Long weekend !!

Today is my Friday! We are headed to the lake for the Labor Day weekend Tommorrow! This is an annual trip that we make with Gregg's family every year. His parents rent a couple of condos on the lake and we all hang out and have a great time. The kids love being able to spend so much time with their cousins and play in the pool and the lake. They all love to fish and play on the tube behind the boat. Where we stay has a little dock that we pretty much spend our days on, really fun. This year we are heading over to Celebration City on Friday night, we have season passes and have free passes for guests, so this should be fun. I am just looking forward to relaxing and not worrying about anything for a few days! Hopefully the weather cooperates, sounds like it may be rainy off and on.

Well, Tucker is officailly 12, we celebrated with all the family on Tuesday night and had a great time. He had asked for a stereo for his room, we told him that was more than we spend on birthdays and maybe he could get it for Christmas. We went on Saturday and actually found one very similar to the one he wanted, that actually was in the birthday busget and so he was super surprised! Our windows were shaking Tuesday night as he ENJOYED his gift! It's nice when they are genuinely surprised at something you give them.

Tonight is the kickoff for the American Diabetes Step out for a CUre. This is a walk that we will be doing on October 4. Katie and I had our 2nd annual Crop for a Cure in April to raise money for our team. Right now we are the leaders in donations. The effort to find a cure is of course very close to our hearts, Gregg has delt with this disease since he was 7. It is challenging for him as well as me and the boys and really our whole family. They are making great strides in the research of diabetes and it is our hope that they find a cure in our lifetime! I am excited to go tonight and get energized for the walk and to kickoff the next phase of our fundraising effort.

These are a few older LO that I am just getting around to posting. The one of Taylor is one of my favorites, but he will be 14 in November. The others are of Princess Reese, the girl in our lives!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TUCKER!!

Twelve years ago today Tucker James Parks was born! He was born at 35 weeks, and seemed so tiny. The whole labor and delivery was so different from when we had Taylor. Taylor was almost 2 weeks late and when he decided to come he came fast. Tucker on the other hand had decided to take his own sweet time, not so different from how is still is. My labor started in the middle of the night on Saturday and was slow and steady all day Sunday and through the night and he didn't make an apperance until Monday morning when they broke my water. I remeber after they took him to get cleaned up it seemed like forever before they came back to see us, then they let us know that he would be in the NICU for a few days, he needed some help with breathing and antibiotics. He was in an oxygen tent for the first 36 hours and we couldn't hold him. He spent the next 7 days in the NICU before we could take him home. It's been a fun 12 years. Tucker is a fun kid, who laughs a lot. I thought in honor of his birthday I would list 12 things I LOVE about Tucker.

1. His belly laugh....it is contagious.
2. His deep brown eyes, they will melt a girl's heart someday.
3. His kind heart
4. His ease with new people
5. His imagination
6. His genuine desire to please
7. The way he look like a mini version of Gregg...right down to the way they cross their toes.
8. His willingness to try new things.
9. His silliness.
10. His laid back attitude
11. He is loyal to his family and friends.
12. He makes me smile,even when he is driving me crazy.

Happy Birthday,Tucker!
I Love you!!

Scrap Pink

Scrapbook Generation, my LSS is hosting a Scrap Pink Crop, actually a whole weekend of activities to support the "Susan G Komen for the Cure" breast cancer foundation. Saturday September 27 they are having a Scrap Pink Crop, I can't wait I haven't been to a crop in a while, part of the proceeds go to the Foundation. Saturday they are having a special day of sketch classes, featuring all pink lo's. All day Saturday they are holding a silent auction where "Pink" projects will be bid on. If you live in the neighborhood come by and support this great cause!

Here is one of my donations to the silent auction...it's a mini album. You can't tell from the picture but the letters are actually glitter covered foam thickers.

Last Day of Summer Vacation...

The boys head back to school tommorrow! They are mostly ready, school supplies are purchased and loaded into backpacks. We meet Tucker's teacher tonight.

They have had a great summer, gotten to do lots of fun stuff and just hang out.

We have been having unseasonably cool weather for August the past few days...we took advantage of the weather and headed to Silver Dollar City on Saturday with the Durr's. It wasn't as crowded as we had expected and we all enjoyed the day. The boys (big and small) enjoyed the rides, including the water rides! They were soaked most of the day. Finally Taylor rode Wildfire and loved it....we couldn't keep him off once he got a taste for it!

