what a couple of days

it all started wednesday night. lee was packing to go to houston for business. he said he doesn't think he could be the kind of guy that traveled all the time. i am glad, we really would miss him. tayte heard him say he was getting on a plane. that was tragedy #1. lee came into our room and told me i needed to go calm tayte down. what i wanted to say was why don't you, why can't you think of the things needed to be heard that will calm a 5 year old. but i got tayte to come into our room so we wouldn't freak out the other two. he was really upset that lee was going to be gone. i asked tayte why he never cried like this when i was going to be gone, but tayte's response was, "i do sometimes." i attempted to pull out pictures of when we went to disneyland so he could see that flying wasn't so bad. so after talking to him and realizing he just really loves his daddy we got him to quit crying and go to sleep. it wasn't some freaky kid premonition just the thought of missing daddy.

about 1 in the morning lee wakes up to puking noises. it was payton. and luckily lee got payton to the restroom before having throw up everywhere. lee got up the first couple of times and then i took over. not by choice but i think lee was so tired he didn't hear it. that happened about every 1-1.5 the rest of the night. tragedy #2.

lee's flight left at 7:45. so i had school duty. i would normally consider that tragedy #3, but we'll not for now. i dropped the boys off at school and headed back home to hop on the wii fit. then it was off to work. being the great mom that i am i gave a bucket to payton and told him that if he was going to throw up he better do it in the bucket and not in the car. we made it to lakeside. i got a phone call from the school. tayte had thrown up and he said his little brother had been throwing up. tragedy #3. got rachael to cover opening the store and turned around. got to the school picked up tayte and decided i wasn't gonna come back so i pulled baylee out as well. we went home to get some ds's and other things to entertain the boys. i gave tayte his bucket with the same instructions and we were off once again to amarillo. to anyone that thinks i should have stayed home to 2 sick kids just know i have a playroom with a couch that they could rest on. so it is just like being at home only they don't have their beds. and no one got sick again.

that night was my altered arts group meeting. so the boys hung out at the store while they did their thing. baylee helped me close up the store. he was in charge of adding the credit card receipts and the checks. he didn't get the totals right, but he did understand what he was supposed to be doing. and you don't use a calculator until way later in school. we got home and everyone was told their jobs to get ready for bed. baths, homework that wasn't brought to the store, and make sure all things were signed. we were only getting to bed 1.5 past normal bedtime. the best thing about that night was the boys wanted to sleep with me. so after payton squirmed in bed he finally we to sleep in baylee's bed. he's never been one to sleep with lee and i so i knew that was coming. baylee, tayte, and i went to sleep shortly after getting into bed. i was beat.

the next morning i had school duty again. i made sure to set the alarm on my phone just in case my alarm clock didn't get me up. i plug my phone in across the room so it would eventually bug me enough to get out of bed. we got to school roughly on time. when i told baylee to get breakfast he was farting around for something else. since we didn't have any poptarts, breakfast was a baggie of grapes and strawberries, it is healthier but won't stay with them as long. so i hoped they could make it to lunch.

my plan was to go get the boys from danielle's house by 6 and have them back at the store until lee could come get them about 9. well tragedy #4. lee's flight was delayed hours. he didn't get to the store to pick the boys up until 11. but they were troopers and i made them a cake in the microwave. which was awesome!

so i have been running around like a crazy person. and am a beat dog. so hopefully i get a good nights sleep. oh, and i am extactic that lee is back. i don't think i could hack it as a single mom. ok maybe i could but it wouldn't be as much fun for the boys, they would have to cut back on the things they do.

tara

end of the season

baylee was playing in a 3rd and 4th grade basketball league. there were 3 teams from panhandle playing. lee coached baylee's team which was made up of mostly 3rd graders. the other 2 teams were coached by dads of 4th graders and the assistant coaches also had 4th graders and since there aren't many 4th graders to start with that leaves few choices if you wanted a 4th grader. so lee decided he would just take the 3rd graders and try to do the best. if you haven't ever noticed there is a BIG size difference between 3rd and 4th graders. many of those boys were a good 6 inches taller than baylee's team. but, lee did a great job and the boys did awesome. the win column wouldn't agree, but the really did improve tremendously throughout the season. they got tougher. fought for the ball more. they had the speed to start with, they needed the control. they did gain a little of that.

