Grandma Squeaker

 

Great picture, right?  

But what's going on behind the picture is so much better 

How many adults does it take to get 14 little boys to smile?

It's a good thing the company was awesome because the cabin/lodge thing we stayed at was not.  It was slightly outdated and I didn't dare take off my shoes or sit on the toilet seat for fear of what I might catch.  But hey, what's a vacation without a little adventure.  

The kids didn't seem to care about the cleanliness of the place (or lack thereof) and they loved the pool.  I also loved the pool because I didn't have to get in it.  

 I'm pretty sure Grif is already cooler than I will ever be.  This kid cracks me up.

Well, like I mentioned earlier, this is all I've got as far as photo's go.  But trust me, we had a great time. Lots of laughter.  Lots of food.  Lots of love.  I am super blessed with my in-laws. 

Thanks for getting us all together Karissa! 

A sligthly sidetracked post

So I just sat down to write a post about The Annual Scott Wright Reunion we just had this past week when I started to smell something funny.  I live with 5 boys so that is not unusual but this was a different smell. Finally after a good 30 seconds of sniffing and gagging it dawned on me something was melting in the oven.   Nooooooooooooooo!  I forgot my best cake pan with plastic lid was in there because I was hiding the last piece of Dilon's birthday cake for me to eat later. The piece I ate for my first lunch (yes I usually eat 2 lunches, you got a problem with that?) didn't fill me up enough so I turned on the oven to cook me a nasty Totino's.  I don't like Totino's much but I was withering away so I had to do something.  A girl can only eat so many pb&j's in her lifetime.   So not only is my best cake pan ruined but the last piece of cake is now uneatable. That'll turn a good day bad.  A hot pad was lost in the battle as well.

We also found out today that we lost our apartment that we had lined up for when we move out because our closing date got bumped and someone else wanted the same apartment.  This Monday is just super fanfreakintastic.

At least Dilon seemed to have a Happy Birthday a couple of days ago.  If I would have been nice and let him have the last piece of his cake the Cake Pan Catastrophe of '15 would be nonexistent.
 I can't believe he is 12.  Next week he is passing the Sacrament for the first time.  I'm not old enough for this to be happening. Happy Birthday Dil Pickle.  Love you kid!

and yes, that is once again Christmas wrapping paper for birthday presents.  Seriously, I don't even care.

After I get some stinky plastic scraped off the bottom of my oven I will post about the good times at the Scott Wright Reunion that I had originally sat down to do.  One day I'll get all my stuff together.

Clear Creek 2015

Another year at good ol' Clear Creek.  

Here are the happenings:

-It rained.  A lot. I didn't want the kids in their muddy/wet clothes all over the beds in my trailer so they sat under the canopy outside. Turns out I really am the meanest mom/aunt on the planet. 

-Everything about this picture screams safety.  8 small kiddos and 5 bb guns.  What could possibly go wrong?

-I had a fish head shoved in my face.  These boys are extremely lucky I was in a good mood and didn't confiscate their poles.

 

-Nate and I got into a little bit of an argument (us argue!? Shocker.  If he would just see things my way life would be a whole lot easier) before we left about taking a dvd player.  In my opinion it's a big NO.  We are camping, disconnecting from the stress of life and becoming one with nature.  In his opinion it's a who the hell cares if they watch a movie and relax thing. I won.  Woohoo.  Mostly because I'm the one who packed for six people for 4 days.  I should have won.  Anyway, the point to this whole thing is I walked into Stephanie's trailer to see this

Busted! Grifin disconnect that thing and go talk to birds or something.

-Safety seems to be Baylor's #1 priority.  You never can be too careful while sitting on a log eating watermelon.

- I have to throw this picture on for the sole purpose of introducing Hank.  The newest member the family... aka the dang truck Nate bought without telling me. 

-This camping trip was extra awesome for Dilon.  He needed to pass off some scouting requirements and had to sleep in a tent while the rest of us were cozy in the trailer.  Funny thing is, he slept like a rock and I froze every night in the trailer because Nate won't let me turn on the heater. It may have something to do with the fact that I pin him against the wall trying to stay warm so he ends up sweating like crazy.  

-Speaking of Nate, this seems to be all he does up there

Cooks for the rest of us.  Next year I'm going to pack his pink apron so you can see how he can rock that thing.  Ignore his hand gesture in the picture.  That's just his way of saying he loves seeing me with my camera.

-Don't feel too bad for Nate.  He didn't do all the cooking.  I put these two to work as well

-The Marshall's --really, what can I say? Their expressions and gestures say it all.  They're a lively bunch.

- There was some more rock painting.  Sadly, this year the rocks "accidentally" got left behind. Shoot.

- I asked Nate pretty please with a cherry on top to take a picture with me.  This is the best he would give me

Ya know Nate, one day when I die you're going to look back at all these pictures and feel bad that you weren't normal in just one of them.  For the love, throw me a bone just once man.

