It's the Final Countdown...

You KNOW you are totally singing it now or at least humming it.

It's the end of the "year" again.

Friday is the crew's last day of school!!!!

Then it's three months of "It's boring", "I'm bored", "There's nothing to do!"...

I'm so not looking forward to hearing all of that.

BUT, it does mean we are leaving for Oregon soon (YAY!!!!!!)...

The crew will now be in the 3rd, 2nd and 1st grades.

My lil train of ducklings all truckin' through school in a nice neat orderly row...

This will be our first complete Texas summer since we moved here in August last summer.

It's already so humid and hot... ugh... our Oregon family and friends have been enduring all the colder temps and rain ~~~ I'd gladly take all of that right about now.

Fan-C woke up this morning and after reminding her that she will NOT be wearing jeans to school since it is already over 80 degrees at 7am... stomps away from me and says... "I'm sick of all this HEAT!" Amen girlie girl... AMEN!

Where is SHE????

This is my sweet Miss Fan-C.

She is five years old in this pic...

now she is eight ~ going on sixteen.

Right now she would be rolling her eyes and saying,

"Whatever..."

completely full of attitude and angst.

(sigh)

What happened to my sweet wee girlie?
I have this hormonal lil wannabe adult running around my house bursting into tears because one of her siblings has touched her, touched her "stuff", looked at her funny or just breathes too close to her.
Seriously, I know she is my mini-me...
how the heck did my mother survive?
Most of her conversations begin with the word:
"Actually..."
I am really starting to dislike that word so very very much.
On we go... I know, I know...
it's only just begun.

But this is horrible timing with me going off my Rt. 44 coke with limes from Sonic... no "sweet nectar" to take away the pounding headache every night.
(((over three months off caffeine ~ go me!)))

Honey I love ya, but give me that countryside!!!!

This is Fan-C with three of her cousins at the farm.

They were helping to clear out this area for our garden.

We have another area (just as big) on the opposite side...

Our garden is HUGE.

(and growing tons now)

This is where we live every Saturday.

Gardening, building, clearing land, and heardin' cows...

Farm livin' is the life for me!

Sorry 'bout the 'followers'...

Please NOTE: Spammer freaks were infiltrating my blog "followers" section. I had to delete it.

I hope y'all will / are still checking out my blog.

I'm gonna post soon... promise.

Have a great day!!!

It's GREAT to be EIGHT (even if this is late)

November 6, 2010

Fan-C was baptised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Her white dress and pretty braided hair.

(hair done by her Ship-Grandma)

She was baptised by her Daddy... Congratulations Fan-C!

We are so happy with your decision...

All Aboard ~~~~ (finally!)

Okay, so I finally got over to Costco and downloaded my camera. Yes, this is March and yes, these pictures were taken at the beginning of December... BUT, I haven't had an hour to hang around and shop while they make my CD of pics until today.

Soooooooo, the ducklings were given an amazing gift of a trip on the Polar Express for Christmas from their Ship-Grandparents. No, they don't live on a ship.... BUT you do have to ride a ferry to get out to the island that they live on in the Seattle area... so when the ducklings were small, they started referring to them as 'Ship-Hoppa' and 'Ship-Gramma'.

So here is a sampling of our adventure...

We are the FIRST in line ~ Ta Da!!!!
Fan-C ~ excited to be on the train...

Tiny-T hanging out the window... (so is my arm)

The Tank actually got out the window first... he was excited to be on a train.

The conductor collecting tickets...

HERE COMES SANTA!!!!!

We were in the very back of the train car and the whole train...

so Santa took time and gave each of my crew a HUG!

Yes, we parents were there too...

Thank you for a great ride and a fabulous present Ship-Grandparents!

I swear by it...

Hey y'all!

Greetings from the big big lone star state.

I have been M.I.A. ~ wow, a long time.

I'm here to share some AmAzInG

news about Tiny-T

and to share with you a DVD that I SWEAR by...

If you have a child (under 7), you MUST get this dvd.

It is amazing!

Our Miss Fan-C loved this dvd and had the entire thing memorized in a few days. It helps to build a foundation to facilitate reading. Once Fan-C had her letter identification and letter sounds down... she took off running with reading. She was my quick learner. So she was reading before she ever started school.

Mr. Tank ~ he never really stopped long enough (the dvd is only 30 minutes long) to watch it but he LOVES to watch it now. He is my sent-from-another-planet-amazing reader.

