The Tungate's

Ally's ears...

2010-04-17T11:51:00.004-06:00

Adam and I had decided that we would let the girls get their ears pierced whenever they decided they wanted to get them done. Last night Ally randomly decided that she wanted to get hers pierced so we took her to the mall this morning after breakfast to get it done. I thought there might be some drama involved after they did the first ear and before they did the second one, but she did so great! She cried, but sat still and was quiet about it. We were so proud of her and she looks so big now!

Adventures in Photography!

2010-04-13T16:19:00.004-06:00

Okay, although the title of this post is Adventures in Photography, there will be no pictures posted today. I do, however, have great news! I've gotten my photography business up and running along with my official website and would like all of you to see it! There are still a few little things I'm working on for it, but it's out there now and I've already started getting some business! Check it out and give me some feedback. :0)
www.tungatephotography.com

Easter Egg Hunt

2010-03-28T11:28:00.011-06:00

Yesterday there was an Easter egg hunt at the park by my parent's house and we took the kids. They were SO excited! The Easter Bunny made an appearance and the kids had a blast despite the ridiculous wind! ;0)

Another milestone!

2010-03-22T10:47:00.003-06:00

Our weekend in Ft. Worth was great, but I was horrible and literally only took 2 pictures. Oh well. Luke's birthday party was so cool and the kids had a blast. It was at a gym that had trampolines, a bouncer, and a foam pit that the kids vaulted into. At one point in the party the workers there got out one of those big parachutes and all the kids held onto the edges and they played "cat and mouse." One kid got under the parachute and one got in the middle on top of it and the kids around the edges shook the parachute so it was hard to see where the kid underneath it was and the one on top had to find the "mouse." Anyway, they were letting everyone have a turn and it was Bran's turn so they asked him if he wanted to be the cat or the mouse and he said, "Ummm...I want to be Spiderman!" Hehehe. Anyway, it was a fun trip.
So, Ella climbed out of her crib a few weeks ago and we've been procrastinating moving her into a big bed because it's a big deal and nap times at our house will never be the same again, but we finally moved her last night for the first time. She was so excited when we told her that she would be sleeping in a big girl bed. She was SO tired at bedtime and had just had a little melt down so that's why she's got the red eyes and face in the pictures. I'm happy to say that she fell right asleep and didn't hardly even move at all through the night. She woke up this morning at 7:30am ready to go. I just put her down for her 1st nap in the big bed and so far she seems to be doing well and hasn't gotten up! We'll see how long this good transition lasts. ;0)

Fun times with the cousins!

2010-03-18T14:43:00.003-06:00

Well since it's Spring Break my mom has been keeping my older sister's kids during the days and we've gone over there the past couple of days to let the cousins play together. Today I brought my camera and we attempted to get some good cousin pictures, yes, I did say attempted! It was mostly Ella's fault and since she wasn't cooperating it sort of made the other kids not do as well either. Here are some of my favorites. They're not professional grade, but they're fun snapshots for my mom to have of all of her grandkids.
This weekend we're going to Ft. Worth for our nephew, Luke's 5th birthday party and to see my best friend from high school, Rachel! Rachel is due with her 1st baby boy on Monday so I'm hoping he will come sooner so I can meet him. I'll post pics from the trip when we get back. Please pray for our safe travel and for Zeke to get here quickly and safely this weekend!

Moving on...

2010-03-12T08:07:00.004-06:00

Well, it seems that I've slacked off to the point where I don't think I can catch up so I've decided to cut my losses and forget about trying to catch everyone up with what's been going on in the Tungate household since Christmas and just hit some small highlights. There are a billion pictures I could post, but I'll just post a few for now.
January was fairly uneventful for us, but we've had several things going on in February. February 1st was the 2 year anniversary of Adam's mother's death. Although we still have some open wounds from her loss, it's progressively gotten easier to cope with and a lot of those wounds are finally starting to heal. Branson picked out some pretty gerbera daisy's for her grave and the kids picked out some pinwheels that they wanted to put out there too. It was a sweet way for the kids to honor her memories. February 6th was my dad's 55th birthday and was also the date of my first wedding photography-wise. The wedding went great and I really felt like I was in my element and didn't forget anything! I'm now working on building my official photography website. I've ordered some business cards and have already got 4 "gigs" lined up for senior pictures. It seems to all be coming together; praise God! On February 20th, we all went to Winfield, KS for Adam's 2nd cousin's wedding and Ally and Branson were both in the wedding party. I was so proud of their behavior the whole trip and they were the best flower girl and ring bearer I've ever seen! It was great to see family and to get to be a part of Ashton's special day! I've been taking Keely's picture every month and will continue to do so until she turns a year old. Yesterday she turned 9 months old and I took her picture. I was really proud of the way the scene for the picture turned out and had to get some of Ella with it too.
I'm sure all the pictures will be out of order, but you should be able to distinguish which ones go with each occasion. Next month begins our birthday season and I expect things to be crazy busy, but I'll try to do better about posting. I hope I still have some readers out there! :0)

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2009-12-23T14:25:00.003-06:00

I know I'm terrible and have fallen WAY behind on blogging, but things never cease to be busy with 3 kids even when we're not doing anything at all.
My parent's have Santa come to their house the week before Christmas every year to visit all their grandkids and Adam has been the one behind the white beard for the past several years. We found ourselves in a fix last year when Ally told Adam's dad that Santa sounded like her daddy and thought we'd better go back to the drawing board for this year. I've recently re-connected with some old friends of my parents and remembered that the husband used to come to our house every year as Santa when I was a kid so I asked him if he was still in the business. He happily stepped up to the plate for us and even took it a step further asking his wife to come along as Mrs. Claus. They asked me for a list of naughty/nice things for each kid and brought it along as 'the list' and specifically talked to each kid about the things they had done. It was SO hilarious to see the looks on their faces when he called them out on the naughty things! Anyway, we had a great time and the kids can't wait for Christmas morning! Merry Christmas everyone!!!

A Tungate Halloween

2009-11-02T13:20:00.009-06:00

We had a fun Halloween at the Tungate household! Aunt Sarah and Uncle Carl kept up with their tradition of taking the kids to the Science Spectrum Spooky Science Carnival on Friday evening. Ally and Branson had a blast! We kept Ella with us, but she'll be going next year when she can do a little bit more. After the carnival we decided to go ahead and get our "trick-or-treating" done so we wouldn't have to get dressed up and out in the cold two nights in a row (and since we only trick or treat to family houses anyway, it worked out to go on Friday). Anyway, the kids got WAY too much candy and had tons of fun and got to be home to pass out candy to the trick or treaters on Halloween night. :) Ally was dressed up as Fancy Nancy (my mom made her dress), Branson was a robot, and Ella was a ballerina!
Oh yeah, Ella turned 18 months old on Friday! I can't believe it! I'll do another post about her later with her 18 month pics. :)

Long time no post & Ally's 1st lost tooth

2009-10-16T07:17:00.006-06:00

I've majorly been slacking off in the posting department so I'm going to try and get caught up in a very quick manner. I'm not sure what order my pictures are in so I'll just give a quick run down and you should be able to see which one belongs where. I'm finally posting Branson's first day of Super Kids pictures. He looked so cute and proud. He's loving school again this year and they just had their first field trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday so I put in a couple pics from that too. Nothing new has really been going on with Ella lately; she's still trucking along getting into everything and being cute. Ally, on the other hand, has had a big week. She told me on Tuesday morning through some tears that she had a loose tooth. I felt it and it was hardly noticeable, but it was loose. When I asked her why she was crying she just said, "I'm afraid it might hurt." We calmed her down and left it at that. After school we got some apples for snacks in hopes that she would forget about it and bite down on the tooth and help it out a little. She did okay with the apple and the tooth kept getting more and more loose, but she refused to let me help her or to even try to see if it was ready to come out. Wednesday night my mom and dad both tried to get her to let them help her get it out because it was totally ready by then, but it was pretty dramatic and they ended up giving up not because the tooth wasn't ready, but because Ally wasn't ready. Thursday after school I was determined to get that tooth out! She was still really dramatic about it so I gave her a "pep talk" and she calmed down a bit and decided that she would try to get it out on her own. I "coached" her on what to do and it was really just hanging on by a thread, but she was just too scared to actually get it out. When Adam got home from work he helped me convince her to let me get it out and I got it right away easy as pie. She was crying and when I said "I got it!" she said, "I didn't even know it! It didn't hurt!" and all was well in the Tungate household. She didn't even get freaked out by the blood and it actually bled more than I expected it to, but just for a minute. Then she called everyone in our family to tell them and she was so proud. The conversation for the rest of the evening revolved around her "loosed tooth."

Randomness

2009-09-11T07:34:00.008-06:00

First of all, I guess I'm a bad mom because Branson had his first day of Super Kids this past Tuesday and it was actually a relief to me to get him out of the house for a little while! I did take pictures of him ready for school, but haven't even downloaded them from my camera yet. I'm slacking off, but I'll get there eventually.
I cleaned the kid's rooms this week and that was no small chore. It is absolutely ridiculous how much junk and trash they had in their rooms! You could hardly even see the floors. I threw a ton of stuff away that could be hazardous for Ella to play with and separated all the "girl toys" from the "boy toys" and organized them in their rooms to try and reduce the chaos. Branson had a toy box, but the girl's didn't so I got on-line and searched for toy boxes and found one on sale at Target. When I got there and found the one I has searched out, there was a different and better one right next to it on the shelf that was on sale for cheaper than the one I was going to get! It took me almost an hour to put the dang thing together, but I did it and now the girl's toys have a home.
Do you ever get those feelings deep inside where something is stirring for a major change? I've had one of those feelings for a little while now, but haven't really figured it out yet. I've always been a sentimental person, but I guess a lot has happened this year that has caused me to feel like that; I turned 30 in June, my oldest baby started Kindergarten last month, and a friend of mine lost her little sister just a couple of weeks ago. That's enough to do it, I guess. This is how we grow.
I'll try to get my stuff together and post some pictures soon. I've got a really busy weekend with the Cowboy Symposium starting with a show tonight at 5pm and there will be 4 more performences tomorrow throughout the day. It makes me tired just thinking about it, but it will be fun and singing is always a good release!

Ally's 1st day of Kindergarten!

