Christmas Extravaganza!

We had such a great Christmas! We started out with Christmas Eve for Josh's side at our house on Christmas eve, then we always have Christmas morning to ourselves followed by a family breakfast then off to my parents house for Christmas night. Here is our Christmas extravaganza!....

Christmas Eve...

then... I always take a Christmas eve picture of my kids... I love them, they are so sweet.

and.... they begged to open a present .... I thought Ok... I will let them open one I didn't think was all that great but... they loved it.

and now... dun, dun dunnnnn..... Christmas morning..

and the presents of the year... Will with his Kingdom's lego set and Kate got her first Pink .22!

and on to the last of the Christmas celebrations......

We are so blessed...... I love Christmas and most of all... I love love my family!

Kate's first annual Ornament exchange party!!!!!!

My mom's best friend Kay always had and ornament exchange party for her daughters and I thought it was such a fun idea so I decided to copy. So this year was Kate's first party! We started out by baking some cookies to decorate...















icing in jars>>>>>>>>>






We were missing a few of our dearest little friends but all the girls (and Will) had a great time. Will wasn't suppose to be here but Josh had to work out of town so he ended up being my helper.

after everyone was finished having as much fun as they could stand decorating.... we moved on to the ornament exchange! In years to come we will play some games along with it but I thought the girls might get their feelings hurt if someone kept stealing their ornament. So this year they each drew a number and got to pick out in order.

And here they are as a sweet group........

a little bit of baking...

Every year I try to make my gifts to my friends, neighbors and family. It usually consists of toffee and lots of other goodness, but this year I was wanting to mass produce faster and not have to take all day doing it. Well it still took all day but at least it's something new. With the help of my sweet Kate we started baking....

I got this idea from my friend Jami's blog... you should go check it out! And here I am trying to figure out what the heck I am doing.... anyway... I loved spending this sweet time with Kate. It's a memory I will cherish and maybe just maybe it's a memory she will pass on to her kiddos.

But I will say... our chocolate fudge filled cupcakes with peppermint icing turned out divine! and I am in love with these little jars, I can't believe they are just now making their entrance into my life. I have already found lots of uses for the left over jars.... you will see in my next blog post. Look how they turned out...

Oh our big big tree.....

Every year we have bought a real Christmas tree at The Troop 80 Boy Scout lot. Every year since we have been married in fact. We get bundled up and to get us in the mood Josh has his favorite song "Is that You? Santa Claus?" by Garth Brooks (and no, we do NOT like Garth Brooks other than this song) that he has played every year and danced around the room to. It is a sight to see. I have an ocd problem when it comes to picking out the perfect Christmas tree..... It has to be the biggest we can fit, really full and fat and almost without any flaws.... sometimes hard to find.  But oh I WILL find my tree.

and.... this year. I had to have this enormous tree because none of the others were sufficient to be in my house! Lets just say to put it lightly it was a difficult tree to get in the house, to get in the stand, to keep it from falling over, and to be straight. In the bottom picture is after a battle Josh had with the tree, and lost. He was now cutting off about a foot of the tree and saying not so cheerful words. Don't worry I sent the kids out of the room for this event..... and it was an event. But it always ends up working out even if we have to wire the dang thing to the wall! And it's glorious!

elf yourself!

Go pause my music before you push play so you can get the full enjoyment of these videos!!

or you could do this one!

and my favorite....

Give thanks with a Great Wolf heart......

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Give thanks, With a Great Wolf heart, Give thanks......" Well, at least that is how Kate thinks the song goes. Cutie girl. We had a great thanksgiving and are truly blessed with a great family!

We had and ate more than enough food to feed a small village. I am still stuffed. And notice my cutie birds, yep I made them. Thanks to Jami Nato for some inspiration!

Family Photo opp!

and another...

Great time with a great family!

A trip to Nonnies......

We hopped on a plane and headed south to Nonnies house. The kids were so excited they had never been on a plane before that they could remember. She lives south of Houston in a small town called Alvin. We rested and watched movies and ate yummy food. Then we headed to the beach for two days of fun. The first day we were in search of crabs, found lots of little ones but could never catch a big one. The other fishermen said it was too cold for the the big ones to come to the surface. The kiddos didn't care, they were just thrilled to be there. The second day we tried out fishing and that didn't pan out either but the kids loved gathering up as many sea shells as they could and trying to build the biggest sand castle/fort they could. Lots of good memories were made at the beach those two days. Memories I'm sure my kids will never forget. Oh, and I forgot bathing suites so that is why you see them in soaking wet clothes. oops.

Happy 70th Birthday! Uncle Geary..

