Thankgiving

We spent last week up at our deer lease and had a great time. There is a grove of trees where the kids love to go to climb. I'll put more pics up from the week later.

Pic of the Week (It's a new pic!)

Peyton had her first gymnastics meet this weekend, she had a blast and even brought home some hardware. The kids do four events and are graded on how they do on each. They are then given a medal for their overall performance, she recieved gold!

Kids Crazy in Love!

AAHHH....Time flies when you're having fun! We are coming up on 12 years in early December. (Is it me or do we look really young?)

Pic of the Week

This is a photo of Ethan and Eli Keller when Keith and I took them to an Astros game. Keith got in contact with the Astros marketing department because he thought they could use the pic and they ended up putting it in their summer program!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 32nd...Am I a lucky guy or what? (not really a question)

Pic of the Week

Oh Yea.......I know what you're thinking, where can I get a sweet suit like that?

BTW: that's me in the blue suit with my brother and sister. I think that I'm three or four at the time.

Pic of the Week

Here is a picture that just makes me smile when I see it.....

New Pic

Here is Morgan in the spring of 05 taking a drink while playing on the "slip n slide".

Pic of the Week

Owen learned his first lesson with hot objects......they burn. The little guy is so fast, he grabbed a curling iron before anyone could get to him. He sustained 2nd degree burns on his hand but everything should heal back to normal. Keep him in your prayers.

Joel and Jenny need to visit!!!

I'm telling you.....I just finished catching up with Joel and Jenny via their blog and they have some SERIOUS organization going on. To be as sleep deprived as I'm assuming they are with newborn twins and still stay current on their blog, have guests over, run Joel to the prison, go to the library, listen to a dishwasher running (which means her dishes are actually clean) and still have the energy to watch a movie at the end of the day is absolutely AMAZING!! Way to go you guys!! The Wilkins are beginning to see the light at the end of the remodeling tunnel! The tile man will begin in the bathroom soon and then I think all the major projects will be complete. I am so ready to do the fun stuff like new furniture, curtains, etc. Next week we will start another year of school. Ethan and Peyton will be with me and Morgan will go to the pre-K class at TBC. I'm excited that she gets to do something all by herself...something special that big brother or sister isn't doing. Today was Ethan's first day in Junior Engineering (a class offered through a home school CO-OP). He loved it! The two older ones will also be taking an art class and playing baseball (Ethan) and gymnastics (Peyton). Owen will do what he does best....toddle around looking as cute as always! Busy year ahead and I'm so glad we get to do most of it together.
PS It's really not as crazy hectic as I sometimes make it seem. Come and visit some time! We should have a new bathroom by the time you get here!

Pic of the Week

Here is a pic from 05 when Ethan and I spent about one and a half years racing go-carts.

Pic of the Week - Daddy's Girls!

Here are my two beautiful girls. One of my favorite things in this world is to hear either of them say "I love you Daddy".

Pic of the Week - Autumn in Paris

Here is Autumn in front of Notre Dame in Paris. There was a man out front handing out bird seed, I love this picture as it reminds me of the special time that Autumn and I had in France.

Pic of the Week

I think that I am going to start putting up one pic a week from my files to keep this blog thing interesting. I'm not the greatest writer nor storyteller, but I can sure post pics. PW

This is a picture of Autumn and Ethan in Oct of 2000 at the Harvest Festival at our church. Ethan was either a pirate or an elf???? You decide. BTW...doesn't Owen (below) look like Ethan?

Got To Love Them!!

SNAKE! I was bathing Owen the other night when Peyton let out a scream that I had never heard before. Just a little history on Peyton before I continue. There really is no middle ground when it comes to emotions. She steps on a flower and it's big alligator tears or we can run over the family dog and it's about the same. I was joking with Philip 2 days prior to the "incident" that if she ever really gets hurt I'll be so insensitive, "C'mon Peyti Mac, shake it off." Two days later we'll take her to the E.R. and find out she has a broken femur. Anyway, so I hear this scream that sends me running, dripping baby in hand, to the backdoor. By that time Ethan is freaking out too. It was storming outside and they wanted to go out on the back porch and feel the rain. When they opened the door there was this huge (about 4 ft long) snake on our threshold. So of course the first thing I asked was, "Is it inside or did you shut the door!!!? (I DO NOT do reptiles or amphibians) Praise God they had shut the door because I did not want to deal with two hysterical kids, a dripping wet and at this point crying baby AND a big ol' snake. GROSS!!! We looked out the window and there it was laying right by the door and it looked like a copperhead. Well, close your eyes animal lovers, I think the only good snake is a dead snake. Philip was at a meeting so I called the two neighbor boys and asked them if they wanted to kill a snake. They were all for it and came over with machetes, a snake hook, a shovel, an ax and their snake boots. Their daddy has taught them right. After some time of highly increased adrenaline they "harvested" the snake. We noticed that it's belly was really fat in one section so we opened it up and found an entire bird!! Great science lesson. Travis and Clayton Bice are now our local heroes. Thanks Guys!!!

