House

For those of you that may not know, we are, unfortunately, trying to sell our house! Tom was able to get a new job in Peoria, IL, so we've got to move. We are hoping the house will sell in a decent amount of time, so if you know ANYONE who might be interested in moving to Riverside, AL, pass along the following link to our house! Thanks!!

Back to school!

Ok, so I know I never really posted over the summer, but some day I'll catch you up on that. For now, though, here are some pictures of the girls on their first day back to school.




Their bus was very late picking them up today, and found out it's because it's a new bus driver. Hope we like him as much as Mr. Tommy last year!

Mackenzie finishes up 2nd grade

I figured since I had a post about Jenna's graduation, I needed to have a post about Mackenzie's accomplishments as well!

Her last day of school was this past Monday, but Friday before that they had an awards assembly to honor the kids in 2-4 grade who had made "A" honor roll, etc. Mackenzie ended up earning a certificate for having the highest GPA in her class for the year, which means she also made "A" honor roll the entire year. We were very proud of her accomplishments!

Mackenzie with some of her friends:


Not a great picture, but here she is with her certificate for making honor roll:


With her teacher, Mrs. Smith:


Last day of school:

Before & After

We've been working on window treatments to dress the house up a bit before we sell. Thought I'd share a couple before & after pictures with you.

Our bedroom











The dining room

Would this stress you out?

Just a day in the life of the Palmers! :)
My girls were helping me out by shredding a TON of papers today & while I was downstairs cleaning, the boys got into the bag of shredded papers & had a blast (not sure where the girls went?!). I guess it's a good thing it's just paper, right? It could be worse.

Jenna graduates

Today was Jenna's graduation. I can't believe I have 2 kids that are done with kindergarten now! Here's some pics from this morning:


Getting ready to ride the bus for the last time this year (yes, she was crying....she was mad I wouldn't let her take her jewelry box to school)


The entire kindergarten bunch:


Getting her diploma:


Some of her friends from class:


Her teacher, Mrs. Lee

The funniest poem!!

Mackenzie told me they had to write a poem today at school. This is what she wrote:

My mom is like a bee
because she is almost always busy

My dad is like a lizard
because he is lazy

My brother, Trevin, is like a monkey
because he climbs on everything

My sister, Jenna, is like a dog
because she is always hungry

My teacher is like a dolphin
because she is very smart

Alligator

I don't think I ever told about the alligator we had in the river in Riverside. A couple weeks ago a 6-7 foot alligator made it's way into the sleugh (channel) in downtown Riverside. One of the news channels showed up to do a story on it, and lots of people from Riverside showed up to watch to see what happened. Mostly those "in charge" stood around and talked about what to do, but they wouldn't do anything while everyone was there. My opinion is that they didn't want everyone to see them make fools of themselves, but they claim it could be dangerous if the alligator decided to come up on shore. They cleared everyone out around 6:30 p.m. and said they were going to bait some traps & try to capture it that night to re-locate it somewhere else. I wasn't the least bit surprised to find out the next day that they hadn't been successful in capturing it, and it had left the sleugh. I did read later that they saw it again in the next couple days over by the apartments we used to live in. I have never heard for sure if it was ever caught (I highly doubt it), but I have heard rumors that someone shot it. We'll probably never know for sure, but I do know that I will think twice about getting in the water around here :)

Tom tried to take the girls swimming last week over by the apartments by where they used to swim when we lived there before, but they were smart & said "No Way!" I can't believe he even tried to get them to swim there!

Here's a couple pictures from the big day...

Landscaping pics

For those that asked, here are some pics of the landscaping we did while my parents were here:

Easter egg hunt pictures

Here are some long overdue pictures from some of our Easter egg hunts:

Snow

We did get some actual snow this winter down here in Alabama! I was impressed. Of course the kids went out to play in it. This was Trevin's 1st time out in it to play.

It's always fun to play on the trampoline in the snow:


Sometimes it just takes too much time to come inside to go to the bathroom:


Building a snowman:


Trevin playing in the front yard:

Catching up

I think I can finally put some pictures on here! As I was looking through the ones on my card in my camera, I realized I forgot to tell about a couple things...

The first thing is that Jenna had her tonsils and adenoids taken out & tubes put in again back in January. She did OK as far as the pain was concerned, but this poor kiddo had a heck of a time keeping anything down. She ended up getting dehydrated, and having to get some IV fluids. Once we did that, she turned a corner, and after a week out of school, she went back. Phew!! Glad that's over!

