And The Winner Is...

Hello Everyone!! I hope you all are having a great week! We are having so much fun with Aunt Mary and the rest of our family here in Alabama. My Aunt live too far out in the boonies to pick up much of a signal, so I haven't been able to post. We are on our way to a park for a picnic and playtime. They have a really cool fountain for the kids to play in, so they are excited!



I found the surprise to add to my giveaway here. I think Janelle & Ella will like it because they're the winners!! Congratulations ladies! I hope you have fun shopping! Janelle, just e-mail me your address and I will get them in the mail as soon as I get back home! (in a few days ;))

Thank you to everyone that left a comment on my Blog-o-versary post! Blogging is a part of my life that I enjoy very much and I am so happy to be sharing it with all of you!

Now, I must go swing and slide... and maybe run through a fountain or two! :)

Hugs~

We're Having a Ball!

Yesterday was a day that we have all been anxiously awaiting. The kids had tickets to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom so we decided to incorporate those into our trip to the south.
We were so bummed that we had to cut out Missouri and Texas though. Our first plan was to go to Six Flags St. Louis, Branson (to see all my bloggy friends there!), Dallas, Austin and then Alabama. We decided that we didn't have it in the budget to do all that driving this year. :(

Anyway, at Six Flags we did some riding...



I promise you that I almost passed out on that first hill (below). Eric said I'm getting soft.

What? Just because my favorite part of the day was finding the perfect shade tree?

I had a personal invitation to the gun show....
We ALL got wet... You know, that's not as fun as I remember it being!
We ate cotton candy until we were bouncing off the walls! We bought the unlimited popcorn/cotton candy bucket. They SO lost money on us! Well, probably not, but it makes me feel better to think it.
We geared up for a three hour drive to Franklin, TN...
We made it all the way to Franklin and got there about 2 AM, our time. When we got to the hotel, Eric checked us in and got our key to the room. We were in room 420.

Do you know how much fun it is to climb four floors with three half-sleeping kids at 2 in the morning?

Anyhoo, we got to our room, slipped in the keycard and...

Well, you know that little lock thingy on that can only be locked from the INSIDE? Which means that someone HAS TO BE in the room if it is in use?

It was in use. We tried to get into a room that was already occupied, at 2 in the morning. Do you think we may have freaked that guy out a little?

To make a long story short, they thought that guy checked out, but he hadn't.

We got a new room and all was well. Then I saw the black bug on the wall. Eric killed it and we confirmed that it was not of the roach variety. Things just were not going my way. In the end, all has been well with the hotel. We've been pretty happy with it. I thought I was burning it down tonight, but I'll save that for another day!

This morning we took the advice of Travis and went to a beautiful church in Brentwood. We were very pleased! The people were very friendly and the service was great. After church we hit the Galleria for lunch and shopping. Of course I had to go to my favorite kids' clothing store and I got some major deals! I was thrilled, to say the least. Eric was even going through bins with me, bless his heart!
After that we took the kids to see Wall-E. Cute movie. Huge theater! We live in Smalltown, IN so this theater blew us away. I think it was called Thoroughbred Theater in Franklin.

We have had a great time so far and we are looking forward to seeing Aunt Mary tomorrow. We do have a four hour drive, so don't be surprised if you hear from me on the road! :)

On The Road With My Laptop!!

You all are not going to believe that I am riding down I-65 towards Louiseville as I am typing this! This is one of the benefits to being married to a computer tech!



I love me some AT&T wireless!!



Anyway, this little message is for Alana.

Eric would like for me to thank you for giving away that Itunes gift card a few months ago. I finally got around to using it the other night so that I could have some new songs on my mp3 player for the trip.



Among some others songs, I bought three songs from The Brady Bunch soundtrack.



Oh yes I did!



Sunshine Days, Time to Change and Keep On Movin'!



Did you know it is next to impossible to listen to those songs and not sing out loud?



Well, it is. Ask Eric. He is sure that card was not meant for such evil purposes! ;)

I suppose I'll go for now. Hey Tasha, I got Maggie the cutest little outfit at the outlet mall. I was driving and lo and behold, the van just automatically went off on the right exit. Amazing!

