Trip to Phoenix

Sunday my friends, Liberty and Becky, and I traveled to Phoenix for a few days of fun. Liberty's parents let us stay in one of their rental homes that wasn't rented at the moment. A completely empty rental home, I might add. So we packed up the cars with blankets, air mattresses, sleeping bags, food, clothes, and kids and headed that way after church. We made a stop at Makutu's island where the kids proceeded to have a complete blast. After almost every kid had a slide burn on some body part they decided it was time to go. The night was filled with fun and games and laughter.
Monday the mommies got their fix by heading to IKEA and the mall. The kids had fun, too at the wonderful play area in IKEA and at the book store at the mall. After another fast food meal we headed back to the house for more fun and games.
The trip was like camping out without the bugs, the weather, or other outdoor elements to deal with. The best part of all was we all had a blast spending time with good friends.

Will's Tubes

Will had his surgery on Wednesday. He had tubes put in both ears and his adenoids out. He is doing great. In fact, it's like nothing ever happened. The worst part of the entire ordeal was him waking up from the pain medicine they gave him after his surgery. He was like a zombie. When he did finally awaken he was just fine. Kids are amazing. We even went to a movie yesterday. He's been eating just fine, and he hasn't complained once. He needs to keep his ears dry for five days, so we are using plugs in the bath. (I think we'll wait to go to the pool) After that he is good to go.

I'm so glad this entire ordeal is over. He can hear so much better now. The doctor said the fluid on his left ear was like jello. Yuck! Thank the good Lord for modern medicine!!

Four Years ago today...

Four years ago today my baby was born. He woke up this morning, climbed in bed with me, and declared, "Mama, I'm four now. Now I can chew gum!"

He's my funny little boy. AND no matter what he will always be my sweet baby Will!

Happy Birthday, big boy!

Hilarious!!!!

The funniest thing happened this morning. I mean HI-LARIOUS!!!

I decided that our coat closet by the back door needed cleaning out and organizing. This area is used as storage for our art supplies, my sewing stuff, the ironing board, the mops, our pool stuff, the wrapping paper.....Should I stop here? Yes, I think you get my drift. As my sister would say, "It was a HOT mess in there!"

So.....cleaning out I did. I moved everything out and swept and dusted and threw away and organized and moved stuff around and oh how lovely it is now! After arranging everything in the most organizingly efficient way I was finally finished. If the heavens could shine down its glory into my windowless little coat closet it would. There is now a place for everything and everything is in it's place. The art supplies now have their own organized bins. If you have a hankering for gluing puff balls on red envelopes you would be able to find the puff balls sitting in their bin next to the stickers. The red envelopes are in their bin next to the construction paper and the glue is next to the assortment of scissors. Now would you all please join me in a nice sigh of relief.

But......I did accumulate quite a bit of trash in my process. Old crayons, coloring books, paper, stickers, fuzz balls, hard play dough.....again, I think my drift is caught. So, I had a big bag full. I gathered my regular trash and then called up to John to come down and help me. He proceeded to pretend not to hear me. (I know that's what he did) So....I yelled louder! To which he replied, "What. Mama!?" So....I yelled even louder! (I know.....I'm a great role model) He finally came down and helped me haul the trash bags to the garage. He had one bag and I had one bag plus some recycling. When we came back in he tried to run back upstairs, but I said, "Wait! Can you please take this big cardboard tube (the kind that fabric comes on....like a bolt) to the recycling?" To which he responded.....

Are you ready for this?

You sure?

Ok....I'll tell you.

My dear first born son then responded,

"I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!"

Summer....

Well....we are all still here. I've just been busy and all that jazz!

Summer is here and in full swing. We have been enjoying the pool and the warm weather. Most of all we have been enjoying not having much to do! I think having so much to do at the end of the school year just about did us all in! Now we don't have much to do except watch too much tv, swim at the pool, and visit the library. All of which we plan to do a lot!

I promise to try to be better about updating. I plan on getting some pictures on here real soon. But what I know WILL happen is a nice relaxing summer!