I am already in the fall mindset even though I know we will have lots more warm days before the fall actually gets here. My house right now has the wonderful smell of chicken soup cooking on the stove. I am looking forward to fall camping and spending evenings on the deck without the bugs!
Enjoy this last day of vacation!

Sweet Summertime Mini Album!

Thanks to the ladies who I had in class last night, it was a lot of fun! I was glad everyone enjoyed the beading and hope that all of you will use it on future Layouts or projects! Put pictures in your albums and show them off!

Out of the mouths of babes.

Sunday Sfternoon I was at my sister's house, some family was in from out of town for a quick visit and we met up there. Griffin, my almost 5 year old nephew, was unusually quiet, in fact he spent much of the visit playing in his room. After we had all gone he continued to play alone in his room until my sister asked if he wanted to go to the store with her. On the way ther he asked her if she wanted to know what was bothering him (this is so Griffin), of course she said yes. He shared with her that he had heard us talking about our brother and that made him think of his brother ( who died before Griffin was born) and he was sad because he wanted to play with him, and he wanted to just go to heaven too so that they could play together. my sister assured him that his brother would be waiting in heaven to play with him, and tht he was not alone. While Griffin does not understand that if he goes to heaven he would not be here with us, he knows that he just wants to be able to play with the brother that he only knows in his heart.

What struck me about this was, perhaps i don't always appreciate the relationships that I have. i expect a lot from the people I love. I need to take a lesson from Griffin and realize that people may not always be what I expect, at least I have them here to love and to "play" with.

Take time today to tell someone you love them, slow down and just listen without expectations, you might jsut se something new that was there all along. And remember that the little ones in our life can make wonderful, unfiltered observations of the world around us and it would do all of us good to listen!

Dwelling in the Past.

My day Saturday was spent doing just this. My Grandfather, who is 89, and I spent the day Saturday exploring Springfield. Papa was a carpenter by trade, and built many buildings in Springfield. It was more than just a chance to see the structures themselves, but an opportunity for him to remember the experiences and the people he's known along the way. Through the course of the day he shared silly stories of men who worked for him or interesting things about a certain job. he recalled what year a job was some by remembering where he was living at the time or what was going on with his family while he was working on a project. When we stopped at Westminster, he told me of the day he was digging the basement and someone came to tell him my grandmother had had a stroke.

One project that over the years I have heard him talk about was the Fountains at what is now Cox North Hospital. At the time he built them there were three, nowd only one remains. He has often talked about the challenge of building them. The fountains were covered inside and out with a mosaic tile and filled with colored lights, they nolonger have the tiles and sadly no longer have water in them. Lester Cox, namesake for the Cox hospitals, after seeing how fond my Granfather was of the project and especially the tile gave him a box of the tiles to use on a project at home. Papa was rnovating a farmhouse and he used the tiles to cover the bathroom vanity.



We saw many things on our journey around town, but, our first stops holds the most memories and the most signifigance for our family. Our first stop was the corner of Fremont and Central, "the old neighborhood" as my mom and my Aunt Glenda refer to it. My Papa proudly served our country in WWII, prior to leaving for his tour he built a small house for my Grandma,their daughter Glenda, and my Grandma's sister Orean to live in while he was gone. The house did not originally sit where it does now, it was moved and then added on to, but the original structure remains and he is so proud of it. The second hous that sit s on this corner is a small white house that he built for his young family, this is the house that my mom came home to when she was born. This house sits much the same as the day he built it.


I love spending time with Papa and love to hear his stories. He has lived a full life, had many adventures and has much to be rpoud of. I appreciate that he takes the time to spend a day Dwelling on the past with me so that my children will be able to tell their children the full story of who this man was, because it is a story worth telling.

If life were only this SIMPLE....

Daisy Dog and her noon time nap!

Sweet Summertime....

I can't believe that August is here and Summer is almost over. The heat the past week leads me to believe that we still have a little left, but the boys go back to school in just two weeks....where did the time go! We have had a packed summer, vacation with the whole family to the beach, trips to the lake, between rain showers, we have hit Celebration City, Silver Dollar city and White water and gotten our money out of our passes! Both of the boys dared to ride things this year that in the past we could not get them on. Taylor still won't go on WildFire at SDC, but next year we will get him on there! I wanted to share some pictures that I haven't posted yet. I also want to let anyone who is interested know that I am teaching at Scrapbook Generation in August and September. You can check out their website for times and details on my classes as well as the other desiners classes.