It's My Blog-o-versary...Let Me Give You a Little Something

I really can't believe that I have been blogging for a year. That year has flown by!
I can't even begin to express how much fun I have had at kachoo5.blogspot.com. The best thing that has come from this experience is "meeting" all of you. I just wish there was a way to hug all of your necks.

I have been thinking and thinking of something to give away to celebrate my blog-o-versary. I wanted to do something that anyone could use.

I have decided on a $12.00 gift card to here. I think most people can find anything there to use $12.00 on! Why 12?

Why, that's how many months I've been blogging!

I will also throw in a surprise. It's a surprise because, well, I don't know what it is yet! My husband did tell me that I will be able to blog from my Aunts with some special little card thing he is bringing from work, so when I figure out what I'm adding I will clue you in!

I really need to get to sweeping, dusting, mopping and scrubbing. Oh, and packing and mowing and running errands. Sounds fun, doesn't it??

If you want to be included on my giveaway, please leave me a comment and I will pick a winner on Wednesday, July 2nd. I probably won't be able to mail it out until we get back, so please be patient with me! :)

Love you, friends!

Happy 11th Birthday, Ethan

My Silly Girl

I'm sure you've all seen this video by now...


Our kids are only allowed to watch something on YouTube if one of us is controlling it. They thought that this video was hilarious, therefore we watched it too many times to count. Today, while I was upstairs packing some things, I overheard Sarah doing this...

I had to have her do it again because I thought is it was so funny! What do you think about that accent? I really tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it so you can kind of hear me. Ben was cracking up in the background.

The Party

On Saturday we went over to my sister's house to celebrate all of the June birthdays. Her 4 kids and Ethan all have birthdays between the 19th and the 30th. We enjoyed the day in the pool, even though it was a little on the cool side.

Actually, I was F R E E Z I N G.

Anyway, we had fun playing water volleyball and totally kicking the kids rears~ heehee :)

Don't judge, there were 5 of them and only two of us!

The boys got a Mario cake that I made. My Aunt from Alabama sent me a bunch of her cake pans and I am so thankful for them. This was one of them.
Michelle made the girls a Barbie cake. How cute is that?! I won't even begin to tell you how she got that doll to stay upright!
Here are the girls of the family. I just love this picture!

I noticed that my blog-o-versary is on Friday.

Hmmm...what to do?? I'll think of something.

I have a list a mile long of things to get done before we leave for vacation. I guess I should be doing that instead of this! Naw...

Here is an update on my sister, Sharon: She went through some stress tests this morning and they are waiting to find out the results. Her aortic root is enlarged, but it's nothing too serious. The meds that they gave her are making her heart rate too low, so they are trying to adjust it. We don't know yet when she will come home. Thank you for praying!

My Sister

So, I took an unexpected trip to Indianapolis last night. My brother-in-law called and said that the ambulance was taking my oldest sister, Sharon, to St.Vincent Heart Center. They were not sure what was up, but something was definitely not right. Her heart rate was up to 180-200 beats a minute. She hates to swallow pills and when they gave her one to take her heart rate went up to 180!

Anyway, my Pastor and his wife so lovingly took me down there. We found out that they were going to do a scope this morning and so we got a couple hotel rooms and stayed overnight.
They did the scope around 11 this morning and while doing it, my sister coughed and it sent her heart back into the normal rhythm. (Do I sound like I know what the heck I'm talking about? I really have no clue!) By the way, she was asleep for this. They were going to shock her heart back into the right rhythm, but they obviously didn't have to do that!
Anyway, the doctor said that he has only seen this happen a hand-full of times and the nurse had never seen it!

To make a long story short, they are keeping her again tonight to do a stress test tomorrow. They want to keep an eye on her and decided whether or not she may have had a mild heart attack. She's just turned 40 in May, so they are a little concerned about why this happened.
I'm sorry if this doesn't make alot of sense. I'm a little tired!

I would appreciate if you would keep her in your prayers tonight!

And thank you, Tasha, for watching my kids this afternoon. You are a true friend and I love you very, very much! :)

There were going to be some birthday pictures here...

