More Drumstick magic

David, with Jeff and Emily...Jeff finished in 27 min. and Emily finished 10 min later...she really isn't picking her nose...

The 6' turkey that the fast people got to chase...
we haven't even gone a mile yet??? whoa nelly
E. walking over the "rainbow" bridge
This lady actually had a turkey on her head....you go girl
Yeah, it took us 1 hr. 22 min. to finish...it was cold too!

Ok, well here are a few more pix. I was wrong on the amount of people that signed up for this race...it was 5,000. We finished at the tail end...bringin' up the rear! you can check it out at www.tuxbro.com. You can look up our times if ya want...Will and David finished in 45 minutes...he was not that thrilled with his 10 minute miles. I am more than thrilled with our 17 min. mile pace. so there. ha.

It was awesome. I hope to get better at these things. My family enjoys these so I guess I'd better just work at it. I'm feeling it tonight. Are you, Beck??? I'm heading to beddy bye now. No early morning shopping for this ol' cat. David and the two big boys are heading to Illinois to do some work at his childhood church tomorrow as well as a quick visit out to his family. I will post the other T-Day pics on Friday. Good night and God Bless you this day! Psalm 7:17 - I will give thanks to the LORD because of His righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.

I Chronicles 16: 8-9 - Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people. Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him, talk ye of all His wondrous works.

Hope you had something to be thankful to the Lord for today. I know I do!

The Drumstick Dash!!

Elvis was in attendance...this guy actually ran in this get-up My loving hubby of 14 years!! wow. either he left his eyes at home or he was still sleeping.
Beck and her fellow racers!! check out that shirt design
E. is wearing last year's design...Mel, this year's.

See the starting line...white banner?? we were far back!
Not too far into it, there was a Starbucks...bummer, and we couldn't stop!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Hope your day was spent eating good food and enjoying the blessings of being around those you love and enjoy! I know I did...it was a fast-paced yet fun day!! I will have to do two posts to accomodate all of my Dash pix...

It was quite cold today...there were over 4,000 people at the race, which benefits a local homeless shelter...David, Will and Mel ran ahead of us. Beck, E. and I went with the walkers, though we did try our hands at "jogging" and found that it would be nearly impossible, since Beck had to use the bathroom on the entire jaunt and we are both nursing mothers. Makes for some painful running. (Aren't you glad to know THAT???) I think the 3 of us made the 4.5 walk in less than an hour and 20 minutes...we had a few setbacks, we had to wait also while the cops let some traffic go...soooooooooo, I wasn't going for any awards...I went for the shirt. I will have to take a pic of the kids in theirs! They are pretty nifty and you might be able to see them in the above pix.


All in all, it was a blast, glad to be able to be with my sissy and my son (and the rest of those crazy "runners" in my family)...it was incredible!! I am not sure how much of our entry fee actually goes to the Wheeler Mission but it has to be pretty amazing! When we got done (finally) we devoured what was left of the offered snacks...bagels, Starbucks hot choco and coffee, bananas, energy bars...and I'm sure there was other stuff but when you get there after the runners, you take what you can get and boy were those bagels good. gimmmmmeee the carbs.


I will post some more of the pix...This blogger will only let me post 5 @ a time. be back....then after that, I hope to post a few of the rather odd pics we took of our Family Thanksgiving...it was a nice, relaxing day, and I didn't even get to take a nap. das ok.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve...

look @ the busy bees...

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, folks!!

We are spending a quiet day at home, prepping for tomorrow...not that I do an all out Martha Stewart Holiday but I am making my dessert today, making my bread, putting up the tree...walking on the treadmill to prep for the big dash tomorrow. yikes. nervous.

These pix of Molly were taken because I looooooooove this new little dress she got! She won't be able to wear it for very long though (I think) because she is NOT a small girl, like her dainty cuz Nora. and that's ok, Molly, we love you all the same!! There's just something about different colored pink stripes...love it. She is still cuter in person, I believe. Levi of course wanted to get in on a few pix. Then I felt bad that I hadn't taken any pix of my older kids...so they are on here too!

Ok, well, off to break in my new kicks...hope you all are having a lovely day before Thanksgiving. Check back tomorrow afternoon/evening, for the exciting Drumstick pix. I know you can hardly wait.

Good night! Love, peace, and blessings to you!

