JOY

If I had to pick one word to decribe our newest little Belle it would be, joy.
As I looked through pictures and cleaned cards today I realized that while Scott is the BEST storyteller and blogger in our house, he doesn't really get to see little Belle as much as I do. When he gets home she is close to going to bed and he also has two little boys who are louder and more demanding of his time.
I felt that I HAD to post a blog about our newest little girl. She is about 5 months now and she is getting a little bit louder as she coos and hollers here and there.


Most of the time She wakes up happy and goes down to sleep easily. I know this may change as teeth start breaking thru but right now I walk in the room to see her little feet in the air and her talking to the ceiling, : )




She LOVES to hear her brothers when they come in the room in the mornings. We all four usually end up playing in my bed for about 30 minutes before my feet touch the floor for the day.


She smiles when she sees you, when you hold her, when you play with her, when you sing to her, she is so full of JOY! She smiles and raises her eyebrows, she squinches her nose, she does the wide open smile. When she cries 95 percent of the time it is a soft little cry. I know God blessed us with three wonderful children and all three are special in their own way, but our little Belle, with her little curl on top, is just a JOY : )

Required Documentation for a Shelby County School

Magan took Sam to his new school for registration the other day. We had found out about registration only the previous day, so we were a little unprepared.

We were told that we needed a birth certificate, which is usually something parents try to hold onto for their children. And seeing that Magan has her original birth certificate from 1980, and I have mine from 1979 (Both of ours are on some strange yellow paper, perhaps some type of papyrus, that has somehow lasted this long without any degradation), this should not have been a problem for us to keep up with Sam’s from 2005, but we can not find it anywhere at the house. Magan looked everywhere, and there are very few places that we would keep such important papers. But alas, we can not find them, what’s next?

We were told that we needed his Social Security Card. Now that one was easy, we have always tried to keep that one with the birth certificates…so again we have a problem, and can not find it, what’s next?

We were told that we needed two of the last utilities bills that showed that we did live in the area. SERIOUSLY, who keeps their bills after you pay them…and since I keep hearing of people that do…WHY??? Why are we the only people that throw away bills after they are no longer needed. So…yes, again we do not have what is needed, so Magan took Sam to the school for registration.

After describing our lack of documentation that Sam is a US Citizen, and our lack of documentation that he is school age, and our lack of documentation that we even live in this area…Magan gets a look that lets her know that we are apparently the most scatterbrained parents that she has seen today from the registration person. But I guess after seeing that Sam did speak English and look American, and that he appeared to be school age, and that we apparently had driven a small distance to be at this school for registration, they allowed Sam to get some initial tests and prompted us to bring in the paperwork when we had it.

So in the aftermath of this less exciting registration day for Magan, I am attempting to get this documentation. The birth certificate was no problem, just a quick $40 and two days later…wala…in the mail. The social security card had Magan downtown in a not-so-great area with three children looking at a wait time of 3 hours. So we opted to do the mail in option…so I am currently without a driver’s license until the paperwork is completed and information is sent back to us…hopefully with a SSC for Sam. And we are also waiting for the bills which I will not throw away…at least this month.

And some random pictures Magan wanted to throw in...

Two Short Stories

Magan said that she was going to pick up Sam the other day at school, and just as she was turning onto 280 coming from our house, she heard Davis in the back of the van fussing at her “Oh No…Oh No…Mama…Why you do that?” She asked him what she did, and he explained to her that she was at a red light and she was supposed to stop. Davis, not realizing that it was acceptable to turn right at a red light in most states including Alabama, had incorrectly rationalized that his mother was not obeying the rules of the road.

I have been really craving some cookies lately, and we have been eating quite often. I usually allow both Sam and Davis a cookie after their supper, and sometimes we finish off the cookies later on before bedtime. I was walking though the kitchen later that evening and noticed Sam sneaking away from me obviously hiding something behind his back. “Sam, what do you have?”. He smiled and pulled two cookies from behind his back. I asked him who said he could have a cookie. He said “mom”. “Well, who said you could have two cookies?” Another little grin and he said “She didn’t say a number”.

Sam's Lego Shirt

Sam is really into Legos right now, and when Magan found him a Lego shirt at Kid’s Market, he fell in love. I think he wore it every day for a week before we could get it off of him to wash.

With his love of the Lego shirt in mind, and Sam’s stubbornness, I relate the following…Sam and Davis continually make extreme messes taking baths together, usually with water ending up all over the floor. I am pretty sure I have already blogged about other incidents involving bathroom messes. In this occasion after getting them out and getting their pajamas on, I went back in the bathroom and noticed the water all of the floor that I had not noticed earlier.

I called both of the boys back in and began scolding them for their mess, then trying a new approach for little Sam, again wearing his Lego shirt, I told Sam next time I would use his Lego shirt to wipe up the mess. He looked up at me in horror but then with no hesitation said “I would still wear it”. I told him that he would not, and that we would have to wash it. He then told me that he would take it and hide it from me.

Now Sam and I did have a little better discussion about his role and my role, but I have to admit, when that guy is passionate about something, he is not one to back down.

A Day out with Thomas

We have now been to Calera for this event 4 years in a row. This is always a blast for the boys and a fairly cheap day of entertainment for us. Davis and Sam both had big smiles as I lifted them up from the parking lot to see Thomas.

We first went to the petting zoo, where Sam and Davis pet the goats, bunnies, and ducks. I also let Sam and Davis wonder all over the trains they have on display. They were pretty happy to be driving this big engine.

We then got tattoos for the boys. Anabelle wanted one, but we said that she had to wait till she was 20 to get one like her mothers…just kidding. The tattoos were quickly gone while Sam and Davis played in the blow up bounce area and slide, those guys could have spent the rest of the day in here. Magan has a video of Davis screaming coming down the slide, and this he did EVERY time he came down the slide.

After the blow up fun, the boys both played putt putt, then we took a rest and rode the smaller version (and much cheaper) train.

We then let the boys go to the story time passenger train while Magan went to the Thomas Store with Anabelle. Sam was very shy about sitting up front to listen to the Thomas story, but little Dave helped give them both the confidence to go up front and sit all by themselves. After that, they played in the large sand boxes and then with the bubbles. Magan and I just sat back in the shade and watched them play and play and play.

One last trip to the Thomas Train tent…where all the kids were playing with the train tables they had set up. They also had a large table where you could color pictures, but only one kid stayed at this table the whole time…yep Sam. He loved that they had so many stamps and coloring pages.

It was a beautiful day, and so much fun. On the island of Sodor this day there were no unhappy engines.