Pile O White

Old Man Winter dropped a huge bucketful of the white stuff on our tiny little town. Before the white stuff fell there was sleet and ice making for lots of slick roads and in turn LOTS of days off school. The trees and bushes were covered in ice which always makes for some beautiful scenery!

The boys were so filled with excitement that they could hardly control themselves. We have a great hill in our back yard and it proved itself sled worthy.
It's a bummer when you bite the dust and snow cakes your face though!
Grant was all smiles riding down the hill on his snow disc.
Apparently his head was a snow magnet. Every year I think I should buy the kids some real snow gear but then they just grow and I know it's not going to fit year after year so I don't want to waste the money. Therefore, I dress them in 15 layers in hopes that they don't freeze. I'll buy them snow gear when they're 25 and not growing.....but by that time they better have a job and use their own money.
What's good snow without your friends? We invited our buds over and had a side splitting time! Cade A. was riding the hill after a push from Bobby.
Cavin in on the action:

The Cades gave doubling up a shot.
And Rhett double up with his bud Silas. I'm not sure, but it appears to me that the driver of this sled has zero control!
WOAH!
It's always a fun time to laugh at someone else's misfortune, and Cade A. gave us a lot to laugh about with his face plant.
I love me a good action shot!
This kid didn't seem to mind that his face was imprinted in our snowy back yard.
Bobby headed down the hill with his best gal, Eliza. Now, Eliza loves her some Mr. Bobby but it's apparent in this picture that one of them is having fun and the other is NOT. It's a wonder she ever trusted him again after this zip down the hill.
Callan was ready for some snow time fun!
Snow is not only for kids. Adults like it, too you know. I tried my hand at the disk.
I was flying down that hill and it seemed as though any second I was going to end up in the creek (just like Baylor, who somehow avoided my camera viewfinder the entire day!).
It was time to bail!
A'lyce tried to be all cool and defeat the disk
but she ended up biting it just like the rest of us!
Jason looks all smooth....
but he's not.
Ashley got brave
but the disk defeated her, too.
Brent showed up with his 4-wheeler. I know that the boys were not the only ones jumping up and down when the snowbird called off school. Bobby and Brent were planning out all kinds of craziness right along with them.

Like pulling the sled behind the 4-wheeler in the back field. The boys LOVED this!
There was fun to be had in the front as well. Our street was a solid sheet of ice. It made for some great sledding at top speeds. I really think that Rhett and Bobby both should've had helmets on but thankfully the Lord protected us from head injury.

Brent chauffeured us back to the top of the hill afterwards. That was great.
I decided to give the ice sledding a whirl. It was lots of fun and I figured that puff ball on the top of my hat would protect my head somewhat.
Cade and A'lyce:
Thank goodness we had a toasty warm house to come in to.
Hot chocolate, a warm fire, and chocolate chip cookies put a smile on everyone's face!
Here's to a good snow. Now, go away so all these kids can go back to school. A mom can only take so much!

It's More Than Skin Deep

Most folks know that my firstborn is a spitting image of his father. I've yet to find a physical gene that has come from my string of dna. I assure you that I'm the one that carried him for over 9 months but somehow he managed to escape my body without a speckle of Baker blood in him.

Just like his father, Cade is a saver of all things money. Give him a five dollar bill, he runs upstairs and immediately places it in his velcro spiderman wallet. It's now busting at the seams. 

I remember vividly the blue ocean pacific wallet that stayed in Bobby's top drawer all through highschool (as well as previous years before I was around) that housed all the money that would eventually buy me an engagement ring.

Cade, and Bobby both, can be caught at any given moment manning the remote control. Cade wakes up, walks downstairs, and asks permission (thank goodness) to turn on the tube. He'll spend his entire 20 minutes or so of t.v. time flipping through the kid channels I have programed in. 

And, ohhh, the calculating. Ask anyone that Bobby works with and they'll tell you that he can be found calculating numbers at any given moment during the day. Bobby has an uncanny talent of being able to figure numbers in his head.....like how much my grocery cart is going to cost before I get to checkout for one example. Cade found this calculator of mine and I've found him numerous times sitting alone just adding and subtracting numbers. He can also do larger math in his head than me. But, seriously, that's not saying much. I'm not the smoothest mathematician there ever was. 
Now, just to keep things clear, Cade DID get his love of reading from me. I don't know if I've seen Bobby read a book for fun in our entire 16ish years together. I would not, however, choose a book on George Washington and the war. Bobby would. I think he actually listened and retained things in history class. Cade loves all things wars, battles, generals.....once again, just like his daddy.

To top it all off, while getting his hair cut and watching CNBC at Mr. Danny's (our trusty hair-cuttin' man), I overheard Cade say, "Boy, we sure have a lot of down stocks today". What?? What 7 year old knows or cares anything about "down stocks"?? Only a boy with a financial advising baby daddy.