-Again speaking of Nate, he's awesome.  Except for when we were leaving Clear Creek and I wanted to get a picture with my grandpa's initials that he carved into a tree back in 1987 but I forgot and he wouldn't let me go back to do it. I know, I know, it's not good for the trees.  I helped Nate write a whole paper on it for one of his college classes.  Oh who am I kidding?  I wrote Nate a paper about it for one of his college classes.  So I know you shouldn't do it but I really wanted the picture.  Next year for sure.

-And the best part of the whole trip has no picture for me to document it because we missed "it".  Literally.  After we left to make it back to church on Sunday my family of sinners stayed behind for one more day (relax guys, I'm just giving you a hard time.  I'm sure I'll see you all in hell). Anyway, my dad was walking a little out past the campsite when he looked up and saw Pennywise (the dang clown from IT) standing there in the open grass/weeds holding a balloon waving at him.  I'm not exactly sure what happened next but I like to picture my dad running away screaming like a little girl.  Just what I would have done.  It's a good thing Nate wasn't there for that because chances are Pennywise would have been shot.  Seriously though, that's some creepy stuff.  Who does that?  Apparently my family went and talked to them and someone in their camp is deathly afraid of clowns so they dress up as clowns every year.  I really think I would like to be a part of that family.

See ya in 2016, Clear Creek.

Today I have a lot to say.... long post ahead.

I feel like I haven't blogged forever so I decided to play a little game of catch up.

**My main man had a birthday yesterday. We are lame and didn't really do anything.  Just stuck around town and went out to dinner.  I ordered him some stuff online that has yet to show up so he didn't even have a present to open.  It was a super exciting 35th!

** Nate has decided that his life isn't busy enough and is now running for City Council.  He has wanted to do it for years and figured since we aren't busy enough trying to move and build a house it would be the perfect time. 

** I have decided that Nate is a much better parent than I am.  He has much more faith in our children than I do.  I really need to work on that.  Dilon's baseball team made it to the Championship game(s).  There was one team that went undefeated all season so they had to beat them twice to win.  Dilon is mostly catcher and he has killed it this year.  He may be tiny but he's a wall when it's time to catch that ball.  Anyway, he has been doing some pitching and has done pretty well there too.  Turns out there is a rule that you can only pitch so many innings a week so the main pitcher couldn't do the whole game during the championship.  They had to put Dilon in at the end of the first game and it was tied.  All the pressure was on my baby.  I kept giving Nate they eye and shaking me head telling him not to let him do it. (Nate helps coach his baseball team too--shocker).  It wasn't that I didn't think he could do it, it's just that it was too much pressure for my boy.  Let's just say he handled the pressure like a champ and didn't let any runs in.  Do you know how fan-freakin-tastic it is to hear other parents cheer your kid on. This mom was busting at the seams with pride. His team ended up scoring and won the first game.  Then lost the second game by 1 point so they were second overall.  I am super impressed with how much he has improved this year.  Nate swore up and down during the wrestling season that wrestling would help him improve in all sports. Why does he always have to be right about everything?

Here are some super clear shots of him and his ball team. Told you I was rockin my photography skills.

**Bay decided it would be fun to trip and hit the corner of the bleachers.  It looks much worse in person.  Swollen and blue to match those killer eyes of his.

** I'm pretty sure he fell because the kid walks on his toes all day long.  Your son's going to be a ballerina, Nate.

**Our house is under contract!!  Woohoo!!! I've been afraid to say anything about it because I don't want to jinx it and have it fall through again. We are having a helluva time finding somewhere to live that isn't going to make us sign a 6 month - 1 year lease. So we may be homeless here soon. Our construction loan is taking foooorrrrrreeeeeeeeeever to get set up.  You know hindsight really is 20/20.  If we would have know it was going to take so long we would have started it when we put our house up for sale.  But we were too nervous to start anything before we had an offer on this house.  You live and learn, right?  Everything will work out.  Everything will work out.  I repeat that numerous times a day.  

**I was at Maverick the other night waiting in line when a very sketchy looking man in front of me turned around and told me he was staying at the Hampton Inn room 303.  Creepy and hilarious all at the same time.  The cashier was chuckling at what I'm sure was my very dumbfounded look and the fact that I verbally could not spit anything out of my mouth.  I stood there stuttering and shaking my head as quickly as I could.  Where was Nate when I needed him?

** I have officially turned into my grandma.  She made us wash plastic silverware and ziploc baggies as kids.  There was no need to waste perfectly good disposable goods. Every time I take the kids to school lunch and see the unused plasticware tossed out I get all fired up inside.  Everyday I think about taking it but then don't because that would be stealing. Well today I did.  I stole my kids forks and spoons that they didn't use.  I don't even care.  Waste not, want not.

**Dax has gotten too smart for his own good.  I was helping Grif solve some math story problems the other day and my dang 6 year old yelled out the answer to the 5th grade problem before the 5th grader did.  

** Speaking of smart kids, I have gotten a little excited about building our house so I pulled out the plans the other day to show the boys. I can barely read them and see what is where. I pointed out all the bedrooms to the boys and asked them which one they wanted.  Grif picked first and when I asked him why he chose the one he did he said it was because it was the only one with a walk-in closet.  How the hizzle could he see that.  I didn't even really notice that.  Grif for the win.

I think I've been long winded enough.  So long for now.