Birthday presents at home

Harrison enjoyed opening his presents from family at home. The girls enjoyed playing with everthing as much as he did. It was fun for mom to get to buy some boy toys. It was fun to watch him open his toys and be excited about them. His favorite was a train that plays music and rotates 3 balls through it. Harrison got on his knees and danced to it with his arms up in the air. I got it on vidoe but not any still pictures.

The Birthday Party

The sesame street cake with their picture on it.
Proud mom and dad. (I hate the way I look in this picture!)
Blowing out the candle.
Dad's with their buddies!!
Having at the mini chocolate cake!!

Harrison and Toby's party was a great success!!! We had lots of friends there eating pizza and having a good time. Maya and Claire opened all the boys gifts. The boys had a good time eating their birthday cake. Toby was into it more than Harrison and ended up covered with chocolate cake!!! It was fun to be with out friends and celebrate the boys!!!

BIRTHDAY BOY

It is hard to believe a whole year has past since Harrison entered our family. He is such a sweet boy and we are all loving him lots. He is taking those tentative first steps on his own and will be running soon. He loves to check out everything and the girls are learning to close their door to keep him out. We had our 1 year check up today and Harrison's weighs 21 lbs 4 oz. in the 26% and is 29 1/2" long 40% and his head is in the 80%!! I personally thought he was closer to 25 lbs because he is such a solid weight to carry. He is not a feather weight like his sisters. He is wearing a 12-18 months clothes depending how they fit. His bladder reflex has corrected and he is no longer on medication for it either. We are very happy to have a healthy happy little guy!!!!

Hair Repair

After getting some advice from "the peas" I realized there was a 3rd option of doing a short bob that the short hair would "blend" into better. I was able to get an appointment in the afternoon and took Claire to have her hair fixed. The stylist also parted her hair on the other side to "cover" the shorter area. It does cover it but I am not sure if it will stay because she has a stuboorn calick (not sure how to spell that) that wants to part the other way. I do think the hair cut turned out cute. Emily and Abby are now asking to get their hair the same way!!!! I told Claire if she cut it herself again she is getting it cut like Harrison. I hope she learned her lesson and I am looking for a lock box for all my scissors!!!

Claire is bringing back the mullet!!!!

Monday Claire was making cards for her brother's birthday and his friend Toby. A little bit later when I was making lunch for her I noticed she looked different so I got down by her and noticed her hair had been cut. When I asked her if she cut her hair she told me she did it on Saturday. It got me thinking "Did I reallly not notice this for two days?" then I remembered doing her hair for church Sunday and it was all there. So I asked her "where did you put the hair?" She told me the garbage can but Sunday night I empty all the trash for trash day on Monday and I didn't see any hair when I did that so then I had her show me where she threw it away and sure enough the hall bathroom garbage had a big pile of her hair in it. I was not happy and she got punished. We recently cut her hair about 8" to clean up the ends and get it similar to her sister's, Abby like she wanted it. She is known to "take matters into her own hands" so I thought doing this would prevent her from cutting her own hair. I tell my kids all the time we only cut paper. I am not sure why this child has decided to do this TWICE. I now have to decide do I leave it goofy looking as it grows out or do I get her a short hair cut??? It is pretty short by her ear so she would have really short hair to correct this. Any advice would be appreciated!!

Storms bring out the fire ants!!!!!

I noticed Sunday while cleaning there seemed to be lots of fire ant hills popping up after the storm. Monday while in Houston I accidently stood on one that was buried in the grass and got a couple bites. Wednesday while playing outside Claire stood on a hill and had ants crawling up her long pants. Abby and our neighbor tried to get the off her but she still had some on her when she came screaming in to the house. I stripped her down and got her in the tub but she still got over 50 bites. The bites swelled up fast. The next day they turn into white head looking things. Claire's poor foot looks so painful. It is best to "pop" them and get the white out so they heal faster but Claire won't let me touch them other than putting anti-itch cream on them. she is tough and doesn't complain unless I ask to "get the poison" out.

Unlucky Ike Victims in Nacogdoches

I drove around one of the harder hit neighborhoods on Thursday (6 days afterwards). They still had lots of clean up and repairs to do. Some people are going to take a little bit more to get back to normal. It really made me realize how blessed we were to only lose 1 tree and to have it fall away from the house. Sunday the day afterwards while everyone was cleaning up their yard we had people from all over the neighborhood coming to help each other and work together. We were even brought some Cajun food from a neighbor and I had Gumbo and a crawfish dish for the first time. They were a bit spicy for me but John really liked them. One thing I realized about "waiting out" a storm is: the storm itself can be handled, it is dealing with lose of power, businesses closed, resources not avaliable that make it so hard. You truly need to be self contained to be on your own for a few days.