Now on to my lil Tiny-T. This little miss was just NOT retaining anything she was learning at school. She kept getting assessments done every six weeks and she didn't even rank on their charts due to her low scores. We worked with her at home and she was working with an aide at school as well, but her scores were just not budging. I went on a hunt to find my dvd of Letter Factory and with all the moving... it was given away/lost/left... who knows! So I went and got another copy (Target $9.99 plus tax) and started playing it every weekday while she was waiting for her turn to do homework. This girl LOVES LOVES LOVES music (like her momma) and she just started absorbing these songs like a sponge. I just got home from another assessment findings meeting at her school and her scores have SOARED! She went from no ranking to being at the top of the class in a couple areas now. She still needs extra help in two areas but she went from bottom of all ten areas to now only lagging in two areas. She isn't too far behind in the two she needs extra help with either. I went to this meeting all prepared to hear that they would be holding her back (they warned of that during the last meeting) to yelling "yippeeeeeeee" and running out to the truck to call Mr. Lancings and deliver the great news! We are celebrating tonight...

This DVD is awesome!

Buy it today!

Give it as a gift to your grandchildren.

Give it as a toddler's birthday gift...

Spread the word.

Leapfrog's Letter Factory

100% worth owning.

The OFFICIAL Flock The Village Video

WE LOVE OUR DUCKS!!!!!
BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
JANUARY 10TH
GET YOUR O's UP!!!!!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DUCKS!

http://www.flockthevillage.com/

Go to this link to watch the video...

Polar Express....

The Zoo Crew's Ship-grampa and Ship-gramma hooked them up with some tickets for the Polar Express!

Merry Christmas indeed.

The kids LOVED it!

Our girls were wearing matching pink jammies and the Tank donned his Star Wars jammies and off we went for the North Pole. They made it on the stage to perform with the elves and were each featured on different songs on the mic. Singing for the whole crowd to hear. I was beaming... LOVED it.

The train was decorated gorgeously and Santa was the real deal. He was awesome.

The crew's favorite part? ALL OF IT! <---- per them.

Thank you for the wonderful present ~~~~

.

.

.

Oh, where are the pics?

All the cute shots of the kiddos in jammies and on stage and singing and riding on the train and hugging Santa????????

Ummmm, oh yeah.

They are stuck in my camera!

My camera and computer are still estranged and will not make up and cooperate. Soooooooo, take my word for it ~ very cute and fabulous.

.

Merry Christmas!

.

P.S. Ship-grandparents I'll get to Costco and send you some pics. :o)

Houston, We Have a Problem...

I'm sitting in church yesterday listening with Tiny-T quietly drawing on her doodle pad and then I hear... "Momma!" I look down and she says.... "Momma I want a baby." I don't miss a beat... "Maybe Santa will bring you one." She didn't miss one either, "No! I want a baby brother!" I look into her beautiful blue eyes and say, "Houston, we have a problem!" Lance heard our exchange and starts laughing. He then looks at me and says, "Maybe..." Ummmmmmm, hello!!!!!??????!!!!! Am I the only person here that understands that the likelihood of this happening is almost at zero percent? I don't have equipment (Freedom day anniversary December 28th) and we aren't listed with any state or agency for adoption. The Tank used to ask for a baby when he was younger... we were still getting babies at that point... but no boys. Tiny-T had never asked for this before... *sigh* Sorry Tiny... Santa won't be delivering THAT this year.

Texas + Pumpkins = meh...

This is our loot. Well, most of it. We also got two more pumpkins while we were heading out to pay for our pile. One was my awesome Cinderella Fairytale pumpkin that is gracing my table as our harvest centerpiece. But any who.... We paid a LOAD of money for pumpkins here in big ole Texas. Each of the ducklings chose one to carve and I chose two to bake and one to display. Mr. Lancings also chose one to carve...

So I get into my baking mode... gotta make my "liquid gold". I love love love LOVE pumpkin pulp. Only way to bake pumpkin pie... real pumpkin pie. Sheesh, sidetracked again... back to baking mode... I open up the pumpkins. My two perfectly round awesome bakers... ummmm....

One: half of the pumpkin was rotten. Like moldy slimy rotten. *sigh* I still baked down the good half.
Two: full of VINES! VINES!!!! It was growing baby pumpkins inside. It was a pregnant momma pumpkin... but that meant = NO PULP! Figures, even my pumpkins can give birth... kinda funny for this barren woman.

Soooooo..... I grab Mr. Lancings carving pumpkin that he never did get around to carving and cross my fingers and BAMMO... I hit the mother-load. Thick meaty pumpkin... I'm so grateful he never got around to carving that beauty.