Sweet dreams, new chairs, new kicks and past Thanksgiving memories from 2004!

sweet little angel!
our new chair...
My new kix
Piper's First Thanksgiving
2004 - o how times have changed...
Hello there...sorry about the day off (Beck)! Computer went all fritzy last night so I didn't get to blog.
I will keep this short. Don't ya just love sleeping babies? Molly is an especially sweet one...she'll get that head rubbing back and forth and so you can see why she would have such a nice little bald spot on the back of her skull...all of my kids have had one...no, I don't leave them lying around on their backs all day. We got a new chair for our living room today. I think I'm on the up and up of changing my tastes...this chair matches really nothing at our place but I will change my stuff piece by piece. It has an ottoman that goes with it but we will get it later...
Do you like my new running/walking shoes? got 'em at DSW today and had to have 'em. They are so unique...coral and brownish...with this neat material. can't quite describe it. so I won't.
last two pix are obviously old. i put 'em on here for you B, well the Pipes one anyway. She was so tiny and innocent at one point!! now she's a little tow-headed priss! Our family pic is mainly to remind me of the upcoming joy...taking the annual fam card pic. can't wait! just can't wait. we will have a new little person to keep entertained in it this year. get your clicking finger ready, Beck!
Ok, well hope this finds you all well, healthy and preparing for a joyous and grateful Thanksgiving! I will be back that day or so...gotta post Drumstick Dash pix...chow folks.

more reasons to hide your camera from your kids...

Driving to see the Robbins' last Wed...thanks Will
Piper spent the night Fri. night...
yet another reason to hide the cam...
Molly stylin' in her borrowed exersaucer...
yah, another reason....we need more pix
of Levi's mouth close-up.
Well, here we are, another week. Weren't we just in last week? I was looking for pix to post on here so my sister would have something to see on Monday morning...the kids' strike again. I got a few pix in though, ones that make sense anyway. maybe.
The top pic was taken by Will. We drove down to friends' house in southern IN last Wed. #2 is Uncle "Davey" with Levi and Pipes...that girl is wild and crazy, I tell ya! I meant to get some pix of her and Levi all dressed and ready to "get married"...and she informed him that when they WERE married, that they would be able "to kiss". ha ha. she is too cute and too dramatic for her own cutie patootie good.
#3 is another kid gift...Levi is wearing his pj's on his head. he is such a goober. such a show off. totally into telling me that he doesn't like "this or that".
#4: Molly is using my lovely friend, Donna's, exersaucer (thank you Donna, you are pretty AND helpful)...which I thought she may be too young for, but she actually does quite well in it and it's nice for her to have a place to sit and observe the coming's and going's of our household. she is even starting to grab for toys quite nicely. soon enough, she will be into EVERYTHING. and I'm just not that ready for that phase. She is really just too dang cuddly and adorable though.
#5 self-explanatory...see #3.
Otherwise, this weekend held many enjoyable times. David and I went out on a date Friday night...yes, a date...be that as it may....I got to leave Molly and her siblings for 5 hours...David's a part of the Bricklayer's union and they had their annual holiday dinner. good food, weird fellowship, we only knew the one couple at our table because he's the dude that did our brick work in the early fall. then we went to the new Barnes and Noble bookstore for a while, got some coffee and shared a piece of devilishly rich double choco cheesecake. Looked at some books and then it closed so we drove for a bit and went home. We hope to be able to go out on a REAL (non-bricklayers related) date soon...k Mom? are you up to it? (she is my only babysitter...no one else likes us or does it for free...sigh). Yesterday was cleaning, raking, mowing, Tom came and spent some quality time with Levi(you are an awesome uncle, Tom, thanks for being with Levi). David and the 2 big boys worked. I love the satisfaction you get when you mow your leaves and you can see your yard again. Mel, Levi, Molly and I went to our family Bible study last night, which was on thankfulness and how we should be thankful to the Lord every day, not just one day or one week per year. I needed to hear that. In light of all that is happening around us, I'm thankful that the Lord blessed me with good family and an incredible husband. He is not afraid to stand in the gap for me or anyone else around him. You rock, Davey boy. My kids are pretty dang cool too! I am one blessed momma/sister/daughter/friend.
Well, I think I could ramble on and on so I will put myself out of your misery. Happy Monday. At least you only have to work 4 days this week, Beck. Isn't that cool?? we should go shopping at midnight Thursday...or all day friday...doesn't that sound FUUUUUUUUUUUUN? no. good night y'all.

some more Beck and Laur and then I'm done...