2009-08-25T07:25:00.003-06:00

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Well, we made it! Ally was so excited yesterday and it was really cute! I was worried that she might get a little nervous and not want us to leave, but much to my surprise she didn't. We helped her find where to put her backpack and lunch box and then she blended right on in. We had to get her attention to tell her "bye" and once we did, she never looked back! Adam and I struggled, but we made it without any tears shed until we left the school! I'm so glad he took off work for this!
I was a little scared about going it alone today, but it was okay and actually went much more smoothly than yesterday. It's all downhill from here!

Kindergarten Open House

2009-08-21T06:36:00.004-06:00

Last night was Open House for Ally's school and we went to meet her teacher and show her around a bit. It was pretty crazy because every student brought their entire extended family and their dogs (not really, but it was packed and pretty chaotic)! There was no organization to it whatsoever so it was a little overwhelming for her, but she was still excited. The woman in the picture is her new teacher, Mrs. Allison and she seemed really great! I think it's going to be a good year!

Ella's 15 month pics and more pictures...

2009-08-10T14:50:00.007-06:00

Ella Jean is 15 months old! She's really growing up fast! We thought she would NEVER start walking, but finally she did at 14 months. Now there's no stopping her from getting into any and EVERYthing! She talks non-stop in her own little garbled language; it's hilarious! She is still stubborn about everything and doesn't do a thing unless she wants to, including talking. She can say several words and even more names, but like I said, only if she decides she wants to at any given time. Her favorite thing to say is, "hi!" and she says it in a very squeaky, enthusiastic way. She's just oozing with personality! She does use a few signs also, but once again, is very stubborn about using them. Wonder where she got all that stubbornness from?! :) Enjoy the pics! Oh yeah, again, my mom made the girls' dresses!

Keely pics

2009-08-03T13:02:00.004-06:00

A while back I mentioned that I wanted to get into professional photography and I've been practicing a lot since then. These are a few of the ones I've done of my new niece, Keely that I thought turned out really well! I'll be posting more later of some faux bridal pics I took of my older sister (since she's the only one I know who still fits in her wedding dress!). :)

Ally's 5 year old pictures...only 2 months late

2009-07-22T08:33:00.005-06:00

Well, I'm 2 months behind, but here are Ally's 5 year old pictures. My mom made her dress and it's currently her favorite item of clothing. :) These were taken at the park by our house. Isn't she pretty?! :)

Summer Fun 2009

2009-07-10T16:37:00.009-06:00

We've had a busy and fun summer so far! Ally and Branson have been taking swimming lessons and we've been hanging out sweet Keely getting to know her better! :)
I've found a new addiction with Facebook and that's why I haven't posted in a while. I'll try to get better, but you can usually find me there! :) Hope everyone has a great summer and stays cool (as cool as possible)!

Why NOT to get an English Pointer...

2009-06-23T08:13:00.002-06:00

Many of you have heard some of the crazy stories about our dog, Raider. I think we could have our own “Marley & Me” if we just put all of those stories on paper and here is just one example. I went outside to feed and water our dogs this morning before I took the kids to swimming lessons and all was well. A few minutes later I heard a lot of yelping (not necessarily anything out of the ordinary), but this kept on so I went to investigate. I found our other dog, Daisy, sort of nervously wandering around, but Raider was nowhere to be found. I was then aggravated because this dog should have been named Hoodini. He has gotten out of our yard despite our 6 foot fence, a regular electric fence, an electric fence that was strung on posts 36 in away from the actual fence at 18 in from the ground and at 4 ft from the ground, and now has managed to get out of an invisible fence (which is basically an electric fence, but he’s got a shock collar that shocks him if he gets within a certain distance of the wire). So, I started to go to the front yard and search the block for my runaway when I heard the yelping again and it was in the yard. I did a quick survey, but didn’t see him so I let Daisy show me where he was. At this point I was thinking maybe he got out, got hit by a car or something and barely made it back in the yard. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, but I went to the side of the house to find him barely balancing on top of the 6 ft fence like a bird. He looked ridiculous so I took pictures! He was yelping because he had managed to get out and when he tried to get back in, he started to jump the fence, but was getting shocked by the collar so he only made it half way. This is a good reason NOT to get an English Pointer!

Have a good week!

I'm 30...How did that happen?

2009-06-20T12:58:00.003-06:00

Well, today's my 30th birthday and I have to say that it's pretty anticlimactic. I started thinking about this "milestone" and wondered when it was that I grew up because I just didn't remember doing that (or maybe it just hasn't happened yet!). LOL! Anyway, I pretty much feel exactly the same and am pretty sure that I haven't gotten any wiser than I was when I was 29...yet. I guess it's just weird to be 30. Didn't that used to be old? :)
I thought I'd post a few pictures of me and the kids from this morning. We were playing around in the car waiting for Adam to come out of the store.

Hanging out with Keely

2009-06-17T16:20:00.004-06:00

These last couple of pictures are from Keely's last day in the hospital. Ella really looked huge when we put her in the little tub they lay the newborns in! Not much new is going on. We're just soaking up as much Keely as we can! She's changes every day and I can't get enough pictures of her. I'm sure she can't see a thing with all of the flashing that's been in her face over the past 6 days! Anyway, we love her and are so excited to spend the summer getting to know her. :)

Proud Aunt Pete

2009-06-12T13:33:00.005-06:00

In case you can't tell, I'm a little bit excited about my new niece! This morning my mom, Ella, and I went up to the hospital to see Keely again while Ally and Branson were at VBS. I took a million more pictures, of course. She's already changing. Sarah is doing really well and her doctor even came in while we were there to tell her that her blood pressure and CBC looked so good that she is going to send them home this evening instead of tomorrow!
Adam and I took Ally and Branson up to see Keely last night and they were both really quiet and very sweet with her! Ella's reaction to Keely was a little different. At first she didn't even pay her any attention, but then she really didn't like it when I held her. My mom took Keely from me to calm Ella down and then Ella got upset that her Mam was holding Keely so Sarah took Keely from Mam. Ella then saw that her Sarah was holding that baby and got upset again. It was pretty funny! I'm forseeing a bit of jealousy in Ella's immediate future until she can figure out what Keely's doing here. :)
I also threw in a picture of the baby mum I made for Sarah's hospital door. I thought it turned out pretty cute. ;)

Welcome baby Keely!

2009-06-11T19:49:00.005-06:00

Keely Star Kline was born at 3:32pm weighing 6 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. She's perfect and sweet! Sarah is doing great and did great through the whole labor and delivery. Her blood pressure stayed down and she was able to have a smooth and regular delivery! Thanks for all of your prayers! They are expected to be in the hospital until Saturday. I will post more pictures tomorrow. :)

Almost there...

2009-06-11T12:44:00.002-06:00

Okay, here's the scoop! Sarah's water broke on it's own this morning around 6am. They started the pitocin around 8-ish. She got an epidural around 10:30-ish and is currently fully dilated (it's 1:45pm) and about to start pushing! She's been doing really well so far and her blood pressure has been good so far too. My mom and I are about to head up to the hospital around 2pm to wait for the good word!!! I'll be taking a million pictures and will post some of them tonight! Please keep praying that everything continues to go smoothly and thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers up to this point! I'm almost an aunt again!!! :)

New room

2009-06-10T20:44:00.003-06:00

They've moved Sarah into a room in Labor and Delivery and she will be there for the long haul. I just spoke to Carl and they were giving her the "goods" to start the induction a few minutes ago. Sarah said that her doctor will come in the morning to check on her and to break her water if it hasn't already broken on its own and that should get things moving right along. I may not post again until Keely is born unless something happens or if she's having an extra long labor and I've just got some time to kill. Keep praying!

Another update

2009-06-10T13:44:00.004-06:00

I don't really have a lot of new information, but wanted to let everyone know the little bit that I do know. Sarah got a bunch of lab tests back this morning showing that her liver and kidney enzymes were high and that combined with her 24-hour urine test confirmed her diagnosis of pre-ecclampsia. We were pretty sure of that before, but I guess it's nice to have a diagnosis based on lab tests. She's doing okay right now though other than the horrible night's sleep they got on the hospital bed and so-called couch. ;) The plan is still to start her induction tonight at 8pm. They will be giving her IV magnesium sulfate (I think that's what she said it was) during labor and delivery for the pre-ecclampsia and are hoping to have a safe regular delivery. The doctor said this morning that she is estimating that Keely will be born tomorrow afternoon around 3 or 4pm roughly if all goes according to plan. Thanks for your prayers! I'll keep you posted and will be posting pictures of sweet Keely ASAP also.

Quick update

2009-06-09T19:44:00.003-06:00

I went to visit Sarah in the hospital and brought she and Carl dinner tonight. She seemed to be doing fine. Obviously, she was admitted and is being monitored closely for her blood pressure. She is getting stress tests for her and baby Keely every couple of hours. She won't talk to her doctor again until sometime tomorrow, but right now the plan is to start her induction tomorrow evening sometime. She had started dilating a very small amount and was 50% effaced a little less than 2 weeks ago, but has made no more progress since then so her doctor is wanting to give her a different induction medication first to help her cervix ripen before they give her pitocin which is the reason they are starting tomorrow instead of Thursday. All of this is still tentative, of course, and is subject to change according to her test results and her blood pressure. She is really wanting to avoid a c-section if at all possible so please keep praying for hers and baby Keely's health and safety and that she can have a regular and uneventful delivery.

Need quick prayers

2009-06-09T10:47:00.001-06:00

My sister is scheduled to be induced on Thursday, June 11th. She went to her last doctor appt this morning and was sent to the hospital from there. Her blood pressure is really high, she's extremely swollen, and had protien in her urine which indicates pre-ecclampsia. They are going to monitor her for a while and will probably admit her. Please keep her and my sweet neice to be in your prayers. Sarah and Carl both seemed a little freaked out and overwhelmed. This is their first baby so I know that they don't know what to expect and that's a scary place to be. Thanks and I'll let you know what happens.

2009-06-08T16:55:00.004-06:00

So, I'm about a month (and a little more) late, but here are Ella's 1 year old pictures and Branson's 3 year old pictures. Ella's were professionally done and there were too many great ones to choose from so I'm just posting this one that shows several of her best faces! I took Branson's picture myself and liked these two the best. He's becoming quite the handsome little man! I have yet to take Ally's 5 year pictures, but hope to do so this week/end sometime and will post them shortly thereafter.