they played in pyb (panhandle youth basketball, i think). then they played in a tournament this weekend. the rules that they had played with during the season were not the same rules as this tournament. which i think really threw off some of the boys. they had played man-on-man with no pressing. well this tourny was full court press if you wanted. and one team wanted. they were jerks led by the king jerk. why press a team you already beat, especially when you are up by 10 points. and when the games usually have no more than 30 points a game. really? i'm not into violence and i really don't get worked up at games, especially this age, but i wanted to punch that guy. and you don't make excuses when you lose. you try to learn from what happened and try to do better next time. but, (i'm sure you knew there was a but in there somewhere) if a kid has the ball and another kid steals it and makes the first kid spin around twice there is a foul in there somewhere. but was whistle blown? no. so that will mess with kids mind especially if you are a lot smaller than that kid. if that darned ref. would have called something baylee's team woulda hung in there. but they started fighting back. and when you have 5 quick short guys on the court lots can happen. and when those kids can be a little spastic, it is quite funny to watch.

baylee made a basket this season. he got meaner on the court. he gained confidence which is what i want him to get out of this whole experience. now if we can get him to stop hopping.

lee learned a lot coaching. one thing he learned is that he is not very patient with a bunch of 9 year olds. especially nine year olds that don't listen. but, he did make them better than what they were and that is what coaching is all about. he has coached baylee's team since kindergarten. he also learned that him and baylee need a break. he is a dad and wants his kid to be better. he needs to be the dad and yell like the dad. not the dad/coach.

so basketball was over yesterday. and baseball practice starts tomorrow. glad to have the day of rest between seasons.

tara

tayte's great day

i am a middle child. yes, i know that explains a lot. tayte is a middle child.

i went to my friend sheryl's house the other day for a card club. because of baylee still being in basketball, payton stayed with me. so he went too. he loves going to sheryl's. i think it is because sheryl lets him get away with and gives him EVERYTHING. in fact, all the boys love going to her house. so that night lee asked payton if he had fun at sheryl's. and of course the answer was yes.

i'm sure by now you are wondering what that has to do with tayte and being the middle child. well, he started crying saying how he wanted to go to sheryl's and how he never gets to go. so yesterday i suckered sheryl into letting tayte come over. she will say i didn't but i did. i asked a million questions to see what she was doing, and if she would let tayte come over. and i still feel guilty for that. because if she did have something going on she wouldn't tell me. he had the best time. she took him to mr. gatti's for pizza, macaroni and cheese, jello, and ice cream. then they went to her house so he could play the wii. not sure why playing the wii at her house is better than ours but it is.

he was king for a day.

he didn't have to share with anyone. he didn't have to wait a turn. he didn't have a big brother taking things from him or a little brother that he had to give to. it was all about him. being a middle child you do get forgotten about. not in a bad way, just the older sibling has activities to do, the little sibling is into everything. there wasn't anyone to pester him or boss him, he got to do things his way all day.

if you really know lee and i we have the boys with us 98% of the time when they aren't in school. we had them and we feel we should raise them. we don't pawn them off onto other people. in fact, the high school sitter we use called us the other day and told us to go out and she would keep the boys. usually you have to call the sitter. we try to do things with the boys individually so they don't feel like they are a mob. that they are a single person. they just happen to live with lots of other people.

so tayte had a great day. and i am grateful for my friend sheryl. she says she is blessed to do that(in fact she kept texting me pictures and at one point i asked who was having more fun her or him), but i don't think she will ever really know what that does for the boys and i. she made a statement that i really have to agree with. all kids should know that they have an adult that loves them and wants to be around them. especially one that isn't related to them.

and now i have to keep baylee from pestering me to death while he waits for his turn.

tara

that thoughtful boy

lee and i both have really been riding baylee lately. he is getting to that age that we think he should be listening more and doing what we tell him. when i was getting on to him the other day i felt horrible. he had a look in his eye, like he was beat down. so, i had to make sure that he knew lee and i both love him and why we are so hard on him. i told him that we expect a lot because most kids will meet the expectations you have for them. so we set the bar high so he will give us the best. i also made sure he knew that it wasn't him that we are upset with it is some of the choices and we are trying to help him make better choices.

and you know what he said? "you and dad made mistakes and you are trying to keep me from making those same mistakes. i get it."

yep, he is one thoughtful kid. i just hope he won't make some of those same mistakes.