I'm just thanking the Lord that my boy has a mighty fine example to follow!

The Answer to the Age Old Question:

"Cade, where are your glasses?"

Let me just fill you in on just a few of the places the glasses can be found. You can rest assured that when you start your search they are most definitely NOT on his dresser, the designated safe spot. 

Maybe they're here. Safely nestled in the shag carpeting. 

Or one of the more obvious places:  sitting right in front of the bottle of scope. One would surely think to look there.

This is actually a good spot but not the designated one: On the mantle by the lingering Christmas berries.
There are some places you think just might pop up on the glasses finding radar. This is not one that ever registered to me. The ONLY reason I found them was because I was making mac and cheese for dinner:
One low traffic area where glasses are likely not to get broken:  directly in front of the hearth, just beside your Battleship game. Of course! Why didn't I think to look there??
It's always acceptable to place them face down on the couch (where no one is bound to sit on them)  in a pile of crumbs from your afternoon snack. Good idea. Great idea.
Ahh, and the LEAST obvious place to find the glasses: 
On the face of the child that is suppose to be wearing them. This my friends, is why, in the first year of glasses-wearing we went through THREE pair. Yes, three. We are over a year with this pair and going strong.......undoubtedly but for the grace of God.

Let's Take a Peek Back

I thought I'd add some "peeking" pictures as a nice touch to my Peek Back at 2009 post. How cute is it to see kiddos peeking out of the bathtub?!

I have nothing to complain about when reminiscing over the past year. It brought many great memories. 

Grant started kindergarten and has loved it. I think he may actually be in love with his teacher. She overheard him saying to a friend, "you know, it's okay for Ms. Cole to kiss us if she wants to", which prompted her to call me and clarify that she did not tell him that and there had been no inappropriate behavior on her part.......which just made me laugh. 

Cade has rocked the first semester of second grade and has lost most of the teeth in his mouth. 

Rhett finally adjusted to it being "just me and you, kid" every day of the week. He's even embraced it I think and admitted just the other day that he actually likes running errands with me! 

I had one of my personal dreams come true by seeing Brad Paisley and Keith Urban play the guitar simultaneously. Woot, Woot!

Jacko passed this year.... along with my personal childhood favorite heartthrob: Patrick Swayze. 

Kanye blew it again this year. 

There was the baby bird debacle of 2009. 

And one more debacle that barely made it into this post: Tiger Woods. Ouch. What a disappointment.

Another cute picture:

So now I'm looking forward to what 2010 (by the way, are you saying "two thousand and ten" or "twenty-ten"?) has in store for the Morgan Clan. Some things I'm anticipating greatly are the new season of American Idol, our mission trip to El Salvador,  and finally getting an invitation to the playgroup with Nicole Kidman, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Mrs. Dierks Bentley. And, I know I said it last year, but I'm serious this time: 2010 is going to bring some awesome news regarding our adoption. I'm sure of it. If not, you can rest assured that 2010 will be the year I finally lose my marbles and go postal :) 

Happy New Year to all of my faithful blog readers. I hope all eight of you have a great start to twenty-ten! 

The Joy of Christmas Morn

Much to my surprise the boys didn't get up at 5am as I had anticipated. I heard the first footsteps running upstairs at 6:30 which is pretty much our normal wake time. Bobby and I quickly got out of bed and headed up to Cade's room. It was the designated meeting spot to do our annual reading of the birth of Jesus and our early morning raspy singing of Happy Birthday.


After that, the indians headed down the stairs to check out their loot




Rhett was surprised to find exactly what he had asked for: a Nintendo DS. Neither Grant nor Cade thought for a second that would be their Santa gifts. Our household Elf, Elfie, must have passed the word to Santa that they would love to have one.
Since the opening of the stockings this is pretty much where you can find the children. On the couch. Non-communicative. Brains slowly turning to mush.
There were a couple other presents under the tree to be opened.
A Star Wars DS game was a major hit!
Rhett was beside himself when he opened up the Imaginext Spaceship he'd been eyeing for months.
I got each of the boys a really soft blanket. One in red, one blue, and one white and to my surprise they each were genuinely excited about it! I thought it'd be like the "oh, great. I got socks from mom" kind of fake excitement. What a pleasant surprise!

Grant has been lugging around his little Webkins pair that Santa put in his stocking. He named them "Black Bear" and "Little Bear" because they are both such unique and individualized names. Original. Their last presents were remote control cars. Being that no one has touched them since opening them on Christmas Day, Bobby and I quietly placed them in a bag with their receipt and took two of them back. Can you believe that no one has even MENTIONED them??? If it weren't for the fact that our resident bull-in-a-china-shop (Rhett) snapped the antenna off of the remote for the other car, we'd have taken it back as well.


As for now, we'll just be stuck with a useless remote-control car, some soft blankets to love on, and three kids who've forgotten how to speak and read and will soon have carpal tunnel of the thumbs. Can school please start back?