A new adventure

2009-06-01T13:36:00.007-06:00

Okay, this post is probably premature since I have really just begun to act on my interests, but I've decided that I want to get into professional photography. That might be a bold statement, but I've always loved pictures, taking pictures, being in pictures, pretty much anything having to do with pictures. I've made an effort to carry my camera with me everywhere I go(one of the main reasons I picked my current camera when we bought it 4 years ago was because it would easily fit into my purse without me having to carry around a suitcase). Anyway, my dad is a bit of a picture nut also and he has a professional grade camera that he has let me use on various occasions. Long story short, my dad basically told me that I could have his camera without having it (it is still his, but I can use it whenever and keep it at my house) and he said that he found a good deal on the exact same camera and he was thinking of buying it so I could use it as a back up if I really wanted to get into the biz. Since then, I've been playing around with it and have been playing around with some cool effects with the pictures I've taken also to use for a portfolio. Here are just a few examples of what I've been working on. I used my pregnant sister, my brother and my kids also as subjects, but the kids didn't cooperate so these are mostly of my sister, Sarah, and her husband. :) Enjoy! Hopefully, I'll keep playing around and will find my knack and will be able to do this for a living once all my kids get into school. That gives me t minus 4 years and counting!

Ally's princess party!

2009-05-23T20:54:00.003-06:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

This party was so much fun! Obviously, it was for girls only. They came dressed in their princess dresses and they got to make the accessories to go with it. They made crowns with jewels and sparkles and wands with more jewels and sparkles. They took pictures in their finished princess garb and we made picture frames to put their pictures in to send home. They then decorated their own cupcakes with different colors of icing and lots of different sprinkles. Ally had a blast and wore her dress and crown for the rest of the day! :)

Happy 5th birthday, Ally!!!

2009-05-22T16:19:00.007-06:00

My oldest baby is 5 years old today! The first picture you see is from her 1 year pictures. Man has she grown up since then! We had her family party on Wednesday and she got WAY too many presents, but was a very happy girl! She's really into the Disney Princess stuff right now and has started falling in love with Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy started out as books for little girls, but they've now made them into dolls and also have accessories and dress up clothes too (if you have a daughter, you need to check it out because it's SO cute!). Anyway, we're having her big "girls only" party tomorrow and I'll post pictures and details about that later. She's really excited.
This morning we got to go to Ally's Kindergarten for a classroom visit and a little bit of "shadowing" since her cousin, Hadley is currently in Kindergarten there. Ally was SO excited and got a little bit nervous when we got into the building. It was really cute. She had a great time seeing what it's like to be in Kindergarten and is now even more excited than ever to go in the Fall.
This part is random, but I thought it was blog-worthy. On the way home we drove by a park and there was a mother duck and a long string of ducklings were following behind her! It was so cute. I pulled over to let the kids see and took a couple of pictures. There's nothing better than baby ducks to welcome Spring! :)

The perfect gift

2009-05-09T07:54:00.005-06:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Adam has to work every 9 weekends and this is his weekend to work. It's no big deal, it's not like this weekend is any different than any other, but I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take advantage of getting a little "me" time or a nap or something for Mother's Day. Anyway, he and the kids gave me my gift early and this made everything okay! :) (and yes, I cried!)

Angel by Jack Johnson
Performed by Adam, Ally, Branson & Ella Tungate and Dave Branson

I've got an angel, she doesn't wear any wings
she wears a heart that could melt my own
she wears a smile that can make me want to sing.

She gives me presents with her presence alone
she gives me everything I could wish for
she gives me kisses on the lips just for coming home.

She can make angels, I've seen it with my own eyes
You've got to be careful when you've got good love
'cause them angels will just keep on multiplying.

But you're so busy changing the world
just one smile and you could change all of mine
we share the same soul, oh, oh, oh, oh
we share the same soul, oh, oh, oh, oh
we share the same soul, oh, oh, oh, oh
oh, oh, oh, oh
mm, mm, mm, mm

Ella's 1st birthday!!!

2009-05-04T18:26:00.007-06:00

Ella had a great first birthday! She really didn't know what was going on, but I could tell that she was soaking it all in and putting it into long-term memory so she will be fully prepared for next year. LOL!
I said it before with Branson, but it's just really hard to believe that my baby isn't a baby anymore. This was my last first birthday...unbelievable! Ella is the happiest baby I've ever seen. She's very easy to please and entertains herself better than an only child! She's starting to find her voice and believe it or not, I think she's my loudest kid--I never thought anyone could be louder than Branson! She's crawling around, but doesn't like to get up on her knees. She's much faster doing an army crawl on her belly. She pulls up in her bed, but doesn't like to do it anywhere else unless she's got an audience cheering her on. I don't think she'll EVER walk, but I'm not really in a hurry to have three walking kiddos yet she gets into enough stuff just crawling! I've been doing some very basic signs with her for about 4 months now hoping she would catch on and so far she can sign "done" and "drink." We're still working on "eat" and "more," but I would bet that she will just say the words before she signs them. She's got a mind of her own! As far as words, she says "Mama," "Dada," "Bubba," and "Uh-oh" regularly, but she's said a few more names with a cheering audience. She's very funny about performing for an audience! :) I have a feeling that my life will be a lot more eventful (I know, you're thinking, "more eventful than with Branson?") as this girl continues to grow. She's shown a lot of Branson qualities, but I think will be a bit more laid back than he is so I'm happy about that. :) Happy birthday, Ella Jean, until next year!

Happy Birthday Ella Jean!!!

2009-04-30T11:09:00.004-06:00

Ella Jean Tungate is one year old today! I'll post more pictures and stuff from her party with our family later, but wanted to go ahead and post this little clip now. Sorry again for it being sideways. Happy birthday, baby!

Branson's 3rd birthday!!!

2009-04-27T12:51:00.005-06:00

Branson had a great time at his birthday party at Jumpin' Jungle! The party was the same night we had all of that hail and storming, but it had all cleared up and moved away from Lubbock by the time the party started so it worked out. The kids were all ready to play longer so I took that as a sign that they all really had a fun. Branson is really into Handy Manny right now and, as you can see, that's what we had his cake decorated in. It's hard to believe that he's already 3 years old! He's really looking like a little boy now instead of a toddler and it makes me sad to loose that baby and happy to see the boy he's becoming at the same time. He is a little less than an inch shorter than Ally is and only weighs a pound less than she does so I don't think it will be long before he's surpassed her, size-wise. :) People ask us all the time if they're twins. Anyway, Branson is the sweetest, cutest, and most frustrating kid I've ever met! He constantly keeps me on my toes and doesn't let me get away with one minute of not paying attention to him. He's brave, full of adventure, and more curious than Curious George (which he also loves). I'm so proud to be his mom and can't wait to see what God has planned for him. :)

Ton-O-Pictures :)

2009-04-20T13:56:00.009-06:00

Okay, it's been a LONG WHILE, but we're finally all well at the Tungate household! These are pictures from the past couple of weeks. Ella is getting around really well and is getting faster every day, but is still no where near walking. I'm counting my blessings for that every day; she gets into everything as it is! :) Adam had his 30th birthday and even though he and Bran were both sick then we still managed to have a good, fun birthday dinner! Easter was good, but since the boys were under the weather we didn't make it to church. My mom made the girl's Easter dresses and we got all dressed up anyway and went to my parent's house church. It was a good time. The neighborhood my parents live in had an Easter egg hunt at the park and we took the kids. It was SO windy and chilly, but the kids had fun and the Easter bunny made an appearance. Tomorrow is Branson's 3rd birthday so I'll probably post again really soon with those pictures. :)

11 month pictures and my big graduate!

2009-04-03T14:02:00.005-06:00

Ally had her cap and gown picture taken at Super Kids yesterday! What a big girl! The graduation and program are on the 30th and I'm pretty sure I'll cry.

Branson is still on the mend. He still had some fever yesterday and his poor little eyes are still SO red, but slowly and surely we'll get him back to normal. He hasn't had any fever today and he's been acting pretty much like his normal ornery self so maybe that's a good sign. It's also probably a good sign that he's gotten up a million times already today instead of taking his regular good 3 hour nap. I wish he would continue to sleep good and get well, but I'll take what I can get. :)

Bran's ambulance ride...

2009-03-30T14:18:00.004-06:00

It’s a long story, but I’ll try to make it as short as possible. Yesterday morning we rushed Branson to the ER at the new Grace Hospital (like the Grace Clinic, but they now have a hospital) after a night of continual throwing up and waking up at 7:30am with a temperature of 104.6. We first asked if they took our insurance and got the go ahead to bring him in. They gave him an IV with fluids, did some blood work, and a chest x-ray. They then told us (after 2-3 hours) that he had pneumonia and would need to be admitted into the hospital for at least 24 hours because his white blood cell count was through the roof, but told us that they would have to transfer him to Covenant because they didn’t take our insurance. Aggravating, but whatever. The transfer had to take place in an ambulance so we got to Covenant where they did more blood work and another chest x-ray and we waited for a couple or three more hours. They then told us that he had bronchitis, pink eye, and a stomach virus all at the same time, but that we could take him home. They pumped him full of IV antibiotics and fluids and gave us prescriptions for more antibiotics, eye drops, and anti-nausea meds and we got to go home. He’s still having issues with the high fever (it was 104.3 just before lunch) but we’re managing it at home and he’s no longer throwing up so that helps. Here are some of the pictures I took at the hospitals and of the ambulance while we were waiting. Ally and Ella are both doing fine, Ally also had pink eye, but her eyes have cleared up now. I wouldn’t recommend riding in an ambulance, it’s not nearly as cool as you think it would be when you are well and it’s very bumpy.

We're back!

2009-03-17T13:01:00.008-06:00

We made it home safely from visiting Adam's extended family in Illinois yesterday afternoon just in time to put the kids down for a much needed nap in their own beds! We had a great time and the loooooong drive wasn't even too bad with the kids. I tried to plan ahead as best I could with activities for the kids to do in the car and we took every movie we own for them to watch too. I'd rate the kids behavior in the car for all 32 hours (that's 16 hours there and 16 hours back broken up into 4 days of driving) at an 8 out of 10 which is about as good as it gets! We got to see a lot of family that we hardly ever see including Pam's sister (Adam's aunt Pris), her daughter and son-in-law Keri & Tony, Adam's grandparents, Randy's sister (Adam's aunt Nancy) and her husband Chuck, Adam's cousin Kristen and her husband Cole and their 2 kids Eli & Elise, and Adam's cousin Zach and his wife Lauren. Anyway, I took lots of pictures. We happened to be there for Eli's 3rd birthday and the kids had so much fun. Ally and Eli TOTALLY hit it off and were best buds the whole time which left Bran feeling like a bit of a 3rd wheel, but he still had fun too. Above are just a few of the pics from our trip.