tara

family day

we had a great day today. we started the day off at church. which went pretty good until payton decided he needed to pester tayte. did i mention it was when he was taking his money up to the basket at the front of the church. he is standing there and according to one of the men at church "when you want to get rid of him i'll take him because he was stealing money out of the collection basket." great. he took tayte's dollar out, threw it on the floor and said, "tayte...taaaayyyyttttteeee." he pointed at it and wanted tayte to put it back in the basket. as soon as i stood up and snapped my fingers that little stinker grabbed that dollar, threw it in the basket and was headed to sit back down. other than that church was great.

then we heading into amarillo for some fun errands. we went to toys r us so the boys could spend the money the got for easter. headed to the mall so i could get some new shirts from american eagle, even though according to their advertising i am too old to wear their clothes. we went to eat at the boys' favorite place to eat, red robin. which even though 2 of the kids eat free we still couldn't get out of there for under $40. then headed to the movies. we watched "how to train a dragon." which was a really cute movie. in fact baylee asked if we could get it as soon as it was on dvd.

the boys were so good that it makes doing all these things easy. i am so grateful that they know how to act in public. now when we got home that was another story.

tara

i'm a mom who doesn't care

ok really i do care. i just don't care about the trivial things. things that don't change the character of my child. who cares if they wear sweat pants with the elastic bottoms...and have them pulled up past their knees. because that is how payton left the house today, he did pull them down eventually. who cares if they play out in the front yard in their underwear...because really isn't that like a speedo? and there are grown men that do that.

i care about things that matter. i care that my kids have manners, because a please and a thank you can go a long way. i care that they have a belief in something greater than themselves. because sometimes life throws things at you that you really can't handle on your own.

i want to teach my kids that there are certain things you need to fight for and then there are things that you need to compromise on and deciding what those things are is the biggest challenge.

i get told a lot that i have great kids. i think it is because i don't care, but really do care. and i have a husband that feels the same way. because he is a great dad. we make a good team and have great kids to show for it. so the whole point of this post is to show that i am grateful for what i have and willing to fight for it. so if you don't like the fact that i yell at my kids and tell them they can't have a apple because they threw away their ice cream you can get over it. because there are people who are hungry and you don't waste food.

tara

i'm back....at least for the time being

i really don't know why i stopped blogging. i really enjoy it. i could give a million reasons why, but it just boils down to life happened. so over the last several months life has happened. some good and some bad. the bad stuff always has a way of keeping me from doing much of anything. i have been in a funk but now i think i'm out of it. i have even been scrapbooking like a crazy person again. year to date i have done 77 layouts. that was a good year by the way. life has been crazy. briefly here's a run down on the boys:

• baylee: played basketball with lee as the coach, had his 9th birthday, getting ready for the TAKS and it is stressing him out big time.
• tayte: loving kindergarten and is reading. he looks at so many things and will tell me what they say. he chose not to do basketball, but wants to play hockey. we haven't been able to convince him he lives in the wrong place for hockey. don't know where he came up with that one because we have never seen a hockey game. he told the teacher "i'm pest" had to come up with a sentence using pest and that was the one.
• payton: keeps saying he is ready for school, he is tired of going to the store with me, but we have lots of good times. his favorite thing is balloons. he can blow up a balloon on his own, which is great because as soon as he does he just lets it go.

i'm sure as i look through pictures again i remember other things that we have been doing.

the best thing we have done lately is start praying as a family. i don't know what made me think we needed to do this, but i'm glad i did. at first it was really hard to get the boys to understand what we were doing. but after a while they all got the idea and it has been really great. i used to start the prayer and then each boy would add their prayers, with lee ending it. now it is a fight as to who gets to lead and who ends. we have set up a system that they take turns. lee and i are both amazed at how payton changes his prayers based on if he is leading or just taking his turn. here is the typical prayer from each boy.

• baylee: dear lord thank you for this day, thank you for the many blessings you have given us. please help all those that have lost someone, please help the people of haiti.
• tayte: if the people are going on a trip that they have a good day, that they have good food, and that they have a good day to their old homes. that the teachers teach the kids what they need to and for very, very, very, very good friends.
• payton: beans and beans, and macaroni cheese, for houses, clothes, tomatoes, and mckenzie. (he hasn't gotten the idea of what to pray for but he is asking for help for some and showing thanksgiving for his favorite things, so we'll leave it for now).

so, now that i posted once i'm planning on posting more often. i have been trying to get into a new routine and think that blogging is going to be in that routine. plus i always have stories to tell, even if they are just for me to remember while i scrapbook.

tara