Why You Should Never Let Your Child Ride on the Front of the Buggy

This is William's left big toe:
Yesterday we had soccer practice and we were going to run in Lowes before lunch to look at some playset supplies. We were loading our buggy and trying to avoid traffic to make it into Lowes. Five kids, two shoeless boys, one not wanting to sit in the buggy, screaming, two hungry babies.....you get the picture. While I don't let our children stand on the buggy b/c once in Hobby Lobby our buggy got tumped over b/c of said kids on the side of it and baby strapped in the seat. So after that happened I really don't let our kids stand on the buggy. But oh how they love to do so. William was standing on the front of our Lowes buggy and decided to jump off in front of a moving truck while Henry was screaming to the top of his lungs and girls were fussing and Clayton was yelling at William to get back on the buggy before he got ran over and I ran over his toe. Upon further examination I looked at his toe and there was no toenail....ahhhhhh! So we turned around and loaded our car back up and headed to Acute Care Kids where they cleaned his toe, numbed it up with shots, reset his toenail to protect his cut nail bed and put in a stitch to hold it in place. THEY PUT A STITCH THROUGH HIS TOENAIL! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! Now, I know the pain of losing a nail. When I was about William's age or a little older I slammed my pinky finger in my Aunt Bev's screen door and lost that nail. I still remember the throbbing! Then six years ago I lost a toenail by catching it on the back of someone's shoe and after it regrew I lost the same toenail again to a recliner while I was 8 months pregnant with twins and the thing still hasn't completely grown back! Anyway, I know how he feels. Clayton had to take him in to the doctor b/c I was cringing just thinking about how bad his poor felt. He has to keep that big bandage on it for three days and stay out of soccer for a few weeks. Bless his heart! Anyway, the moral of the story is: never let your kids stand on the front of the buggy....it's VERY dangerous!

Check out our Walmart Finds

We had to run in Walmart today to pick up some bleach for reasons you don't want to know about. Let's just say I'm in deep cleaning mode b/c I have to be. Anyway, while we were there we picked up a few other things...diapers, etc. And they had these sandals on sale for $7.50 a pair....that's $15 bucks for both girls. I haven't been able to find them any shoes so far b/c their feet are small and extremely skinny like mine. And I've tried everything. They can't wear any of the cute shoes in their size...pediped, see kai run, nope not even the Robeez. Although all my other children had those before they could walk I just can't see paying $30 for some socks that will make their feet sweat in the summer just to say they have some shoes. These have velcro straps on the toe part and the ankle strap and while they're not a perfect fit they'll do for now. Plus they pitched a fit over them. They really wanted a yellow pair just like these only where these are pink gingham the others were a very pale yellow which I liked better too but they only had one pair of size 3s so we got the pink. Plus it will be fall soon and I'm hoping their feet will hit a growth spurt and they'll be able to keep a pair of white t-strap Keds on by then (I'm keeping my fingers crossed at least!) Anyway, I didn't think the checkout lady could scan those babies fast enough. I had to take off the tags and put those on right in the checkout line. Then they wanted to get out and try them out. Well, I had to veto that one and since we're home those shoes have already walked at least 1/2 mile I'm guessing! They love them. Bless their hearts! Maybe one day they'll fit into some real shoes! By the way, this is Margaret Ann modeling and I must say she is looking like a mini Clayton today!

William's First Practice & MC the "Dishwasher"

Yesterday was William's first soccer practice. They did a lot of drills which I think is beneficial for first timers. It teaches them ball control and stuff like that. Then they split up and played each other like a scrimmage. William really liked soccer and didn't complain about his legs hurting like Charlie did. Maybe he was too worried about how hot it was! When we finished practice at 7:00 our van recorded the temp at 91 still. I am starting to doubt if Texas has fall. Here William is at practice:

Now this was a rarity but I've been trying to get everyone in bed at a decent hour since school has started and all. It's mainly b/c by the time supper gets here I'm almost too tired to eat! I think the school schedule is worse on me than the kids, ha! Summer really spoiled me with no schedule. I do have a point, promise.....so last night since I knew we had soccer I had supper ready and on the table at 5! I felt like Donna Reed! So we ate before soccer so we could whisk the kids off to bed when we got home. I like to clean as I go when I cook so I was loading the dishwasher while I was fixing supper and of course I had some help. Mary Collins climbed on the dishwasher and sat on the door to help and Margaret Ann helped from the floor.