Ella is 10 months old (and some other pictures)

2009-03-04T14:53:00.004-06:00

Part 2-Education Smeducation

2009-03-02T14:24:00.003-06:00

Thanks for those of you who have given me advise on this subject. I thought some of you might be interested to hear what I have done and decided to do and for the rest of you, just disregard this post. :)
First of all, let me give you a little more background information on the situation to give you a little more of a clue on where I'm coming from. Me and all of my siblings went to Honey Elem. when we were kids and most of us loved it. Next, my sister Amy's kids currently go to Honey Elem. Now, my sister Sarah, is a 6th grade teacher for LISD and has been for 4 years. What I did was got on the internet and checked out ALL of the elementary schools in LISD and picked out some other schools that I liked. I then called those other acceptable schools and inquired about having Ally transferred there and added her name to the "waiting list" for Kindergarten 2009-2010. The other schools basically told me the same thing as Honey did which made me think it was more of a LISD standard answer instead of something else. I then called LISD Central Office and asked to speak to someone regarding a transfer within LISD. The woman I talked to was less than helpful and I'm now thinking that she may have just been an assistant or secretary or something instead of the person I needed to talk to. She told me that I would have to go to our home school and have the principal sign yet another transfer request and that I would have to bring it to Central Office where it would be submitted to a "Mr. Frazier" for review. She then said that I wouldn't be able to find out if the transfer was approved or not until after the Kindergarten Orientations on April 8th to which I replied, "So my daughter won't be able to attend her Kindergarten Orientation because we're waiting on paperwork to go through?" She told me that Ally could go to an orientation, but it would have to be at our home school. Why would I want to send Ally to a Kindergarten Orientation at a school she won't be attending? Anyway, I continued to get frustrated with this woman and decided to just end the conversation at that point. Since then I've been talking to my mom and sister about what I should do and have come to the conclusion that all of this is stupid. There is no reason to go to yet another school and fill out the same transfer paperwork that I filled out at all the other schools; and I'm certain all of those transfer requests will be forwarded to Central Office anyway, so there is no reason for me to have to load up 3 kids and run all around town to hand something to them in person when they'll already be getting several copies of the same thing from me for however many different schools. So, I've finally decided to just sit back and give it up to God. He will put Ally in the school she needs to be in and there is no reason for me to freak out about it. We'll either be accepted to one of the schools of our choice at which time we will choose the best one for us, or we won't and she'll go to our home school (not homeschool, but our home school) and that will be okay. Whatever school is the one, I guess we'll just have to make a point to go take a tour of the campus and stuff before she starts since she won't be going to any orientations.
I guess I have a hard time not controlling things. I tend to be over dramatic about things that mean something to me so I guess I should have seen this one coming, but that wouldn't make it any easier. I guess this subject also hits a soft spot for me since it is my oldest child we're talking about here starting school. She should still be a baby, not old enough to be thrown out into the real world without me there to make sure the mean kids don't pick on her. Oh man, if it's this bad now, I'm going to be a basket case when it comes time for her to actually go to school. :)

Education Smeducation

2009-02-26T14:53:00.004-06:00

Sorry there are no pictures with this post. I'm extremely aggravated at the moment. This morning while Ally and Branson were in Super Kids, I went to Honey Elementary to see about getting Ally transferred there and enrolled for Kindergarten in the fall. We live in a different school district than Honey, hence the transfer, but I've been told by other people who have had their kids transferred there that it's not a big deal. I also thought I was doing this super early since it's still February and school wouldn't start until August/September. When I arrived I noticed a sign on the front door of the school that said all 2009-2010 transfers must be requested no later than March 3rd so what I thought was really early turned out to be just in the nick of time. How was I supposed to know? How is anyone supposed to know when school even starts if they don't already have kids in school or have their names on some kind of list to get mail-outs or something? Anyway, I went to the office and let them know that I wanted to have Ally transferred to Honey for the fall and that's when they started the speech. It basically said that I could fill out a simple transfer request today, but they wouldn't even know if they would have room for any transfers until after they do their Kindergarten Orientation (which is one of the things I really wanted Ally to go to) in April and had all of their neighborhood kids enroll and then gave anyone who was ESL (English as a Second Language) a spot since they were the only ESL school in that district and then after all of that they would see if there was any room left for any transfers. I've considered the fact that they might just be saying that because they have to tell everyone that, but it sure didn't sound like they were just saying it. Anyway, I filled out the request and asked if they would call me when they knew if they had room and they told me that I would have to call them. How rude! I don't really know what to do now. If I wait until April to call them and they tell me that they are too full to enroll Ally then I have missed the deadline of March 3rd to put in another transfer request and I really don't want Ally to go to our district school. Should I go to some other schools and fill out transfer requests with them also as a back-up? Am I even allowed to do that? What if she gets accepted to all of the schools we requested a transfer to? Anyway, for all of you teachers out there, especially LISD teachers, I'm starting to lose faith in the system and need some good advise and quick too. March 3rd is Tuesday.

A whole lot of nothing

2009-02-19T22:15:00.005-06:00

So a lot has happened this month for not really having anything happening, if that makes any sense to anyone. I usually download the pictures in my camera every couple of weeks or if there’s an event or something, but I’ve neglected to do that this month so far and when I got it out today there were 84 pictures waiting for me! Most of them were just random shots and that’s what I’m posting today. The ones of Ally in the scrub shirt and nurse hat are from “what I want to be when I grow up” day at Super Kids. She kept asking us to tell her what she wanted to be and when we didn’t indulge her she said she wanted to be a dentist. I was trying to get all my creative juices flowing, but just couldn’t think of how to dress her where people would be able to tell she was a dentist. Luckily she changed her mind at the last minute and said she wanted to be a nurse so I used one of my old Master Follies costumes and she looked so cute. Since that day she’s been changing her mind about what she wants to be, but I told her she’s got plenty of time to decide.  Some of the other pics are from my grandma’s porch swing where I used to swing as a kid. It was really fun visiting there and seeing my kids do the same things that I used to do without me even directing them which way to go. Anyway, we’re doing well here and are preparing for a BIG trip to visit Adam’s grandparents and other family members in Illinois the 2nd week of March. I don’t know if I’ll post again before the trip, but I’ll definitely be posting after we get back. Please say a quick prayer for Adam’s grandpa, Cotton. His health is not good. I don’t know a lot of the details, but he’s been in and out of the hospital a lot over the past couple of weeks and they’ve found that he’s bleeding internally, but don’t know if he could make it through a surgery to fix the bleeding. Thanks for your prayers.

"All that I've sown"

2009-02-03T10:58:00.005-06:00

I believe when they put her in the ground
I think they buried part of me
Because I've been searching, I've been looking all around
But I cannot find the heart of me, the heart of me

So I'll put my fingers in this soil upon her grave
And I will plant for her a garden
And every flower, a reminder of her face
Will grow up graceful as a pardon

And all that grows is her story told
As life unfolds here before us
The peace I've found in this broken ground
I can see her in the harvest...of all that I have sown

Long before I was covered up in gray
Before the old had bent my bones
We grew our children in the red Georgia clay
They were our garden and our home

And all that grows is our story told
As life unfolds here before
The peace we found in that broken ground
I can see them in the harvest...of all that I have sown

And when my life is done
I pray the kingdom come
And take me to Glory
It's living inside me
It was planted like a seed
All to tell a story

I believe when they put me in the ground
There will remain a part of me
Because I've been seraching and the joy that I have found
Is living in my family...it's all that I have sown
written by Bebo Norman

In loving memory of Pamela Jean Tungate December 4, 1951-February 1, 2008

Hello Again...

2009-01-27T12:30:00.005-06:00

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted so I figured I'd better get on it. Not a whole lot has been going on here. Branson got ANOTHER double ear infection on Friday, but we had the weekend for him to recover so I think he's back to normal for now. That poor kid, he's had 3 double ear infections in the past 2 months and one of them was really bad. I just don't know what to do about that. Anyway, the girls are doing pretty good.
My sister found out on Friday that they are having a baby girl!!! We were all so excited and Sarah and Carl were so cute about it. I put in a picture of her and her little belly above.
I don't really have much else to say right now. Sunday will be the one year anniversary of Pam's death and it's so strange to think that it's been that long already, but at the same time it feels like so long ago. I've been having trouble a lot lately thinking about how Ella never got to meet her and it just makes me so sad. I just hope that we are able to paint an accurate picture of Pam for the kids so they can know who she was when they get older.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I've added a new blog to my bloglist on the side bar; it's my sister-in-law, Valisa's blog so if any of you are interested please check it out.

The long awaited...

2009-01-06T15:30:00.006-06:00

As you can see we had a great Christmas!!! Everything was just grand until Ally went and got pneumonia the Saturday after Christmas. We caught it early so it wasn't so bad that hospitalization was a possibility, thank God. After we got her on the mend Branson got the 2nd double ear infection of the month and the doctor told us it was really bad so he got on some pretty heavy meds too. I took Ella with me to Bran's appt because she wasn't acting like her happy self, but was told that she looked good even though she had a crouppy sounding cough and her nose was running like a faucet. That weekend (this past weekend) was really bad with 3 sick kids and Ella was just getting worse and finally got fever on Sunday so I took her back in to the doctor on Monday and sure enough, she had an ear infection too. Now we're all just trying to catch up on all the sleep we've missed while taking care of and being up with sick kids. I'm really glad they all waited to get sick until after Christmas and we really did have a great holiday, but now we're just recovering. I hope everyone has a happy 2009!

More pictures and Tagged...

2008-12-16T16:19:00.005-06:00

Rachel tagged me so here it goes...