My freezer shelves are now lined with bags of liquid gold beauty. It truly is a beautiful thing. Not impressed with the quality of Texas pumpkins but I'm not gonna complain too much... at least I get to still have fresh REAL pumpkin pie.

Oregon fam... cherish the pumpkins ya'll have... the rain makes them meaty and yummy.

November...

National Adoption Month...

So thankful that these three miracles came to us through adoption.

Just Like Gramma....

This post is dedicated to Grandma Lillie...

We LOVE you!!!

My Tiny-T HATES to get her hands dirty.

While gutting / carving pumpkins for FHE, she refused to stick her hand in the pumpkin.

She preferred to hold the garbage bag while her sister and daddy cleaned out her little pumpkin.

Notice her hand is hovering... perfectly pumpkin-gut-free...

This is her little garbage bag... she loved that job until someone didn't get all the guts inside and then the outside was GROSS ~ the official bag holder quit. I'm running around taking pictures and Fan-C threw a HUGE clump of pumpkin guts into the bag and well... she sorta missed. Tiny-T freaked out and this is her waiting at the door for wipes to be brought... I was laughing so hard...
We love you Tiny-T.

Lovin' His Tie

This is the Tank.

He LOVES this tie.

The tie has a name.

It's name is the "President Monson" tie.

Tank told me that every conference the prophet wears a red tie.

When the Tank saw this tie, not only did he want it... he named it.

This is one of the moments when it is fun to be his momma....

Just a nibble ~~~~

The portrait shoot went so well. Beautiful weather, great temps (in the morning) and we only got attacked twice by fire ants and spiders. (YIKES!)

Here is a sampling... Enjoy!

Not posting anymore since I don't wanna show our Christmas card pic just yet.

It's that time of year... AGAIN!

AWKWARD!!!!!

Family picture time!

Yeah, this is just lovely... :o)

I have found a local photographer in our area and we are meeting her at a local park to take our annual torture ummmm, I mean family picture.

We are all wearing white tops with dark pants.

Seems easy enough right?!?

Wrong!

I seriously stress about these pics until they are done.

This is our last thing to get done for our holiday prep.

Presents are bought.

Need to wrap them... I'll get that done this weekend.

Family holiday letter is written... will print in a week or so.

So relax Lance ~ just smile normally.

Zoo Crew ~ no falling and injuring any body part that will be exposed and showing in the picture.

I'm praying that my lovely BURN/peeling skin from last week's football game will be gone and that no lovely zits decide to come calling.

*sigh*

I love having the pics... just not the process of getting them. :o)

'O's UP!!!!

Rest assured that my little ducklings are still DUCK fans.

We will not be sporting ANY Longhorn orange or TCU purple.

Out here in our section of the metroplex called Keller, TX ~ there are a few families that sport the green and gold. Not for the Packers ~ for the DUCKS! Their parent's trucks are sporting the Duck paraphernalia just as ours does.

So on Spirit Fridays, my kiddos are not alone while they are wearing their Duck gear to school... they have others in their flock.

Get your O's UP!

GOOOOOOOO DUCKS!!!!!!

I Love My Ducks (Return of the Quack)

They are back!!! I STILL love my DUCKS!!!

((((Joey H makes a cameo ~ love it!!!!))))

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright...

Deep in the heart of TEXAS!

This is where we are heading.

None of the houses worked out... THANKFULLY.

Lance is being transferred again ~ this time it's Dallas, TX.

We are busy packing and cleaning.

We are pulling out next Tuesday, the 10th.

Crazy fast AGAIN.

We've had a great summer.

Sunriver/Oregon trip ~ Stanley family reunion and the 4th with Stephanie's family.

Then ANOTHER surprise second trip to Oregon. Just Stephanie and the ducklings.

Now packing and moving...

Of course their will be more detailed posts about our summer adventures after we have moved to Texas.

I just wanted to let ya'll know we are fixin' to post soon ~~~

ya'll come back now, ya hear?!?

The Verdict....

We heard on Bowers Hollow ~ finally!

They will only accept all terms of our offer IF we use THEIR lender.

This being a foreclosure this little item is ILLEGAL.

Only builders can tie in a specific 'endorsement' and force you to use their lender.

That being said, proving it is a long and so not worth it process for us.

So we are NOT moving into Bowers Hollow.

.

.

The bank did email today and say that their official short sale approval letter is to arrive to us tomorrow.

(again, not holding my breath)

But if the letter follows the signed contracts then we will be signing for Bear Gulch

(my dream kitchen location)

once we return from Oregon.

.

.

So really no news...

Still "on eternal HOLD".

But I'm not going to be worrying about houses... I'm off to Oregon.