Now these are dirty dishes mind you and MC is cleaning them by hand or mouth:

In case you couldn't tell above, yes, she is licking the silver clean:

And that was our day!

First Day of School

Today was Charlie's first day of school. I loaded up all five kids and we walked up the street to drop off our big boy. They had all the Kindergarten classes meet in the library and then they walked class by class to their rooms. There were a lot of folks up in the library. If it had been up to me I would have just let us walk them straight to their classrooms and drop them off instead of parading them and us following behind. But, you know, they didn't ask me. Anyway, Charlie said he had a great first day and likes his class and his teacher. He is always a little shy at first around people he doesn't know but he warms right up. All in all it was a great first day. Here he is parading to his class:
And here he is in his class:

Weekend Wrap-up

This is my second attempt at this post b/c the Internet hates me tonight. Anyway, this weekend was tax free shopping in Texas. I had every intent of getting our school shopping done on Friday early while some were still at work but that didn't happen. Thursday night we had some thunderstorms in our area. Now normally I sleep great through storms but storms in Texas are LOUD! The thunder woke me up and I could not go back to sleep. Good thing b/c the thunder woke Henry up too and he ended up in our bed. After spending some quality time running my fingers through his hair at 3:00 a.m. he was still interested in one thing: watching Thomas. So back to his bed we went. About 20 minutes later we got another round of storms and Henry ended back up in our bed. We both crashed and I finally managed to get a few hours of sleep on the 1/2 inch of space I had in my bed. I felt like a zombie on Friday so needless to say, I accomplished next to nothing. We did make it to Dicks to pick up the boys soccer goods for this season. Saturday Charlie had his first soccer practice. Here he is taking a water break:
B/c he did a lot of this:

and this:

This is our first soccer experience. I asked Charlie how he liked it and he said he liked it and he said he liked it but it made his legs hurt real bad. I told him he'd get used to it. William has his first practice on Tuesday so we'll see if it makes his legs hurt real bad too. That afternoon the boys and I went to Old Navy and Famous Footwear and scored some new school shoes, some jeans and some rockin superhero t-shirts for fall. Sunday after church and lunch we laid the three youngsters down for a nap and the boys and I headed to the outlet mall to finish up our tax-free shopping. Well, we might as well have been in Oxford on LSU game day trying to park an hour and a half before kickoff! I mean they had security guards directing traffic at the outlets! I have never seen so many people shopping in one place at one time. It was worse than the mall on Christmas Eve or the day before! CRAZY! Anyway, we ended up picking up a few more pair of jeans and some more tees for fall. I don't know that the whole tax free savings were totally worth it but it sure was a good excuse to shop!

Aren't we Gorgeous?

Here's a few snaps of our sweeties last week:
Miss Mary Collins:

Miss Margaret Ann:

Together Again!

This is so overdue but I'm posting it anyway. The boys took vacations to grandparents two weeks in a row. It's been just me and the girls or me and Henry and the girls and boy have we done some getting out about. Anyway, this past week the boys have had to jump back into reality and the kids have been so happy to be reunited! (that's why it's taken me over a week to post about it, ha!) Here's the McCoy family pyramid:
And I think it's safe to say I should put up a gate. Now those girls haven't even acted like they knew those stairs were there when it was just me and them. But now that the boys are back they can't get enough of them. Here's Mary Collins climbing up to her brothers.

Here she is puckering up for some sugar!

Now I have no pictures of Margaret climbing b/c quite frankly the girl is fast! She is up there in a flash! MC takes her time and talks to herself while she climbs....not MA. She's up those stairs at lightning rate speed! The good thing is they don't try to come down them. They just get close to them and scream for someone to carry them down!