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Shogun Japanese Steakhouse
2. Mi Tio's
3. Chili's
4. Rosa's
5. Cheddar's
6. Babe's (DFW area)
7. Macaroni Grill
8. Joe T Garcias (Ft. Worth)

8 Things that Happened Today:
1. Branson slept late enough for me to take a shower
2. I took a shower
3. Called the doctor to get Ella some medicine for congestion
4. Gave Branson the medicine we got at the doctor's yesterday
5. went to my mom's house
6. fed Ella yogurt
7. went to the Quick Quack Car Wash
8. spanked Branson for getting up 4 times during nap time

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Christmas!!!
2. Ella being willing to eat more than just yogurt and sweet potatoes
3. my kids being well
4. Adam getting home from work
5. seeing my kids faces as they open their Christmas presents
6. having Adam home for a 4 day weekend for Christmas
7. eating Christmas yummies!!!
8. someday having a clean house again :)

8 Things I'm Scared Of:
1. something bad happening to my kids
2. something bad happening to Adam
3. dying young and leaving Adam to raise our kids alone
4. losing Adam and having to raise and provide for our kids alone
5. losing my parents
6. losing anyone in my family
7. the economy crashing
8. large bodies of water with unknown depths and unknown creatures in them

8 Things I Wish For:
1. Ally to stay happy and healthy
2. Branson to stay happy and healthy
3. Ella to stay happy and healthy
4. to survive Branson's childhood and still have some energy left
5. that Ella will know Pam even without having ever met her
6. Adam to stay happy and healthy
7. Me to stay happy and healthy
8. that Adam stay happy and stress free in his job

8 Things I Watch on TV:
1. Heroes
2. Chuck
3. House
4. CSI (the original)
5. CSI NY
6. Life
7. Little People Big World
8. John & Kate Plus 8

8 People I TAG:
1.Dasher
2.Dancer
3.Prancer
4.Vixon
5.Comet
6.Cupid
7.Donner
8.Blitzen

Merry Christmas!!!

An Emotional Weekend...

2008-12-08T14:20:00.005-06:00

We're all basically exhausted and are anticipating it taking us a while to recover from our weekend. We started out having a tough day on Thursday because it would have been Pam's 57th birthday. We got up really early and went out to the cemetery before taking the kids to Super Kids and before Adam went to work. I knew it might be a hard day, but I didn't expect it to be as hard as it was for me. Looking back over the past 10 months, I never really broke down completely over Pam's death. I definately had rough patches and I've cried here and there and I certainly miss her and think about her all the time, but that was about it. I guess loosing a loved one just does weird things to people. Anyway, all day Thursday I kept thinking about how we celebrated her birthday last year. We went to Olive Garden, her favorite, and she got her favorite dish, but could barely even eat 2 bites because her mouth was overtaken with sores from the chemo and was just like one giant open wound, but she never complained once. She seemed happy and was smiling as best as she could. I made her chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and she tried to eat one with the same result as the dinner, but again she didn't complain once. Then she opened her presents and she just seemed so happy despite how sick she really was. Anyway, it was just really a hard day, even for Ally who seemed unusually melancholy all day so when I asked her if she was okay she said, "no, I'm having a hard day." When I asked why she said, "because of Pamma." That just broke my heart.
Friday I did all the decorations and made the dessert pies for the rehearsal dinner so that kept me busy ALL day and I didn't have much time to think let alone get everything ready including the kids to get to the rehearsal for the wedding in time. It all turned out so well! After the rehearsal I made Adam and the guys leave to go have a sort of "bachelor party" if that's what you can call it and my sister and I cleaned up the dinner. It wasn't a big deal at all to clean up, but just kept the kids up really late. That's okay every once in a while, but this just wasn't good timing to have the kids not get their sleep so they were extremely emotional on the way home at 11:30pm. I then had to get Ally in the bath so I could roll her hair for the wedding the next day. Her hair does beautifully when she sleeps in rollers and I basically don't have to do anything to it so I knew that was the way to go. I think she went to bed at midnight at the earliest.
The wedding was at 2pm, but pictures were scheduled to start at 12:30pm so we got ready in time and got there and no one else (besides Adam's brother and his family) were ready so we waited. Anyone who has young kids knows that waiting any longer than about 15 minutes doesn't go over so well so the kids were running all over the place and were fighting and crying and everything else and by the time everyone was ready for the pictures they had just about had it. I really hope the photographer was able to get some half-way decent shots. When it was actually time for the wedding the kids really did great in spite of being overly tired and emotional. I was really off my game and really didn't get hardly any pictures, but above are some that I did get (sorry they're out of order--I did put a couple in there of the kids at Pam's grave; sorry if that doesn't sit well with any of you). Notice that there are NONE with the kids smiling. I'm so anxious to see the professional pictures next week to see if there are any good ones of the kids because they just weren't feeling it for my camera. Anyway, the wedding went great and Randy and Lynda are now having a good time in Hawaii, so although it was a very emotional weekend, it was a successful one!

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures

2008-12-03T15:37:00.006-06:00

Okay, we had a great Thanksgiving break and as usual, I took tons of pictures. Then on Sunday we had our yearly family pictures made so these are a few of those. My mom made the girl's dresses for Adam's dad's wedding this weekend so we thought we'd just have their pictures made in them. Anyway, Ella finally started sitting up last week so there are some pictures of that too. I'm sure I'll post again next week with pictures from the wedding. Ally is a flower girl so you know I'll take a million pictures. :)

Accomplishment!

2008-11-25T13:52:00.003-06:00

Well, I survived my weekend alone, but didn't get as much done as I had wanted to. Doesn't that always happen? I did get a good start though so I guess that should count for something. When I make plans that don't HAVE TO get done things never go the way I think they will and that's sort of what happened this weekend. It turned out that Ella is extremely fond of her brother and sister and was very much shaken up when they left because she refused to eat all weekend until they returned. Since she didn't eat, she didn't poop either which made it a pretty rough weekend for me as far as trying to take care of her. Then our oven decided to quit working, which is really bad timing because we don't really have the money to go get a new range. I decided to try and figure out what was wrong with it and realized that it was just the bottom heating element that went out so I went and bought a new element figured out how to install it myself, buying us at least a little more time before we have to get a new oven altogether. It really wasn't hard once I cleaned all the corrosion off of the old bolts that were holding the old one on and I really felt a sense of accomplishment that I was able to fix it all by myself. I think I forget sometimes that I can take care of myself. I've been married for 8 1/2 years now so I've gotten used to having Adam "take care" of me. I guess I needed a weekend alone to remember that I can be independent and that it's okay and even good to be independent even when you're married and a mother. Anyway, I have a lot to do in preparation for Thanksgiving so I probably won't post again until next week. I hope everyone has a great holiday with friends and family. :)

On Our Own

2008-11-21T17:17:00.004-06:00

Aren't our puppies cute?! They're getting big and are SO fat. They're ready to start eating puppy chow now.
Anyway, this weekend Ella and I are on our own. That's right, Adam, Ally, and Branson have all gone to Ft. Worth for the weekend for our nephew Ben's birthday. I had to stay behind because I have a singing gig tomorrow afternoon that I had committed to almost a year ago. My gigs have really slowed down this year since I've had Ella, but we're still doing some recording here and there and should have our 2nd CD out sometime next year and we still have a few gigs scheduled and will probably get a couple more at the last minute for Christmas parties and the like.
So, since I'm on my own and just have one child for the weekend, I have a huge long list of stuff that I need to do. I've decided not to actually make a physical list (which I normally do for everything) because I'm afraid that I won't accomplish as much that way, but I guess we'll see how that pans out. My first task is to completely clean out Ally and Branson's rooms and get rid of at least half of all of their toys in preparation for all the new toys that come with Christmas. I think that alone might take up the entire weekend, but even if that's all I get done, it will be a huge success! In the meantime, please pray for Adam and my babies to have a very safe and uneventful trip there and back. I very rarely remember my dreams, but last night I had a very weird nightmare about them not having a safe trip and it's sort of freaked me out all day. Maybe it's silly, but pray for my nerves too. I haven't ever been away from the kids and Adam at the same time before and it just feels unnatural, for lack of better words. I guess it's good that it feels unnatural, but you know what I mean. Well, I better get started. I'm praying for motivation!

Nothing much...

2008-11-14T12:37:00.005-06:00

Okay, I don't know what I did, but as I was uploading these pictures instead of showing the pictures it just showed a bunch of gibberish so I didn't know where to type in little comments about each picture...weird. Anyway, the pictures are just of random moments in our house. Ella loves that jumper and even falls asleep in it! The eye patch Ally is wearing is just a toy, she didn't hurt her eye or anything. ;) So, I didn't really have anything to say, but just thought I'd post some more pictures. My sister, Sarah, had her 2nd sonogram and everything still looks just perfect!!! Don't forget to check out her blog at http://skline3386.blogspot.com or you can just click on the link to her blog (A Day In the Life...) on my side bar. Well, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ella's new love...

2008-11-10T15:04:00.004-06:00

I'm really not good with computers so I'm hoping that I did this right. It's supposed to be a little video clip of Ella in her new love, the jumper. She's been getting in it for a little while now, but would pretty much just hang out in it. Now she jumps and jumps and loves it. Sorry it's sideways, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it and I'm sorry for my squeaking! I love my babies and I tend to get a little, okay, a lot squeaky when I talk to them; plus, they respond quite well to it and it eggs me on to keep doing it. :) Also, a random bit of good news for us is that Ella FINALLY started eating!!! We've been trying to get her to eat baby food for a really long time and now that she's over 6 months old I was getting really worried that she was never going to eat and that I would have to take her to the doctor to see about some kind of baby food eating therapy or something, but today we had a breakthrough! It sounds quite silly, I realize, but I really was concerned. Please keep Ella in your prayers that she continues to keep eating baby food and eventually moves on to regular food.

The Invisible Mother

2008-11-07T15:07:00.005-06:00

My mom sent this to me in an e-mail and I wanted to share it with all you mothers out there:
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'
Obviously, not.
No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: 'Can you fix this? Can you tie this? & Can you open this?'
Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'
It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'
In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.
When I really think about it, I don't want my daughter to tell the friend she's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want her to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to her friend, to add, 'you're gonna love it there.'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot see if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women. Great Job, MOM!

Halloween pictures

2008-11-02T19:29:00.005-06:00

Pebbles Flintstone

Handy Manny

Snow White

I'm relieved that Halloween is over! It's always fun in retrospect, but not so much when it's actually happening, at least not when you have 3 kids! :) As you can see from the pictures, I didn't get any with all 3 of them together. That's because at least one of them was not cooperating at any given time, which is usually the case. My sister Sarah carried out her Halloween tradition and took Ally and Branson to the Spooky Science Spectrum Carnival early on in the evening which was probably the highlight of the kids night. It's not really "spooky," but more just good clean fun and the kids just had a ball! After that we had a successful night of trick or treating (or should I say trunk or treating) and carnival fun at church and made out with entirely too much candy for one household (that's really bad news for someone who has as big of a sweet tooth as I do)! Anyway, we all had a good time and are glad that Halloween only comes once a year (or at least I am)!!! :)

Hooray!!!