This week has flown by!! Ethan celebrated his 8th birthday recently and wanted to take a friend to an Astros' game for his gift. Philip, Ethan, Gage and I all went on Sunday to, I think, the most boring Astros' game EVER!!! That takes a lot for me to say because we are HUGE baseball fans but it just was not fun. Happy Birthday Ethan (poor guy). Philip and I were lucky enough to go to two other Astros' games this week as well and they were much better. Our investment banker had suite tickets right behind home plate and the Astros' played a good game. It was a BLAST!! It will be hard to sit back in the regular seats after that game. Oh well, it was fun to experience the high side of life for a night. We were able to celebrate a baby shower with Abbe White this week (Yikes, I don't even know her married name! Sorry Abbe!). I CAN'T BELIEVE she's going to have a baby. We are so excited for her and Casey! I can totally go back to that night (and day, 20 hours, seemed like forever) when we had Ethan! You can never forget that feeling of holding your first born. There is NOTHING like it!
OK, change of subject, We are in the process of remodeling our house. OH WOW!! It is definitely an experience!! Can't say that it's all that enjoyable. I just keep my mind focused on the end result. It's actually kind of funny. You know some people already think our house is craziness just because we have four kids and home school. Whatever! Now lets add on home remodeling as well. Ethan is actually sleeping in the game room right now because we're working on his room. OK, maybe they're right, maybe we are crazy. Oh well, that's just who we are! We have fun together and God really has blessed us in uncountable ways!

Some friends of our told us about a photographer who is town from Manhattan who usually only does fashion and entertainment shoots but is wanting to addfamily photography to his business. We hadn't taken any formal pictures since the birth of Owen so we asked if he would take some pictures for us. The pictures are so great!

This first one is Philip and Ethan (8). Ethan is ALL boy. He loves baseball, basketball, fishing, NASCAR and four-wheelers. He does, like his Dad, have a sensitive side as well. God has given him a servant's heart and a very intelligent mind.

Peyton (6) is our model in training. Seriously, the photographer

submitted her picture to modeling agencies because he said she has "the look". We'll see what happens. That whole industry is really scary and if we proceed it will only be after much prayer. Peyton loves dressing up, make-up and high heels. That, however, does not keep her from getting down and dirty with the best of them. She is our natural athlete. We have yet to find anything physical she is not excellent at. The Lord has given Peyton a very sensitive heart; wanting to pray for the injured every time we pass an accident or hear a siren. Maybe she'll be a nurse one day.

Morgan (4) likes to live in her own world and tends to be a bit rebellious as well.
During the photo shoot she wanted to run around barefoot catching minnows instead of sitting still for a picture. The photographer said, "no offense but she should have been a boy." That's our Morgan and we love her! Over Easter weekend she asked the Lord to "take my dirty sins away". The faith of a child is AWESOME!!! If Morgan has to choose between playing with animals and playing with other kiddos she'll choose the animal every time. Snuggling up with Mommy or Daddy and reading a book is a great treat for her (as long as the book is fast paced). We often have to remind ourselves that she is only three because she is so active and verbal. Gotta love it!!

This is our baby, Owen. He was 9 months on the 11th and is just great!

He did not, however, start out so great. When Owen was 2 weeks old we were told he had some medical issues that needed further testing. For about a month we weren't sure if our life was drastically going to change. On top of that, Owen was not a happy baby. After a total of about 6 weeks we got the good news that he was perfectly fine. The tests had been false positives. Praise the Lord!!!! We still, however had to deal with the issue of him being "high-maintenance". Whoever has had a colicky baby can I get an Amen! Around 3 months he just became a different child. Happy, content to be put down, etc. We held our breaths for a couple of weeks but he hasn't looked back. He is a total joy! His life is full of firsts right now. Sitting, crawling, pulling up on things, giggling, waving, babbling, etc. What a fun age!!!

Latest pic of the family

Baseball

This is our first season in Tomball little league. It's quite a family commitment and we love it! Ethan is the only one playing this season but Peyton is begging to play in the fall. She can already outrun most of the boys on Ethan's team (definitly takes after her Daddy in the athletic department). Luckily for me all of my kiddos enjoy reading and being read to so I at least past on one worthy quality. I started tonights entry regarding baseball because Ethan was 4 for 4 tonight and received the game ball! It is his second time to be honored in this way and he has worked VERY hard for it! Way to go Bud!!
School is winding down. We will however continue math, reading and history over the summer. We enjoy all of those though so it will be fun. Our new subdivision also has a rockin' swimming pool so I'm sure we'll be down there almost every day with some of our friends.
I need to go tuck little ones in. Goodnight!

Decided about 15 minutes ago that our family should have a blog. Is that the right way to use that term? I am so not tech suave but I'll try my best. Philip rode in the MS-150 from Houston to Austin yesterday and today. He did really well other than the collision he had with a confused cyclist. The ever so agile athlete was able to click out of his pedals while airborne thus avoiding sure entanglement. He has a sore knee from hitting the handlebars he flew over the front but is no worse for wear. The kids and I got up this morning and made it out the door by about 8:30am(a miracle in itself with 4 kiddos) for our road trip to Austin. Philip made such good time that we got to the finish line only about 5 minutes before he road through! Little side note for any of you "Amazing Race" watchers. Uchenna and Joyce were racing and we were able to visit with them afterwards. Cool! The kids had a blast giving high fives to the racers as they rode by and we had fun people watching.
Autumn