An Educational Weekend

This past weekend we spent our Saturday out and about. We ate lunch at DQ, which is an educational experience in and of itself. If you don't know about DQ you should definitely get educated! Of course I'm a sucker for fast food. After some delicious lunch and ice cream we headed to Dallas. We went to the aquarium where we learned about all kinds of animals. The kids had a blast seeing all the animals and I thought it was great too. I've never been to another aquarium so I don't really know how this one compares but I give it an A+ myself. There were tons of beautiful birds but I only got a picture of the flamingos:
These are spotted stingrays and they were soooo cool. One of them got a little upset at all the little hands on his tank I think and almost jumped out! It was so cool according to the boys!

The girls liked to see all the animals as well. They started out in the stroller but decided they needed a closer view as time went on so we held them most of the time. Here they are checking out a turtle:

Henry didn't quite grasp the concept of look, no touch.....he tried to hit every tank. Poor fish....

This is the manatee.....he was my favorite!

Now the sharks were quite impressive. Their tank was in a tunnel so they swam all around and above you. Here is a sawfish:

More sharks. Of course the boys' favorites were the sharks!

Here's a hammerhead shark:

And a seahorse:

There were a lot of other animals that I didn't take pics of. But topping our list of favorites were a pair of owls, some kind of rabbit that lives in Africa, several alligators, a jaguar, and some catfish that were bigger than the boys! We had a great time learning about some animals! Then while we were downtown we headed over to the Sixth Floor Museum which is where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. You have headphones and go through the museum self-guided seeing pictures and lots of videos. I have no pictures of this b/c you can't take pics there. I could have taken pics on the grassy knoll outside where the motorcade passed by when The President was shot but I had five hungry children on my hands after the tour so I opted out. Now, I am no history buff. Ask any of my teachers. I never cared for history much in school. It was one of those subjects where I just memorized the answers for the test and that was it. I can't name all the Presidents or tell you much about any major war, what started it, who fought in it, etc, nor can I tell you much about any significant event in history. I know, I should be ashamed (I can hear my mother now). But this was sooo interesting. Clayton loves stuff like this and I have to say I'd like to go back kidless so I could get the full effect and takes pics from the grassy knoll. This is the second time I've been surprised at how great places like this are. The first time we went to San Fran we toured Alcatraz and it was by far my favorite thing we did (even topped the shopping, which was amazing!) So I would highly recommend going to the Sixth Floor Museum if you're ever in Dallas. Charlie even said he wanted to go back and wear the headphones. He opted not to and William wore some and listened. We swung by the Dallas Farmers Market after the museum and while those $8 watermelons sure looked tasty we opted for a $3 grocery store one. All in all we had a pretty educational weekend.

We're One! Birthday Fun!

I can't believe a year has passed by already! Although it hasn't flown by quiet as fast as it does when there's just one baby it has still flown by pretty fast. This year has definitely made me stronger and the Lord never ceases to amaze me with His blessings. I can't wait to watch my daughters grow into young ladies. They are such a joy! They actually turned one while we were at the McCoy family reunion so we celebrated their birthday this past weekend with both sets of grandparents. It was really low key but the kids had fun and the girls loved all their presents. We had a cupcake party! We had cupcakes from Sprinkles, yum yum!!!! We got a variety of strawberry, vanilla milk chocolate, coconut and vanilla.
We sang to Mary Collins first. Henry helped her blow out her candle:

Then we sang to Margaret Ann and Henry was wanting to help her too:

Margaret Ann modeling her birthday suit:

Mary Collins modeling her suit:

Time to eat! Margaret Ann:

Mary Collins:

Opening their presents with mom and lots of help from William:

They loved all their toys! They got balls, and shopping carts with groceries, push strollers, a doll house, a tea set, sunhats, some bedtime carebears, several bathtube toys, and a jump-o-lean. Here they are playing balls: MA:

MC:

MA having her own tea party:

And MC giving her baby some sugar while taking her for a stroll:

Jumping around:

And here they are modeling their sunhats that Kay Kay sent them. They have ladybugs on them!! Our future Phi Mu ladies: MA:

MC: