practice makes perfect

I have to beg them to take their karate clothes off (in 100 degree heat) just so I can wash them!

something sure is funny

just like everyone else

Don't your kids stand on the coffee table and give Bible School performances?

it's the thought that counts

As we watched the city workers with their construction trucks clean out the ditches in our neighborhood (temperature outside this afternoon is 100 degrees)....

GAVIN: It's so hot. They must be really thirsty.

LOGAN: Yeah, we should give them a drink of water.

GAVIN: Yeah, or we should give them one of my Capri Suns.

LOGAN: That's what God wants us to do.

GAVIN: Yeah, can we do that, Mom?

LOGAN: But God doesn't want us to let them inside our house even though it's so hot. Cause their shoes are dirty and it will get all inside our house and stuff.

The Squint Smile

At least he's willing to have his picture taken now, but this is what I get every time I ask him to smile for the camera.

So every picture looks exactly like these....

earning their keep

Well, at least they know how to make their own PB&J's!

always a scapegoat

Last night, I made my nightly bedtime rounds -- checking on each child, pulling up their covers, and kissing their sleeping foreheads. Logan's a light sleeper (like his mom) and sometimes wakes up when he hears me in his room. Last night he sat up in bed and incoherently stated, "NO! Gavin did it!" Poor Gavin, getting blamed for things he didn't do even while he's sleeping!

yellow tip in the house!

It's belt-testing time at The Dragon's Den next week, so imagine my surprise when Gavin came home with his yellow tip almost two weeks early! He started taking TaeKwonDo in March with Logan and Jay, and this makes him the youngest yellow tip in class! Go Gray!

Here he is on his first day of karate in March. Ready for what's coming.

And now we have a yellow tip in the house!

While I was on my blogging break...

In no particular order....and you'll have to wait for me to get caught up to see the pictures. We are busy having too much summer fun!


1. We went to Disney World.

2. Logan turned 6.

3. We had an early birthday party for Gavin with all his friends from school (summer birthday's are the worst when you're a kid!).


4. We had two whole weekends to ourselves while the kids were at Disney with Nana and Papa.

5. Nana turned 60.

6. In karate, Logan got a "Rising Star" patch (the only one in his school to have one).

7. Gavin got his yellow tip.

8. Gavin fell in love and graduated from pre-k.

9. Logan finished his first year of school with straight "E"s.

10. Ashley graduated and left us for a "real job" :(

11. Jay started a garden and it's going crazy!

12. The Allison's went organic

13. SUMMER IS HERE!