2008-10-30T09:42:00.003-06:00

Okay, I never post this much. This is like the 3rd time this week, but I've got some exciting news that I wanted to share. My sister, Sarah, has been battling infertility for 2 years now and they've gone through a lot, but it has all paid off because she is pregnant!!! It's still early, 7 weeks, but she had her 1st sonogram yesterday and everything is perfect so she gave me the okay to spread the word. I've been biting my tongue for the past 3 weeks that I've known. Anyway, she's due on June 20, 2009, my birthday! I would like to solicit your prayers that she has a smooth, uneventful pregnancy. :) If any of you know her feel free to check out her blog. I have the link to it on the side bar. She doesn't update very much because she doesn't think anyone reads it so I'm trying to remedy that.

Cheer Up Ella Jean...(sing to the tune of Cheer Up Sleepy Jean by the Monkeys)

2008-10-29T13:06:00.004-06:00

Sleepy Ella Jean

Melancholy Ella

3 twinkies!

Daddy therapy

Miss Ella Jean is sick! This is the first time she's been sick and I'm so grateful that she hasn't gotten sick before, but it was bound to happen some time. She's just got a "cold," but her poor little nose is so stopped up and runny at the same time and she's been having to breathe out of her mouth. Anyway, she hasn't been smiling much the past couple of days and it's just breaking my heart to see her like this. I hope she feels better soon. She'll be 6 months old tomorrow and is scheduled to have her picture made in the morning so I hope she's feeling better by then.

More new things...

2008-10-27T20:09:00.005-06:00

Ella's 1st attempt at panty hose!

The after effects of tiny pig tails

Ally and Scooter the puppy

Both puppies

The rear-view of our new ride!

Front-view

The new Tungate Saturn Relay

As you can see by the pictures, we've had some new things happening this week! For starters, we made it through our long week last week and bought a car on Adam's 1st day off of work. I've never been the type who said they would never drive a minivan and when we found out I was pregnant with Ella, I started really wanting one. Then we only had a Toyota Corolla and a Saturn S-Series so they were both tiny cars, but were adequate. I knew we would be hurting when I kept a little girl last year and we somehow squeezed 3 car seats in the tiny Corolla. Anyway, my parents have been so good to us and when we had Ella they gave us a Dodge Intrepid and that was a huge improvement from the tiny car, but we were still cramped. Well, we sort of half-heartedly tried to sell the Corolla ourselves and had no luck so we decided to just go and look and see what sort of deals we could find out there and what sort of money we could get for our Corolla and Intrepid as trade-ins and we found a really good deal on a used car and took the dive! The kids are really proud of it and every time we have to go somewhere Bran asks, "are we going in my new car?" It's pretty cute.
Next new thing is that we had puppies! My parents have a female English Pointer and a little over a year ago they bought us a male English Pointer because they wanted to breed their dog, but couldn't really raise the sire along side the dame. Anyway, we bred them in August and had puppies early this morning. The pictures show 2 female pups and there was a male who didn't make it. It was a small litter, but we're happy with them! If anyone is interested in registered full-blood English Pointer puppies, they'll be 8 weeks old on 12-23-08 right in time for Christmas! Yea!
Well, that's about all I've got for now. Branson is sick today (yes, again) and has been punier than I've ever seen him. It's just sad to see him like this because he's so high energy normally.

A loooong week

2008-10-20T13:34:00.005-06:00

Ella being "big" with Uncle X

Ella's first tooth! She got it Saturday night after 2 weeks of agony.

Sweet sisters

Bran and Ella looking the same! I never really thought they looked that much alike before this picture!

Adam has been working at the prison since July, but some things are still new. He's in a rotation with the other caseworkers for working weekends so he only has to work one weekend every 8 (or maybe it's 9) weeks and he gets to flex the extra two days off the next week. It's great that he'll have a 4 day weekend after working 10 days straight. Since he's been new and in training and all of that this past weekend was his first weekend to work. Today is his 8th straight day to work and my 8th straight day with no breaks from the kids. Ally and Branson do go to Super Kids on Tuesdays and Thursday's so I've got that break, thank God, but that never seems to be enough. Throughout this long week I've noticed my temper getting shorter and shorter and it's been hard not to lose it at times for just little minor things. It takes times like these for me to really notice just how much help Adam is with the kids. He is such an involved dad and the kids really love that! It also helps that I'm not the "bad guy" all the time. Anyway, I'm trying to keep my sanity in tact through Wednesday. I'll let you know how that goes. ;)

Pumpkins and Stomach Bugs

2008-10-13T14:10:00.004-06:00

Xander, Ally, Hadley, Ella, Branson & Jillian (cousins)

Pretty Ally!

Handsome Bran

Sweet Ella

Ally & Hadley, best cousins!

My sister and I took all of our kids to the pumpkin patch and took tons of pictures. The sun was really bright so they are squinting in most of them, but I thought they still turned out really well. My mom bought each one a pumpkin after we were done taking pictures, but I didn't let her get Branson one. He got in trouble at school on Thursday for hitting 2 different kids and I just don't know what to do about it. He's really aggressive at home and hits or bites or pushes or pulls hair for no reason all the time so I was sort of expecting to hear about him doing it at school too, but was disappointed at the same time because I was holding out hope that he would be a good boy at school. Anyway, he was the only one who didn't get a pumpkin, but he didn't seem to care so that plan didn't work. My mom has a saying that fits him so perfectly, "he didn't mean to be bad, he just couldn't help it!" My grandma used to say that about my dad when he was a little boy and I can picture him being exactly like Branson too. If we can just survive him through these younger, curious years then I think he'll be a really great guy!
On another note, Ally, Branson and I have all just gotten over the stomach bug. Ally got it first, but it just lasted for about 6 hours and during the night. The next morning she woke up and acted like she felt fine and that was it. Then it hit me on Saturday and it hit me hard! I was totally down for the count. Adam went to the Tech game with his dad and when he left I was feeling a little off, but had no idea what was to come. I went to my mom's with the kids and it's a good thing I did becasue I was absolutely no good. My mom took care of the kids while I laid on the couch only getting up to run to the bathroom. Adam came to get us after the game and took care of the kids for the rest of the night. Then Branson started throwing up in the middle of the night. He got the worst of it, I think, because he continued being sick through midday Sunday and even got a fever over 102. We're all better now, thank God! The stomach bug is the worst!

Thinking Out Loud

2008-10-08T12:40:00.003-06:00

We got the kids all matching pajama's at Steve & Barry's in Grapevine this summer and it's finally gotten cool enough for them to wear them without sweating! Taking their pictures all together was an ordeal to say the least, but I got a few good ones. I like to think that if 2 out of the 3 are sitting still then it's a success and if even one is smiling then we did really well! :)

I'm not the type of person to put a sugar coating on anything and I tend to have an opinion on just about everything so if someone asks me something, they can be sure they will get an honest answer out of me whether it's pretty or not. I used to think that was a good thing, but I'm not so sure any more. I've come to realize that this quality of mine can be construed as more of a quirk and that it comes across pretty harshly at times so I've tried to dial it back a bit. I guess that's what I'm struggling with right now. There are some things going on in my extended family right now that have got me in sort of an emotional uproar and I just don't know how to handle it. I know it will work out eventually and it will be okay, but until it is I'm having a hard time. I know that what I just said was pretty cryptic, but this particular issue I'm dealing with right now is very delicate so I think it's best that I just leave it at that. I guess just pray for me that I can keep my mouth shut for the time being. I don't want to say something now that will stick with my kids and mold the way they see things in the future; they should form their own opinions without having my "slant" to guide them. Does that make sense?

Ella's 5 month pictures

2008-10-04T16:38:00.005-06:00

Ella turned 5 months old on September 30th. I'm a picture nut and I like to get the kids' pictures made every month their first year since they change so much so these are some of Ella's 5 month pictures. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but they sure do make having a picture made as difficult as possible these days. I've been everywhere to try and find the best prices, quality, and service and there are really not any portrait studios that have all three of those in Lubbock. I've found 2 places that are good enough, but there are always "catches." If you get the special price then you can only use it every 3 months so if I want Ella's picture made every month then I have to go to different places or I will end up spending ridiculous amounts of money. I don't want to complain because I was happy with these pictures and I was able to use a coupon and got a really good deal on the price, but I was very frustrated after spending 2 full hours at Sears when it shouldn't have even taken half that long. How can those photographers expect a 5 month old baby to keep it together for that long? And they would have taken even longer if I hadn't just insisted to the point of being rude about it. Okay, I'm done venting for now! ;)
The Cubs outfit in the pictures is one that my mom made for Ally before she was born. She gave it to Adam for his birthday when I was pregnant because he was so scared about having a baby girl so we showed him that girls can like baseball too! Ally had her picture made in it too, only she was too little to fit into it until she was 11 months old. LOL! I didn't realize how tiny Ally was until Ella came along and is wearing all of Ally's clothes from when she was a year old right now.

New things

2008-09-29T16:26:00.004-06:00

I finally decided to try out a new look for my blog. I like this for now, but will probably be changing it again in the near future. Who knows.
What I really wanted to write about is Ally. I've reached a new place in parenthood today. The place where my daughter has realized that she has the ability to do things for herself and doesn't have to completely rely on me to get everything she wants. We were at the store this morning and she saw something she wanted, asked for it and when she heard the opposite answer she wanted to hear she came up with the idea that she could start doing things to earn her own money, save it up and buy it for herself. Then she took it one step further and cleaned her own room during her "rest" time because I told her that she had a good idea and that I would talk to Adam about coming up with a list of chores she could do to earn a weekly allowance. She really did a good job too. I was impressed. Now all I need to figure out is how much she should get for an allowance and what chores we should expect her to do. She is only 4, but I was totally impressed by the job she did cleaning her room today.
It's so exciting and scary at the same time for my kids to grow up. Every day they do and say things that just blow me away. They're so smart and I'm so proud of them!

Pictures

2008-09-24T14:13:00.005-06:00

Ella rolling over

Ally posing not knowing that her brother is sticking his bottom right in the picture!

Branson's big smile!

Sweet Ella!

Ella holding my hand

Smiling

The kids being sweet to each other...for a change!

Go Red Raiders!!!
Well it's been a little while since I've posted anything because I've been sick for the past 2 weeks. Ally and Branson got strep throat a little over 2 weeks ago and then I started getting sick a couple of days later. I hardly ever get sick and it has been about 3 years since I've been really sick so I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic for a sinus infection, took the whole prescription (10 days worth) only to start feeling worse on the 10th day. Two days, two majorly swollen tonsils, and a lot of coughing later I went back to the doctor and got a different type of antibiotic and am now finally feeling a lot better. In the meantime, my house is a complete wreck...you'd think I had at least 12 kids by the looks of it! Anyway, I'm going to be playing catch-up for a while, but I'll try not to get too behind on posting. :)

Big Boy Branson

2008-09-03T13:41:00.003-06:00

1st night in his big boy bed...he hadn't moved an inch since we laid him down!