Last weekend most of my family headed down to Austin to surprise my uncle Geary for his 70th birthday. My cousins planned a big, fun party to Roast and Toast him at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort.  We all had so much fun catching up after not seeing some of them for many many years. Family came from all over the United States. It really ended up to be such a great weekend with lots of good memories made. Turns out we have a pretty competitive family to put it litely.
The best part of the whole trip was the surprise party. To see the shock and surprise on Uncle Geary's face was priceless. The food was amazing and the stories were hilarious. Josh and I left the party thinking that was one of the neatest things we had ever been to.  It was so fun hearing stories of him being a good daddy, loyal friend and a bit of a stinker of a husband. My favorite and the one I laughed hardest at had to be the Coffeepoto el broko, no workie!  Good Good times......

just keep running.....

I did it... After 13 weeks of training, I ran my first half marathon! Yep 13.1 miles. However.... I did not do it in my desired finish time but I can say I finished. And that in itself is a big accomplishment to me.
There are so many emotions actually being there with 30,000 runners that I wasn't prepared for. I was so nervous and almost physically ill. I was so excited and scared all at the same time. When I walked into my corral, I looked in front and as far as I could see there were people and then I turned and looked behind me and there were more people as far as I could see. The energy was overwhelming and intoxicating. Once they said 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.... and we took off, all the nerves went away and it was so fun!... For about 10 miles anyway,... then I started not doing so hot. Oh well. I have already decided that I will be running Oklahoma City. I have proved to myself that I could do it, now I want to improve.
( and I will just say this,... I found no hidden comfort in those socks. they lied. )

Well 8 years ago today......

Today is our 8th anniversary! wow. I don't want to go into super duper lovie talk so.... I will just say... I love you Joshua Alan Franklin. May we have many many more anniversaries!

Busy Busy....

We have been incredibly busy lately. And it seems like everyone I talk to their life is as hectic as ours... so I guess it's just the season of life we are in. So I thought I better blog a little bit of what has been going on.

First Kate got glasses! We went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago because Kate had been running a fever on and off for a couple of days. So after waiting for 30 minutes in the waiting room then waiting another 30 minutes in the room... we finally see her and figure out that it's just a virus and treat it with tylenol/motrin and wait it out. Awesome, great tip for $70. But while we were there she thought she noticed Kates eye slanting slightly out, which I couldn't tell at all, and she suggested we go see an eye doctor. So we go and come to find out she has a much weaker eye than the other and its causing her vision in that eye to get worse and worse.... so here we are with our cute glasses. We had to get two pair, red and brown, just in case we needed it to match an outfit!

On to the next thing...

We had parent watch day at gymnastics to see all the new tricks our kiddos have been hard at work learning.. they are too cute!

This last weekend was the end to our NRCBA baseball season as a Bantam league player. We fought hard recovering from a loss early in the tournament and had to win our way back up to the championship. We won the first game but had to play them again because they hadn't lost yet and it was double elimination. So after playing 2 games on Saturday and 2 games on Sunday we fell short in the last game and got second place. Our boys were so sad until they realized that they too got a trophy! So it was all good...

We came home from playing two hard games to get ready for trick or treating and Lord of the Harvest. rush rush....  So we changed into costumes, well Kate did, and hurried out the door. I convinced Will that it was such a great costume idea to be a Texas Ranger baseball player since they are in the world series and he agreed, thank goodness! And yes, I made their treat bags along with the help of a sweet friend.



Yay for Fall!

We decided to go pick out some pumpkins to do a little craft project. So we went to our little neighborhood pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkins. Oh, and it's more fun sometimes to have company to join in on our fun so we invited Janie and Cade!

and the sweet lady at the pumpkin patch offered to take all of our picture!

Let the painting begin!

We all had so much fun.... Will, finished super fast and the Wii sounded a little more fun to him. Oh well, he participated for a little bit.

Here are the final products! My children are quite the artists! haha

For the Love of the Game!

Our lives have been consumed with baseball for the last 5 weeks and we have a few to go. If you ask Kate what have you been doing she will say, "during the week we go to school and on the weekends we play baseball."  Will has really improved in the last two seasons, but it is this season that he has become a baseball player.  Learning the skills of the game and knowing the feeling of winning and defeat have all come in to play this season. He loves the game of baseball and he desires to be good. He loves to practice and play catch with his dad, and he believes his daddy is ablsolutely the best at everything so what he says, is as if God is speaking, so it is the absolute truth. Or so Will thinks. haha. And Will is convinced that I really don't know what I am talking about when it comes to any sport. That's okay, because I remember feeling the same way about my mom too. Sorry mom.  As a mama it brought me to tears when we put him in his uniform and saw how grown up he looked. (I'm pretty sure Josh had a tear in his eye also but whose to say) When I found out I was pregnant with a boy my mind automatically flashed forward to this day of going and watching him play baseball. I love to watch him play. Not because he is so good ( but he is!) but because he is MY boy and I am just so proud to be his mama. And yes, I will be THAT mom who wears a button with her kids face on it! And Yes, we are the family that ALL wear Rangers t-shirts with our teams roster on the back to every game!(who knew) Love every minute of it!

opening day!