Mae's Valentine's Dance and her musical Bugz!

On the Saturday before Valentine's day our neighborhood had a father/daughter dance. Mae and Rusty went and had the best time dancing the night away. They also had dinner. Mae got a wrist corsage and an engraved frame that the picture they took at the dance will go in. It was a precious time for them.

Here she is. Doesn't she look lovely?

I let her wear my little heart ring that I got when I was a little girl. She felt very special!

The dashing couple!

Mae also had her musical performance, Bugz last Thursday night. It was an adorable musical that the entire first grade put on. Mrs. Tenney and Mrs. Sanders, our wonderful music and PE teachers did a fantastic job with the music and choreography. There is nothing like seeing 200+ first graders in action! Each class danced to a particular song. Some kids had solos and speaking parts. Mae, the lucky and talented girl, was chosen for a speaking part! We had such a fun time!

Here's the lovely bee!

Here is a picture of the entire cast! Can you believe it? Amazing is all I can say!

Here is Mae delivering her lines! It's hard to see, but she is in the center of the picture in front of the microphone!

The Bigist Funyist Powems By Mae Workman

Mony

I wand mony

Give it to me

I want 70,000 dollors

for a penny

Please

Just do it!

Men

Look at the men

There are men that march in a line

Oh I think thats fine

For men that march in line

Choclet

I love choclet

Can I have a peace

I will aprishiate it

I love choclet

I shore do.

I relly do!

A day in the life

I started this post yesterday, but I failed to post it due to....well....my life. Here it is in full glory.


This week Rusty is back on the road. It has been so nice having him here for the past four weeks, and we miss him. We've had a busy week. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just regular busy stuff. Take today for instance.



6:00 Wake up. Get kids up. Get breakfast ready. Make sure teeth are brushed. Brush hair. Remind children to stop fighting or they will NOT be getting any Valentines! Remind myself not to threaten anything I wasn't prepared to actually do. Pack backpacks. Get water bottles.



6:48 Head to Bus stop.



6:50 Kiss big kids at wave as the bus drives away.



6:50-10:45 Hang out with Will. Post blog post. Watch cartoons. Play with Valentines. Get dressed. Get Will Dressed. Head to story time.



11:00 Story time with friends. Will Decided that he didn't want to sit and listen. When I asked him to sit down (in my quietest room full of people voice) he screamed NO! NO! NO! As he ran around the rug.

11:45 Home for lunch and make Will take a nap!



2:05 Pick up John from school.



3:00 PTO meeting. This went rather well.



3:10 Go get Mae from after school cooking class. This was rather difficult to do because of the above task.



4:30 Go to McDonald's for dinner with too many kids to count. This, too went rather well.



5:30 Head back to school for Lighted School House night to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. This was fun. Will ate so much popcorn I thought he was going to POP!



7:30 Home



8:00 Put kids in bed. I actually got the kids in bed by 7:45! I'm good like that!



9:30 I went to bed myself! Phew...Mama was tired!

The Noise!