1st day wearing big boy underwear or as he calls them big boy panties :)

being silly in his big boy panties

I realize that the above pictures aren't the greatest, but they at least allow you to see what I was trying to show; that my little boy isn't so little any more. I guess it sounds like we've been way behind since Branson is nearing 2 1/2 years old and was still sleeping in his crib, still sucking on a pacifier, and not even a tiny bit close to being ready to potty train, but I assure you that if you spent a day with him you'd understand that we were doing the best we could. He's pretty incredible and very hard to describe, you just have to see him in action, so my saying that he's "all boy" or "extremely high energy" or "more stubborn than a mule" just doesn't cut it. You'll just have to take my word for it on this one! Anyway, Ella is getting bigger and is about to start eating cereal which means that I can start making her sleep through the night. Once she's sleeping through the night we can move her out of the bassinette in our room and into the crib in Ally's room and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. This is what has motivated me to get the ball rolling on Branson to leave some of his "baby" things behind and move on up into "big boy" territory. We started with the pacifier. One day he lost it and we couldn't find it anywhere so he just had to do without it for that entire day and night. I found it the next day, but held off until a moment of weakness on a Saturday morning at 6am when I just couldn't pull myself out of bed and I gave it back to him. We then decided that he could just have it at nap and at bedtime. We explained to him that it would stay in his bed and that's the only place he could have it and he said okay and has been good with that for 3 weeks now. :) Next we moved him out of his crib and into a regular twin size bed. This was hard for me because he had been climbing out of his crib since he was 14 months old (yes, I said 14 months) so we had to get one of those crib tents to keep him contained so he wouldn't fall and break his neck. This tent has been wonderful and I admit that I've probably taken advantage of it by leaving him in the crib, zipped up, while I took my shower in the mornings and have put him in there for time-outs because he couldn't get out, etc., but I knew that Ella would be in my room until Bran got out of the crib so it had to be done. I searched on-line for a bed tent for a twin bed and found a cool one that got good reviews and bought it. We put it on the bed and he was mezmorized with it and was so excited to sleep in his cool new big boy bed. He has slept in in for 2 weeks now and hasn't gotten up (at least not in the middle of the night) and even takes good naps in it too. Last issue was potty training. The thing I've dreaded the most. He's been talking about using the potty for months and months now because he hears Ally talk about it, but he's shown no interest in really trying it so I have held off, but he started preschool this week and they said they would take the class to the potty if we were training them so I wanted him to start before school. We started last week with pull-ups and had tons of accidents. He was frustrated and I was frustrated. I also had him sitting down because I wasn't really sure how to train him since he will have to sit down sometimes. Anyway, he was treating the pull-ups like diapers and was even calling them diapers so I thought that he might not be able to tell when he's wet so I put him in underwear so he would be uncomfortable when he had an accident and it was better, but he was still getting frustrated. I then decided to try having him stand up and he thought it was the coolest thing. We've been setting the timer for every 10 minutes until he goes and then every 30 minutes after he goes. Today he has only had one accident so we're making HUGE progress! I know this may not sound like any big deal to some of you, but I assure you that this is a very big deal. My son is turning into a real boy not a toddler any more. I'm so proud of him!

The Smile Award

2008-08-12T10:00:00.002-06:00

My best friend from high school, Rachel, gave me this award today. This is my first award and I felt really honored to get it, but a little undeserving at the same time. I've been feeling super grouchy these past couple of weeks for no one specific reason, but was just there. My kids are going bonkers all of the sudden and I've just been grouchy. Maybe this was the lift I needed! Thanks, Rachel, for giving me this award! For those of you who don't know, Rachel has been going through infertility for quite some time now and is on the verge of having IVF in the next week or so. She's had some hard times, but we're all hoping that this will be her time! Please send a little prayer her way! (http://www.rachelvarney.blogspot.com)

My duty now is to grant this award to 5 blogger friends...

These are the rules:

1. The recipient must link back to the awards creator the babblings of mere

2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.

3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself

4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.

5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.

6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.

7. You must thank your giver.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:

1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times--we are all human)

2. Must love one another

3. Must make mistakes

4. Must learn from others

5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world

6. Must love life

7. Must love kids

And here are my 5 recipients:
1. Larissa ( http://lleem23.blogspot.com ) is one of the strongest people I know. We met in college at LCU. She's been through so much and refuses to let anything get in her way. I can't even begin to describe how much I admire her as a person and as a Christian! You should read her blog if you don't already. It will make you smile!
2. Marta ( http://kylemartadarby.blogspot.com ) is another friend from LCU. She has 2 kids about the same ages as Ally and Branson and she's always talking about how much of a blessing they are in her life and how much they make her smile!
3. Lyndsey ( http://robbyandlynsey.blogspot.com ) is also a friend from LCU. I haven't seen her since college, but I've kept up with her through her blog. She always seems to see the brighter side of life and is just so cute being excited about her 1st baby due in November!
4. Angelina ( http://angelbrummett.blogspot.com ) is another friend from college. She's got a real love for life and every memory I have of her is with a HUGE smile on her face! She's now a nurse and I know that her patients really benefit from her loving smile!
5. Lauren ( http://lauren527.blogspot.com ) is also a friend from LCU, was a roommate in college, and was in my wedding. We had an instant connection back then and have kept in touch since. She's an avid blogger and is an overall happy person. Her 3 yr old son is about to have his tonsils taken out and despite her worries about the surgery, she's kept on smiling.
I want to encourage everyone to check out all of my recipients blogs! And recipients, don't forget to pass the Smile Award on!

Ally's 1st haircut

2008-08-06T14:44:00.003-06:00

Well it took 4 years, but we decided that it was finally time to cut Ally's hair. It had gotten so long that she was sitting on it and it was getting difficult to maintain. I was sad to have to cut off those beautiful curls, but I'm hopeful that the new ends will curl up some so maybe it won't be a total loss. Before he cut any off, we put it into a low pony tail and he cut above the tie so we could keep the pony tail with the curls. That's what she's holding in that last picture. It's weird how sentimental one gets over something as silly as hair that will eventually grow back.

Remembering...

2008-08-01T14:23:00.004-06:00

6 months ago today Adam's mom passed away. It seems like so long ago and not that long ago at the same time. The pictures above are some of my favorites that we have of her. I'm not trying to dwell on it and I'm not consumed by my grief or anything, but I do think of her often and I miss her and I always will. I was so blessed to have her as my mother-in-law. She was so good to let me be who I was as a person, as a wife, and as a mother without ever trying to tell me how I should do something or how I should be or how I should parent my children. She never had a bad thing to say about anyone and was a friend to everyone, even people that had trouble making friends because of character flaws or weird quirks. She saw the good in everyone and had a way of making people feel like they were special. She made me feel like I was special and she made me feel very loved.

In Loving Memory
Pamela Jean Tungate
December 4, 1951-February 1, 2008

More pictures...

2008-07-25T13:27:00.005-06:00

Sorry these pictures are in backwards chronological order. I'm just not that computer savvy.

Ella Jean Tungate

2008-07-25T13:19:00.002-06:00

What's new in 2008...

2008-07-25T12:24:00.002-06:00

Some of you may think that we've dropped off the face of the earth since it's been so long since I've posted, but I'm writing now to say that we're still here. A lot has happened to our family this year and I'm sure I could go on and on and on, but I'll try to just sum everything up so I don't end up writing a novel.
Well, as most of you know, Adam's mom had been fighting colon cancer for 4 long years. On February 1, 2008 around 7pm she left this world surrounded by her husband, sons, and daughters-in-law. It was one of the hardest things we've ever been through, possibly, the hardest thing and we still feel almost crippled by our loss at times, now nearly 6 months later. As Adam put it, I know she's way better off now, but it's hard to see that past our selfish sorrow.
Not quite 3 months later, on April 30th, miss Ella Jean Tungate was born. She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She is perfect and healthy; all that we could ask for! Her name is extra special because Ella was my great-grandma's 1st name and Jean is Adam's mom's (Pam's) middle name. We had decided on her name early enough that we got to tell Pam before she died. Her birth was such a happy occasion, but a little bitter-sweet at the same time because Pam wasn't there and I think that was the hardest on Randy.
Adam was able to take off an entire month when Ella was born to be home and help me, which was the best gift! During that time off he heard about a job opening at a prison in Post, TX (about 45 minutes away from Lubbock) and he decided to go ahead and apply for it. He'd been working for MHMR for 7 years and has gotten very burned out and was under-appreciated too. So he turned in the application and then we waited. He got called for an interview and it was all downhill from there. He was offered the position and after a lot of prayerful consideration he accepted. He started the new job as Case Manager for the Dalby Federal Correctional Facility on July 14th and is loving it so far.
After all of the above stuff going on in our lives, this next one doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but I assure you that it is. We've been participating in a house church for around 6 years now that consists mostly of my family (and their families) and a few other people. It's small, but it's intimate and it was a better fit than any of the other local churches we'd attended. Adam has been itching to get back into the structured church again for some time now, but I was totally against it. I think I had just been burned too badly by churches and what they were turning into and I just couldn't see past that to get anything out of (or put anything into for that matter) any church. Anyway, we talked and talked about what we should do until we came up with a plan. We would go to an early service and then to class and could still go to our house church. Then there was the question of where we would go. There were a lot of reasons that went into our decision, but we decided to start visiting South Plains Church of Christ and went for the 1st time last Sunday. I was preparing for the worst (including being prepared for our kids to embarrass us with horrible behavior during the service), but it was surprisingly good! I don't mean that bad in any way, but I was expecting to have to hold my eyes open because the sermon was so boring and it wasn't and our kids were as good as we could have wished them to be so we're planning to continue going there. :)
Okay, I think that pretty much sums up our year so far. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for our family and for all of the sweet notes and cards that you sent. I've sort of been in a funk of sorts and that's why I haven't written in so long, but I'll try to do better now. I'll post some pictures of sweet Ella Jean shortly!