Yikes...I guess I wanted in on the self portrait action
see condensed explanation below....check out the daggers.
My senior pic...yikes...but I wanted my "thissy"
isn't my kid sister pretty?? she always upstages me
and I'm ok with that.
Ok, well, I am done with the blogging for the night, but had these 3 pix to get on here for Becky's workday Friday. The top one cracks me up. Self portrait sillies. she was rubbing off on me, I guess.
The middle pic is just funny. This was the night before Beck's wedding...it was a stressful time, to say the least. It was a cold, rainy night and Beck insisted that I go to mom and dad's to work on bouquets for the next day...I wanted to but the kids needed me and it was just sheer crazy...I think I make this expression more than I think or more than I should. it's not nice.
Ok, Beck, I'm done humiliating you now. I will try to think of some creative posts for next week. If anyone has any good ideas, drop me a note dlforeveryoung@aol.com.

Here I am...where are YOU?

Well, hey there, folks!! I'm not sure what the method to this madness is, quite actually...but Becky, being the victim of the past few posts, asked that I put a few photos of myself on here. Quite honestly, there are just not that many of me over the years. I have gone thru some pretty funky stages in my life...downright frumpy ones especially. And while I'm not that much better now, I do have moments and glimmers of put-togetheredness. I went thru the "jumper" phase, ya know those awful dresses with shirts underneath, plaid or embroidered, quilted, blech..I had lots of those. I went thru the cut off sweat phase, where I would just change up the t-shirt that i wore with my "fancies" (as B. and I called them). This top pic is more recently. Mel took it in the summer of 2006. crazy, crazy. The second pic is from 1993, when David and I were very newly married and the hardness of life hadn't set in yet. We were so young and naive then. #3 is from my 21st birthday, less than a month after my wedding...I can't get over how young I look. Check out our little basement apartment, we didn't even have a ceiling, it was just the floor above...I'm bumming myself out tonight. I was on the cusp of life, those 5 kids were just waiting to spring forth from my womb. And look how old I am now(almost 35, ack)...#4 is at one of my wedding dress fittings. I wish I felt as honored back then as I do now, to have worn G'ma's dress, to have my sis and mom with me pretty much all the time. Young and stupid! O to be young again. kinda. not really.
All of this to say, Life is Beautiful. You have a choice to make it wonderful or to make it awful. Some people in my life are making bad choices. At the expense of others. Life is a gift...Choose JOY!! CHOOSE JOY! joy doesn't mean you will always be "happy" or "in love, gushy, happy, warm"...it means you have made a commitment. Refiner's fire. you come out more beautiful in the end.
Ok, well, chew on that. I could so totally go on here but I'm getting all verklempt. I'm so thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ for the trials AND joys He has brought me (and my family of 7) through. Praise the Lord for faithfulness, His and ours. Praise the Lord for His mercy, for it endures forever. Good night.

self portrait QUEEN...

If you happen to leave your camera lying around, this is what you may end up with. Back in the old days of film development, I would get a roll back and go thru them, to find yet another picture that Becky took of herself. It always makes me laff. in this bottom one, she is teaching her oldest nephew, Will, the fine art of self portraiting. he and E. have picked it up quite nicely, and will bless me with a nice shot of their nostrils or teeth, or other strange things from around the house, which I usually delete before I even upload them onto my computer. dorks. Beck, this is in honor of your free spirit. you always make me laugh. i'm so glad to have someone to make me laugh. besides my kids. and the people on Maury Povich. not that I watch that but those paternity tests have got to be getting old.
Ok, I'm distracted tonight. need some prayer on this end...won't get preachy now but prayer is good. in the good times and the bad. Bless the Lord, o my soul. I have one more picture to post...but I may just go to bed and do it tomorrow. good night y'all! love and peace, joy, happiness to you.