...until my sister found something today while we were swimming.

Now I'm all depressed.

She found a (gulp)...

gray hair.

That's right, my first gray hair. I'm 32 people, 32.

Maybe I'll post some pictures of the birthday party on another day.

Right now I need to check out the prices for Metamucil, prunes and Depends.

Ashes to Ashes

I always wonder if my kids are listening at church. I'm sure that I'm not the only parent in the world that wonders this.

Last night on the way to church, Sarah asked us if we could go get ice cream afterwards.

Of course, I went into the whole "You know, we're NOT made of money. We can't eat out all of the time."

Just as soon as that came out of my mouth, this came out of Ben's...

"Yeah Sarah, we're not made out of money. We're made out of DUST!"

I guess they're listening. :)

Tree Climbing

Eric had a ballgame a couple of weeks ago and the kids found this tree to climb.

It was perfect for climbing and getting pictures.
But wait, what's that I hear...
Mooooommmmmyyyyy...hey mom, I'm stuck...
"Hang on Ben, let me get the camera."
He was a little less than happy with me! That's what happens when you have a mom that blogs!

Father's Day 2008

This year the kids surprised Eric with a Father's Day Party. They had a homemade balloon volleyball "net" and a pin the center on the flower game. They also came up with a balloon toss and they wanted to play Chutes and Ladders with their dad. For food they had me bake chocolate chip cookies and we ate them with milk, of course!

It was so fun that they came up with this all by themselves and they made it all and were so proud. I can't believe how they have grown up.


The green thing hanging on the closet door was a decoration. They had them taped all over the room.

We're dig, dig, digging for the truth, truth, truth in the Word, Word, Word of God

We made it through the week and it was lots of fun. I really do enjoy VBS week at our church. We had a great group of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade girls. They were so eager to participate and so many of them made decisions and we even had a few of them accept Christ.

I'm not going to write a lot because after having a busy week, we went with the youth group to an event called Farm Fest today so I am very, very sleepy. :0~~(this is a yawn)

This was Ben's class. Our pastor and his wife were the teachers. Ben really enjoyed it and they had a big group of 1st through 3rd grade boys. The Lord will bless them for this ,I'm sure!

This was our class. I was the assistant teacher, so I didn't have to teach. I kept the points straight and helped with whatever Mrs. Mac needed. Her name isn't really Mrs. Mac, but that's what the girls called her. It's a shorter form of her real name!

Do you see the snake on her shoulder? That's the devil and she was showing the girls how you can shake him off when he tries to get you to do something wrong.

I spent a majority of the week before last making the decorations for our classroom area. I love to do this kind of stuff. Isn't that dino awesome?

Pastor Brian, our youth pastor. He's nuts. That about sums it up.

The girls got to go to the dig site for different reasons. This particular site was for behavior. The girls dug for jewelry at this site.

Every day, the kids had to learn a daily verse. Our church really stresses verse memory. We had a game each day to help them learn the verse. This one was so much fun. Each team had to go, one at a time and stack the cups in the right order and then say the verse out loud. After they would do that, they would unstack the cups and run back and the next girl would go. It was fun to watch.

Just a couple of cutie pies.
After the kids said all of their daily verses, they could say extra ones for more points. Ben had the most points in his class for attendance, Bible, visitors and verses. HE WON A BRAND NEW BIKE! Way to go, we are so proud of you, Ben!
Ethan also had the most points in his class and the most points overall. He also won a new bike. He really worked hard at memorizing 42 verses! We are so proud of him, too.
Sarah got second in her class and memorized 16 verses. Another little girl memorized just five more than her. She gave us reason to be proud also.

And of course, there was the dunk tank on Friday. We always have a picnic on the last day and the kids love the dunk tank. I was so, ahem, blessed to be on that list! The teens put about 3 bags of ice in that water. It was c.o.l.d!!!

How do I get talked into these things?

Well, I guess I typed more than I thought I would. Gee, imagine that!

I hope you all enjoy honoring the daddies in your lives. Whether it's yours or your children's~ Happy Father's Day to them all!