Opening day finally came and we were all so excited. And by "we" I mean Josh and Will. Josh and Will woke up bright and early to get out to their hunting spot early. And yes, Will got to miss school for this "holiday". He could not have been happier. Spending time with Dad and making life memories and tradition are waayyyy more important than anything he can learn in school, or so we believe. Kate and I didn't join them until the second half of the day. I packed us some sandwiches and snacks and a cooler full of water and we headed out. We went to one of Josh's favorite spots in absolutely the middle of no where.

We had so much fun! Sam did such an awesome job retrieving the birds and loved every minute of it. Kate was way more into it than I thought she would. She got to shoot her little .22 and wasn't scared or nervous at all. She was also our bird carrier. Sam would retrieve the birds and bring them to Josh and he would give them to Kate and she would take them to our cooler, she thought it was great. Will was completely in his element. And of course Josh hit everything that flew his way. I loved spending this time with my family building life long memories. They keep me constantly aware of how blessed I am to have them in my life. We have a great family!

Gettin' ready for dove season!

For our family, opening day of Dove Season is a National holiday right under Christmas and possibly above Thanksgiving. Will has been counting down the days for over a month until opening day. And if Josh is off work on opening day, since it falls on a Wednesday this year, I have already been told Will will be sick that day and HAVE to miss school. Oh well, family time is way more important than learning how to read! This year will be Sam's (our black lab) first year to test out his hunting skills. Watching him retrieve like a pro is almost like watching your kids take their first step. Almost. So.... look out dove. Ready or not, here we come!

piano lessons

Here lately Josh has been teaching Will a few things on the piano. Learning what the notes are and how to walk up from c. Most of the time it goes great and everything I hear is so encouraging. But I think today I have heard "if your figure touches that note again I am going to go get a pair of plyers out of my tool box and pull it off" a couple of times. Of course he is just joking, kind of. SO.... saying that, Josh is offering to teach other precious children piano at no cost! totally JOKING..... All the joking aside, I think this is so sweet and what a great skill he can pass on to our kiddos!

First Day of School!

We had alot of excitement getting ready for the first day of school. I love buying school supplies! I want to buy new sharpened pencils and cute folders and notebooks for myself, but I restrained myself and just got what was on the list for my KIDS. This was a big year. Kate is starting school for the first time and she is in PreK-4. Will is now in first grade and I can't believe it! I think I was more excited than my kids the night before. Not to have them gone from me but for this next phase of their lives. I still had this nervousness because you don't know who is gonna be in their class, who will they sit by, will they have a good connection with their teacher?? Just so many unknowns when you have had years of protecting them and then you send them out of your control to live their own lives. AGHHHH!!!!! But at the end of the day.... they had a great day and loved their teacher! yay! whew..... so here we go... let the year begin!

                             
                                                      Will and Kate ready to head to school!
      

So EXCITED!

 Hannah and Will are in the same class this year! They have been friends since

they were six months old!

Kate standing in front of the pre-school sign. She had to take this picture

because she has seen the exact same one of Will.

Kate and her pre-school teacher

pool days

To be a kid again....... when all you have to worry about is if mom brought enough snacks to the pool!

                                                      all the kiddos! Gentry, Kate, Cade
                                                                         Will and Jax

Gentry Grace and Kate Mercy

Cade and Will

Kate and her big green floaties

It's summer time, Baby!

Well, I am new at this so I thought I would start with what our summer has been like so far. We hit the summer running with Kate's ballet recital, Camp of Champions and baseball camp and a very fun fourth of July with great friends. We try to hit the pool at least twice a week and try to plan our week around the free movie playing. We are beginning to sleep in later and later everyday which makes to very unproductive days (its a perk to being a stay at home mom.) It's been a summer of very little makeup and when I do get ready for the day and actually do my hair and put makeup on my kids think we are going to church. That makes me think I should try to makeup on more often but it's not looking likely. That could be a pro or con to being a stay at home mom, the fact that you don't see other human beings that are adults, so you don't feel the need to put makeup on or if you do, they are other mama's and they don't have makeup on either! Well anyway, here are a few pictures of what we have done so far....

Kate Mercy the ballerina!

Kate and mama. She is in her tap costume.

Will at Camp of Champions riding his first calf!

Had a hard fall

Buddies. Will and Brody Black.

Kate at our 4th of July picnic

Will and Hannah playing kickball! Will is ready to steal home!