A very Becky post

Put some pants on, make your bed, clean up that messy floor...sheesh.
cute, too cute. gotta love those perms.
nice. at least her cheeks can see now....dang.
If you saw the post right before this one, you will think Beck wanted in on the dress trying on action...well...this pic is from 1994 actually (as if you couldn't tell that by her extremely large specs)...I just thought it was funny, as I was diggin' thru pix to find some that would embarrass my sister when she got to work Thurs. that I found this, on the very same night that Mel had a dress up session in the same dress. huh. need to get out more apparently.
The top pic is one of my faves of my kid sis...we had to share a room...she was the lucky one, because I would keep it clean most of the time but she was a sloooooooooooob!! and you can see it in this photo. Plus, something about her always made me nervous when we were kids and I finally figured it out when I had flashbacks of it with my kids...and that is, she was always just a-walking around in her undies and a shirt...Levi does that a lot nowadays, and I swear I get sweaty and reminded of the days when I was raising my little sister...in those little terry cloth training pants...mom says I potty trained B. funny huh? still struggling with my own offspring but I got her under control. here's to you, sloppy, underpant wearing pesky kid sister. for what it's worth, I love ya. I stand firm in the fact that I would be lost without YOU! I have soooooooo many pix that I need to post on here. over time.
The middle pic is one of my faves of the four of us...as you can see, B. and I had on some nice sweaters with our names on it. Mind you, my mom didn't buy them, because there was no way she could pass my sweater down to Beck. They were usually gifts from my dad's side of the family...nice LL Bean sweaters no doubt.
Ok, I'm off to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow (well, actually today), driving to our friends house for some fellowship and speech class for the kids. Hangin' with my BFF's.

Wedding Dress Fun

Somewhere in the archives of my life, there are pix that my cousin Dawn took of me in my Gma Taylor's wedding dress when we were quite young. I always loved it, sneaking up to her attic and trying it on. I was so honored to have it revamped to wear in my own wedding, which subsequently, is two weeks from today (Nov. 27, 1993) So, here's to FOURTEEN years of wedded bliss...Mel wanted to try the dress on tonight so I took it all out and buttoned up the entire back, don't know how many buttons there were but there were a lot. It just brought back a lot of memories for me and I got all weepy-ish. When I wore Christine Taylor's wedding dress 14 years ago, it was 52 years old then. so man, it's 66 years old now (yes, I'm a mathmetician...har har)...I will try to find those pix of me as a youngster in the dress. Another neat side note, I was the only granddaughter of her's that she lived to see get married. Not that her other g-daughters didn't marry, she just didn't wait around to see it. Mel had the dress on for a long time and you could tell she felt special in my tack-a-licious veil and dress. sweet girl. she is growing up right before my eyes. ok, now to post some funny Becky pix so she has something to laff at when she gets to work in the morning...tally ho.

Bumbo Babies

the view from above...
our beautiful Bumbo babies
tiny girl in a big green chair!! she did really well!!
a nice view of Molly's bald spot...nice. the girls' first "convo"
Molly's already trying to get Nora into trouble

Nora and Molly enjoyed their first "meeting"...when Nora first noticed Molly sitting across from her, a tiny little grin snuck out and it was just a priceless moment. The first of many! Considering their age difference (7 weeks to be exact)...Nora did really well holding up her little peanut head. She is so long and thin, and Molly is....not. is that not evident in these adorable photos? Molly was a little crabbalicious tonight so she didn't dig her seat for too long. Nora just sat there and took it all in. She cracks me up! I need to get a pic of her perfectly round little head.

Nora is as laid back as Molly is a spaz. and she really is...they are so like their fathers, not just in their looks. It's funny to me every darn day. I know, get a life, move on. nope, I dwell. and since this is MY blog, I can do that. huh.

Beck, it was nice to hang witya tonight (and your dramatic 3-year old and non-chalant 2 mo. old) pancakes, bumbo's and good fellowship. doesn't get any better. I am so glad our daughters will have each other growing up, with Mel watching over the whole mess! :) Hope your Tu-Tu Tuesday is a nice 'n. We will choose joy.

Well, I'm off to work on some Christmas scrap gifts...so if anyone has anything to say...have at it. Love and peace to you! chow

The Bumbo's are HERE!!

I can reach my feet finally!! yah!
so big!!
still lookin' every bit like her daddy!!
The much-anticipated Bumbo seats arrived here not even 30 minutes ago...I would have been on here sooner but Molly needed to eat so I had to wait. She seems to like the upright status!! I think these seats will be so good for Molly and Nora. They are coming down in a bit and we will have a photo op and I'll post them as soon as I can dig myself out of my Monday mess!! Ok, enjoy Miss Molly in her big girl seat.