Last night after we put the kids to bed Rusty and I sat down to watch a movie. We got Valkyrie from netflix and Rusty was eager to watch it. The last few we have gotten were all kind of for me. That's an entire post in itself. Anyway, I digress. Back to our night. So, we are sitting on the couch gloriously kid free watching this serious movie. I mean SERIOUS! It took me a while to get into it, but I eventually did. It was pretty good. During one scene that I'm sure was well....serious, we heard this crashing sound coming from upstairs. Now, this wasn't' your normal toy falling off the shelf or kid falling out of bed sound. It was more like a splattering almost glass tinkling sound. We both stared at each other wide eyed with horror! Let me give you a little background from where this horror originates. Will has had this cough thing going on. The kind where he seems fine during the day but coughs his head off at night. The other night he was coughing like crazy, so I went up to give him some medicine. I'm not sure if it was from all the coughing or me trying to shove the medicine dropper into his sleepy mouth, but he proceeded to gag then he threw up all over me, the bed, and himself. It wasn't pretty people! So....back to last night on the couch. After Rusty and I stared at each other wide eyed for all of .5 seconds we both dashed up the stairs. We both were thinking the same thing, Throw Up!!!! (Looking back I realize that he let me go first! You know he can run faster than me!) We ran straight to Will's room! He was sleeping soundly. I went over to him and felt all around. Nothing. So then we both headed to John's room (me first again). As we approached we noticed his light on. He does this sometimes so he can read or play in his bed. I don't worry because he seems to get enough sleep. Anyway....we enter his room rather quickly to find him sitting up in his bed with a dazed and confused look on his face. I looked at the floor and quickly saw our sound culprit. It was his stinkin' Bakugan toys! About 30 of his stinkin' bakugan toys littering the floor of his bedroomright by his bed. I realized that he had been playing with them earlier, hence the light, and he had kicked his case of them off his bunk bed while sleeping which in turn scattered the little plastic balls all over the floor making the tinkling splattering sound. Which sounds a lot like throw up! I breathed a sigh of relief, turned off John's light, and kissed him good night. Rusty still didn't trust my Nancy Drew insight and made ME go check to make sure Mae didn't throw up. She, of course, was sleeping soundly.

We then finished our very serious movie. Then all was quiet in the Workman house.

Only a Mother's Love

The other day Mae and Will were sitting with me on the couch before bedtime. She was hugging and loving on him. At one point she tried to hold him like he was a baby. He was practically laying on top of her. She looked down at him with her arms around him and said, "Will, do you love your Mother?" (I knew she meant her because she is his Second Mother, you know) He quickly let out a loud poot! To which Mae replied, "I guess I'll take that as a 'yes'!

They are both so funny!

A Rainy Day.

Today is overcast. It's not cold outside, but it looks like its cold. This makes me feel cold, so I'm constantly tucking my feet under pillows or in socks. I know that this doesn't make any sense what so ever. Maybe it has something to do with the lack of humidity. All I know is that my feet are always cold. It rained last night and there is a chance of rain later today. What does this have to do with cold feet? I'm not sure. I'm just telling you about the weather.

So we are going to hang out at home today. Will and I may venture out to go to the library for story time. Last week we tried to attend this weekly event, but Will would have none of it. Let me give you a little background on our library. It's actually a portable building consisting of one main room with several smaller rooms. One of these smaller rooms is the children's section. It's small but fun and filled with books and movies. It even has a cozy couch and a kid sized table. Well, we arrived a little early so Will and I decided to pick out some books to check out. I was busy finding the perfect books for the kids while Will browsed through the movies. When I had the books picked out (The Hardy Boys for John, Nancy Drew for Mae, and two books on snow for Will) I asked Will if he was ready to go hear the story. "I want a movie!" Will demanded. "Not today. Look at these cool snow books!" I replied. "I WANT A MOVIE!!!!!!!" Will exclaimed. And so it went. He screamed. He hollered. All the parents gave me knowing sympathetic looks. The old people on the computers gave me stern annoyed looks. I tried to coax him over to the story time carpet, but he wasn't budging. As I was trying to check out the library lady had the nerve to tell me, "Don't give in, Mama!" She was all of 21 years old. Needless to say, we did NOT attend last weeks story time. You know what happened when we got into the car? I, of course, was fuming! Will, having moved on from his previous mood, asked me if he could get a Happy Meal! A Happy Meal! For real?

We will try again today. Am I setting myself up? Will the rain give me the excuse to stay at home with my cold feet? I'll let you know!

Winter Fun!

After the Winter storm the mountains were covered with snow. We headed up to Madera Canyon for some fun. We left a balmy Sahuarita that was in the upper fifties headed toward a winter wonderland. As we made our way up the mountain into the park the road was closed. There was about a mile left to the top so we decided to hike it! Never underestimate a mile in a half uphill on a road covered in ice. Whew! But, boy was it worth it! Where we started there wasn't much snow, if any at all. But when we reached the end of the road there was a good 6-12 inches!
Sorry for the pictures being out of order. Picking them from my flash drive is a little difficult, and my blog posts them all in reverse order.