Tiny Dancer part 2

2007-10-10T09:41:00.000-06:00

Getting in the groove

Holding hands with cousin Hadley

Posing before class

These pictures go with the prior post, but I was having technical difficulties and couldn't get them to download then. :)

Tiny Dancer

2007-10-10T09:04:00.000-06:00

We've started Ally in a pre-ballet/tap/jazz class. My mom has been taking her to class because it's during nap time for Branson and around the time that Shiloh's mom comes to pick her up, but I went to class with her last week just to see it for myself. It's really quite adorable. Ally is the youngest and smallest one in the class by far and she also has the shortest attention span. The teacher is constantly having to redirect her, which really makes me laugh, but overall she does well for a 3 yr old! The first day she came home after class and showed me some of the stuff she'd learned and it all looked the same to me, like a squat with her feet together, but it was really cute! She's got my gracefullness (yes that's an oxymoron...Carrie being graceful!) so it will be a sad day when she realizes that she has no coordination, but it's tons of fun for now. I think the best part is getting dressed up in her tights and little leotard! :)
I just tried to upload some pictures from her class, but it keeps giving me an error so I'll keep trying and will hopefully be able to get them up later today or tomorrow.

NEWS...

2007-09-27T12:48:00.000-06:00

Well, this post is pretty much self explanatory with just the picture so I thought I might leave it at that, but I figured I better say a bit more. I'm 8 weeks along right now so the due date is actually May 12th, but I usually get them here 2-3 weeks early (Ally was 3 weeks early and Branson was 2 weeks early) so I'm thinking it could be anywhere between April 28th and May 2nd. I was feeling pretty much normal until Monday and then major fatigue and morning sickness (or all day sickness!) hit me like a ton of bricks. I was tired with my other pregnancies, but don't remember feeling this tired this early on and I also wasn't sick with the others like I have been with this one either. Hopefully I'll be feeling better really soon because my house is a big wreck and could really use a thorough cleaning. Oh well! Anyway, we're excited and yes, this has been planned ever since Branson was born. We had hoped it would have happened a couple of months sooner, but this was God's plan so we're very happy with it! :)

Prayers for Pam

2007-09-06T14:30:00.000-06:00

Last Friday we had the kids pictures taken with Pam and Randy, Adam's parents.

Here are some of my favorites!

Pam (Pamma), Branson & Ally

Branson, Randy (Nonnie), Pam (Pamma) & Ally

neither of the kids were cooperating during these pictures so this is the best of all

the ones with both Pam and Randy

He was finally happy when they brought out the balls!

This picture captures Ally's disposition just perfectly! She's such a sweetheart.

We finally got Branson to sit still and he has his tongue hanging out.

If it's not one thing, it's another!

Some of you already know this, but Adam's mom, Pam has been battling colon cancer for the past 3 1/2 years. They originally found the cancer while doing a routine, outpatient appendectomy that quickly turned into a 6 or 7 hour major surgery. She went through chemotherapy and was deemed cancer free about 6 months or so later. She then began having some pain in her abdomen about 6 more months later and it turned out that the cancer was back so she went through chemotherapy once again and was cancer free again about 6 months or so later. Well, she's been going in about every 3 months for various blood work and scans and whatnot and a couple of months ago one of her levels was a little elevated. They did a million scans and tests and found another tumor in the same spot in her abdomen. The original plan was to surgically remove the tumor (which is only about the size of a thumb nail) and just monitor her after that to see if chemotherapy could be avoided and things were looking really optimistic. She then started having some pain in one of her shoulder blades and in one of her femurs right next to her knee so they did some further testing that was inconclusive and ended up doing a bone biopsy (very painful!) to find out that it too was cancer and was the same kind of cancer she had in her abdomen meaning that it had spread. Since the cancer was spreading the surgery route wasn't going to work so she started her first treatment of chemotherapy yesterday and started daily localized radiation treatments on Tuesday. She's a tough lady, to say the least, but all of this mess is definitely taking its toll on her. I know God has a plan and that there is a reason that all of this is happening, but its just hard to see that sometimes especially when someone you love is hurting. Please keep Pam and our family in your prayers.

My apologies...

2007-08-17T08:10:00.000-06:00

I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I've written anything or posted pictures. We've had a full summer and I just haven't had the time to sit and write. We went on vacation at the end of June and got to see 5 different states (including Texas), Disney Land, Las Vegas, the Hoover Damn, and the Grand Canyon. The kids were really good despite the fact that we drove and they spent days in the car.

My mom and I have been teaching another class at the community center for 3-5 yr olds so as soon as we got back from our trip we were busy with the class 2 days a week and we had a full enrollment sheet so it was a little crazy plus Ally and Branson and all 3 of Amy's kids came too. Whew! Anyway, the class ended last week so it's been a little less hectic since then.

I'm still keeping Shiloh and she is getting so big! She's started eating baby food and cereal, has cut 3 teeth, can sit up from a laying down position by herself, and is now pulling up on things. I thought my life was crazy with Branson being mobile, but Shiloh's going to give me a run for my money! :)

Ally and Branson are doing well and are just as ornery as ever! Ally decided a couple of weeks ago that she wasn't going to take naps anymore, but she really needed to because she would get really grouchy and whiney and would be so tired that she would want to go to bed early so I started bribing her to get her to take a good nap. At first I took away her toys and TV priveliges, but when that didn't work I tried giving rewards. She's done great since then, but I'm sort of running out of prizes. We've gotten her Slurpees a few times and she really likes that so I guess we'll just keep feeding her sugar for now. Branson has been getting into and out of everything. He's climbed out of all of the contraptions that used to keep him like the exersaucer and swing so I've had to put him in the pack 'n play with toys in the living room or put up the baby gate to keep him in his room. If I don't trap him in somewhere then he's gone in 2 seconds and when I finally catch up to him he's in the cat litter or in the toilet or pulling out all the trash from the trash can. I can't even go to the bathroom without him getting into something. I don't know what I'm going to do when he figures out how to climb out of the pack 'n play or climb over the baby gate. He's also become very accident prone. This weekend he pulled down his entire chest of drawers on top of him and he was stuck underneath it. I still can't figure out how he did it. Thankfully, he only got a few scrapes and bruises. Then the next day he busted his eye on the coffee table and we thought for sure it would be black (it only turned green though) and the next day he busted his lip and it bled so much that it dripped on the floor. Then yesterday he was playing with Ally in her room with the little kitchen set she has and he hit his head so hard on the closet door that it left a HUGE goose egg on his forehead and it really scared me. I thought he could have had a concussion. I put ice on it, but he didn't like that. It slowly went down over the next few hours so we gave him some Ibuprofen and he was okay. I'm just worried that he's going to seriously hurt himself sometime. Adam says that we need to buy him a helmet to keep him safe. I guess all we can do is pray.

Well, I know this has turned out to be a really long post so I'll go ahead and wind it down. I'll try to get back on track of writing a little something about what's going on more often and I'm adding some pictures of the kids so you can see how much they've grown this summer.

Sometimes God works in obvious ways...

2007-04-30T10:06:00.000-06:00

I believe that God sends us signs. It can be a feeling that you get in your gut, something that someone says to you that strikes you that certain way, or sometimes it's so obvious that it's like He wrote out exactly what you need to do in neon lights. God sent us one of those neon signs a couple of weeks ago in an e-mail. It was an e-mail from a family that we used to go to church with and it told about a horrible situation that they received a blessing from. It's a long story, and I'll spare you all the details, but there was a mother and her 3 kids (ages 6, 3, and 2 months) that was in a bad situation and had a history of drug abuse. She and the kids stayed with this church family for a couple of weeks in February and then they disappeared. They turned up at an ER in New Mexico in the middle of March with the 3 yr old son dead on arrival and the other two kids were no where to be found. The church family got an annonymous tip that the baby was here and to come pick her up and they did. CPS got involved and the mother and father of the kids completely signed over their parental rights to the other kids. The 6 yr old is going to live with an aunt, and the now 3 1/2 mth old baby is going to be adopted by the church family. Now back to the e-mail... Well, the e-mail gave a brief description of the situation and asked for help because they were not prepared to have a baby all of the sudden and had nothing for her immediate needs like formula, diapers, and clothes. She also stated that she was needing someone to keep the baby while they were at work. As soon as I read it I got one of those gut feelings I mentioned earlier so I talked to my mom and to Adam about it and e-mailed back that I was interested in keeping the baby. I immediately got a call back and was told that I was the answer to their prayers because they knew me and could trust me. That happened on a Friday and I started keeping Shiloh the following Monday (this was 2 weeks ago). Well, there was the issue of what to charge for full-time child care and I really had no idea so we decided that we would do some checking around and would discuss it and work it out at the end of the 1st week and it turned out that the amount we agreed upon is exactly the same amount that Adam gets for doing his on-call work (that I hate and he's not really liking it much either). That's the obvious part. Adam is going to do his last on-call week in May and then he will be done!!! At first I started to worry that I spoke too soon with offering to keep the her becasue that would make me having 3 kids at home during the week days, but God definately had a hand in this becasue Shiloh is such a good baby and I haven't even felt overwhelmed at all. Also, (this isn't really a sign, but it is definately a blessing) Shiloh's adoptive dad owns his own flooring business and, as some of you know, we've been trying to re-do our kitchen for close to 4 yrs now. Adam had stripped the floor down to concrete and filled all the holes to make it even and we even bought the padding and wood to lay, but it's been sitting there for about a year like that until last Friday! Shiloh's daddy came over and cut and layed all the wood for us and it looks absolutely beautiful! I put in some pictures of Shiloh and our new kitchen/entry hall floor above. :) Oh yeah, another neat thing is that Shiloh means gift from God! :)

Happy times...

2007-04-13T13:15:00.000-06:00

We got a big treat last night and this morning because my best friend, Kara, came to Lubbock to visit while her husband was at a conference thing at LCU. I thought Kara was crazy to travel 3 hours away from home when she is 36 weeks pregnant, but that didn't stop her or slow her down at all. She looks great! I love getting to visit with my friends, but I think I might love it more when Ally gets to play with friends around her own age that get along with her so well. There's just a sort of comfort that comes over me when I see her play with Hayden and Brylee. They are so well behaved; it's like I could have raised them myself! This may sound silly to some of you, but it's just nice to see Ally play with kids that have the same rules that she does. Of course I'm biased, but Ally is a really good girl and she struggles sometimes when she's around other kids that have "bad habits," so this visit was was extra wonderful because Ally had a great time playing and because I don't have to undo the damage of her picking up on behaviors that I don't allow in my house. Does that make sense? Anyway, we all had a great time and the pictures above show the evidence to prove it!!! :)