Our First Look at Bean

I have been calling this baby Bean since we found out about him/her. And today we got to have our very first look. Beans heartbeat was 185 BPS and was measuring right on track at 9 weeks & 2 days

Jordan's Special Announcement

Jordan has an announcement he would like to make by way of the following photo

Yes you read his shirt right, Jordan will be a BIG BRO come July 30, 2012!! We have known for a few weeks now and wanted to announce it to family first so I took a photo of him in this shirt and sent it around to everyone. Boys was everyone surprised!



Big Fat POSITIVES!

Family Photos from Utah

On one of our last days in Utah visiting Darin's dad & step mom we took some family photos at the local Walmart photo center and Frank just sent us some prints. Think they turned out nice.

At night at the Drag Races

We have a local drag race strip in the next town from where we live, anyone that wants to line up can race so we got to see not only race cars but normal cars race. One night Papa & Grandma asked us to come out and see them with them & cousin Aries. The boys had a blast and the noise didn't bother them at all, Jordan wanted it to be louder and cheered every time one of the cars revved it's engines. The older boys even got to sit inside one of the little dragsters.

My NEW car!

After lots of discussion Darin decided that instead of getting him a new truck he would drive the Durango and we would get me a new more dependable car, then when he gets home from this next deployment we would pay off my new car and get him one that way we would only have one car payment. We decided to look online at CarMax and find a small SUV or van that got a lot better gas millage then the Durango and would keep our monthly payments where they were with Darin's truck. The flash light company had written us a check to cover the down payment to get the payments the same and to cover our personal items lost in the fire as our settlement. So after looking online I found a nice tan trailblazer LS that had under 70,000 miles was a 2006 and was in our price range so we drove over to Garland and took a look. Neither of us were impressed when we saw it, you could tell it used to be a smokers car as the carpet was discolored and you could see a few burns. So we walked around and I saw this one, I fell in love with it instantly, we had seen it online but it looked like it was a super bright purple so it had turned us off however in real life it was really a deep dark purple almost black and we both loved it. It was $1,500 more then the first one we looked at BUT was a 2008 so 2 years newer and only had 34,000 miles! It was super super clean and had plenty of room. So we got it. This is the newest car I have ever owned. My first car was an 1980 something Jeep Cherokee, then I had a 1970 something big blue pickup truck, then Darin bought me the 99 Durango back in 2003. 

Darin's First Hog

Darin has really gotten into hunting lately and was thrilled to shoot his first hog last night. He brought it home and dressed it in the backyard, this is only his 2nd hog to dress himself. 

 

Welcome to Radiator Springs!

I had been planning Walker's party for about a month (see previous posts on decor & design for proof lol) he is a HUGE CARS fan and that is what he wanted his theme to be.

We had hot dogs & homemade cheese dip (per his request) and LOTS of goodies, there was oil dipsticks (chocolate dipped pretzel rods) a leaning tower of tires ( cake balls shaped like ties) brownies on a stick, cupcakes AND ice cream. We also had Antifreeze (lemonade) and Fillmore Organic Fuel (homemade root beer).

The kids got to play some party games, Stay away from Frank (like pin the tail on the donkey but you wanted to pin either mcqueen or mator as far away as Frank as you could, design your own license plate, and Car's bingo. After games and eating the kids spent the rest of the day swimming.

Here are some photos from the party that we had over at my mom & dad's house. 

Party Planning

After doing monkey's 1st birthday party decoration designs I decided when the time came I'd so similar things for Walker's party. Little did I know I'd end up doing SO much more. I had fun doing it though and the end result will be great.

I designed 90% of it in Paint Shop Pro 13, and a few things I got online from free craft idea websites. I then printed out everything onto cardstock and cut, taped, glued everything together.

The Bingo Game and Pin the Tail on Frank were both ideas I pulled out of my head and I am really happy how they turned out.

I got the hamburger basket template from Bakerella and added the cars graphics to it.

Darin's Truck Fire :-(

Yesterday at 6pm after being inside celebrating Walker's birthday, Darin walked outside to see the windows of his truck black with smoke. When he opened the doors he saw that the truck had burnt. We had our local fire department come out to find out what started the fire and turns out it was a $20 rechargeable hat light he had bought at Bass Pro Shop online just a few days ago (on sale for $10). While plugged into the lighter charging, it over heated and exploded. He contacted Bass Pro Shop which offered to send us another light!! He also contacted the manufacturer of the light but got a recording (which he left a message on and he will be calling back this morning). Had this explosion happened just 3 hours earlier both he & Walker would have been severely injured or worse as they were in the truck on their way home from school. And had the windows been rolled down the fire would have been MUCH worse with as dry as everything is right now and instead of smoldering out it could have very well caught the grass on fire and then our house. 
Here are some photos of the truck.