William's First Day

William started school this week. He is doing a TK program this year at Stonebridge United Methodist Church. He exclaimed after the first day, "It's the best school ever!" He is loving school! And his toe is doing much better as he is able to wear tennis shoes. He also went to soccer this week and was able to kick the ball and his toe didn't hurt him, yeah! Here he is on his first day of school:
And this was our Labor Day in which we did a lot of hanging out at home. Here are the kids sitting in front of some grass across the street from our house:

Belle the Great

Yesterday Clayton had an office day so he worked from home. The girls had a ball typing on Daddy's computer at the end of the day: And here's what I did that was productive:

This is the 8th member of our family, Belle. She's my baby girl and y'all she smelled so bad I was getting embarrassed to call her my own. And if you know me you know she must have been way beyond needing a bath. When we first got Belle we only had 2 children. I bathed her faithfully once a week and sometimes more than once a week if she got in the pond or something. Then we had Henry. It got harder for me to bathe her once a week and sometimes she would almost go two weeks without a bath. But for the most part I kept up with it pretty good. I mean she never got real smelly. Then we had the twins. And let's just say the last time she got bathed before yesterday was when she got groomed and I can't even count how many weeks ago that's been b/c it's getting time for another groom........ That's kinda scary b/c I go a long time between haircuts for her. Oh well, she smells nice and clean now and she's real soft too b/c I used conditioner on her this time too! This was taken a few weeks back but here's me and my girl:

On another note my big sis Melanie came to Dallas for work this week and came and spent
the night with us Sunday night. We shopped the outlets Sunday afternoon and had a blast. It was such a good visit. Thanks for coming Melanie! By the way, only four days until college football! Is anyone else excited? Roll Tide Roll! And Hotty Toddy! By the way, I cannot believe Ole Miss is ranked in the top 10, over Alabama! That is some crazy stuff right there! I guess that's what happens when you lose your entire offensive line, huh?

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!