This is the Santa Rita River. It's usually dry as a bone. Now it's filled with water from the snow from the mountains and the rain. I've never seen it this full!

This is a little gift shop that was half way up our walk up the mountain! So cute. Doesn't it look like Hansel and Gretel live there! We stopped here for some hot chocolate on our way down.

John Russel in the snow! He had so much fun sledding down the hills and throwing snowballs! He was so busy I could hardly get his picture.

Mae the snow angel!

Who needs a sled! She loved going down the hills solo!

Weee! So much fun being pulled on the boogie board (aka our sled).

Here we are at the beginning of our hike. As you can see there isn't much snow. The kids were so excited.

Here's the mountain on our way up.



We all had fun, but were exhausted. Whew!!!

Hold on to your Hats!!

Yesterday the weather went crazy. We were under a winter storm watch. There were blizzard warnings for the mountains, high wind warnings, dust storm warnings, flood watches, and even a tornado watch! It was scary! The dust blowing around was insane! Rusty's hat even blew off his head at the bus stop and flew into the neighbors swimming pool! Oh my! The funniest part of the entire episode was the weather man. He was beside himself. Rusty and I couldn't help but laugh. We knew that it could have been a serious situation, but the poor guy was just so out of his element. If only he had Dave Brown to help calm his nerves with his Doppler and storm tracking devices. Oh well....all is good this morning. We didn't all blow away.



Another crazy thing I want to share with you is my husband's new look. I want to share a picture, but it's this long process now that I don't have my "own" computer. I have to save it to a flash drive.....and so on and so forth....that takes too much energy to explain, much less actually do! I know...I'm lazy....but that's another story.

Anyway.....back to Rusty. He's growing this grizzly adams beard. It's looking pretty good actually. AND his hair is growing out. He doesn't want me to cut it. You want to know what else? It looks pretty good too. It curls just in the right way to look cool in a rugged sort of way. Some guys at work say he looks like Wolverine. Right after he told me this we watched the movie Australia with the actor that plays Wolverine in it. Oh my! He does look like Wolverine! I like it! Ok...I'll work on getting his picture on here. If your super curious, I posted his picture on facebook.


All is well at the Workman house. We didn't blow away. Rusty will have to get his hat when the neighbors decide to fish it out of their pool. He doesn't need it anyway!

My Heart Breaks

I know the news has been flooded with scenes and stories from Haiti. I'm sure you, like the rest of the world, are moved by all the horrible pictures. I don't get to watch the news much around here. When I do get to watch TV its usually to watch Oswald or Sponge Bob. (if you a do not know who these two characters are consider yourself lucky) So, when I do get to catch a glimpse of the news I'm just blown away. Yesterday I saw a piece on children. These children were orphans. Precious, precious orphan children. Children with big brown eyes with long eyelashes. Baby girls with precious pigtails. Sweet boys with tattered clothes. Their eyes haunt my soul. As I watched these babies crawl over each other as the journalist explained their story my heart broke into a million pieces.
I thanked God right then and there for my sweet healthy children and the ability to provide a warm loving home for them. Then I prayed that these sweet innocent children in Haiti could have the same.
If I could bring them all into my home I think I would. Seriously. But for now, I'll just keep praying.

Back In The Swing of Things!

Oh me. It's been a long time. I feel like I'm still getting my feet back under me from Christmas. No matter how hard I try, it knocks the breath out of me every year. It was a whirlwind of fun times. The big kids birthdays went well. Nativity Quest was beautifully delivered. The drive to Tennessee was better than expected. Although we had a few illness all went well.

Now it's back to reality. The kids are doing great. School is going great. Rusty was home last week and is home this week....so far. So, all is well. Thank the sweet Lord.

I'll try to do better in posting. Now that we are back in the swing of things....finally.