Before surgery:


Right after she got back to the room:


Arriving home:


Her favorite spot for a week:

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, I got an awesome gift! A purple Dell laptop! Our computers have had tons of issues the last few months with viruses, etc, so Tom broke down & got me a new laptop. YEAH! Now I can probably start putting pictures up again soon (as soon as he gets all the software on here).

Besides my laptop, the girls made some wonderful things at school & church for me. I thought I'd share some of the stuff that was in their cards/books.

I'll start with something Mackenzie made me about a week ago that she gave to me early because she was so excited about it. She made it one day at home when she was home with a sick Tom and Jenna. (That's another post for another day) She took an empty cream cheese container & covered it with paper & a bow. I opened it, and she had written a poem and it had a chocolate chip cookie in it. Here's what the poem said:

I love just looking at you
watching what you do
I love kissing you and
holding you tight
I love all the things you do
I love the way your eyes
seem to grab my heart
every time I look at them.
I love everything about you.
And here is a cookie. (I think she added this herself!)

I asked her where in the world she got that poem from, and I kid you not...she told me she googled it! Who knew that an 8 yr. old knows how to google things??? Not sure what website she found that had that sweet poem that was probably meant for 2 people in love, but it was so sweet that she thought of me when she read it! :)

Ok, next she filled out a paper at school about love:

Love feels like "my mom's hugs"
Love smells like "purfume"
Love tastes like "my mom's homemade chocolate pie"
Love looks like "my mom"
Love sounds like "a gentle song"

And lastly, she filled out a paper about me:

My mom always says "I love you"
My mom looks pretty when "we go to church"
My mom likes to cook "from her cook book"
My mom makes me laugh when "she reads me a funny book"

Jenna also made a little booklet at school with some poems about mom and a paper about why she loves mom. Here's what she had to say:

My mom's name is "Ruth"
My favorite food she cooks is "cimanon toast"
Her worst punishment is "spankings"
My favorite thing she does is "push me on the swing"
The funniest thing she does is "tell jokes"

Overall, I had a good mother's day. We enjoyed our dinner out Saturday night to avoid the crowds on Sunday. The kids all did fabulous at dinner! Made it very enjoyable!!

One last funny thing from the day was this funny comment during lunch:
Jenna: "I just can't stop singing!"
Mackenzie: "Are you in opera mode?"

Tom's parking ticket

Ok, normally I'm a supporter of policemen, but a few weeks ago, Tom got a parking ticket that was a little un-necessary in my opinion. See what you think....

It was the last day of Spring break for our girls, so Tom took the day off work to go with us to the science center in Birmingham. We made a quick stop at Wal-Mart on the way out of town to grab some lunchables. Tom was driving, so he dropped me off to run inside & grab them. When I came back out literally w/in 10 minutes, I happened to see a cop car off to my right with his lights on. I thought for a quick second if Tom could have possibly done something wrong, but quickly dismissed the idea since I thought it was highly unlikely for him to get into enough trouble in 10 minutes to warrant a cop. But, as I scanned the parking lot for the van, I couldn't find him. Finally, I looked over by the cop again, and saw our van headed down the aisle beside him. I started walking that way, and as I got closer, noticed that it looked like Tom was not in the driver's seat. That seemed a bit suspicious since all 4 kids were in the van, and the van was still running and parked in a position like it was ready to pull into a parking spot.

I opened the back hatch of the van to put the bag of stuff in, and the girls immediately told me that daddy was in the back of the police car. I thought they were kidding with me, but they were real serious and seemed a bit scared, so I started walking to the police car & as I got closer the cop put his window down & told me Tom would be back in just a minute. I just kinda looked at him like what in the world??? He then proceeded to tell me that Tom didn't tell him he had kids in the van. I was like "yeah...there are 4 of them in there!". I asked if I could go ahead & pull the van the rest of the way into the parking spot & he said yeah. So, I got in the van and started asking the girls what happened?! Mackenzie kept saying "I think the cop thought daddy was parked in the wrong place" They explained that Tom had stopped in one of the striped areas at the end of the aisle when the policeman came up and when Tom went to move & pull into a parking spot, the policeman told him he wanted to see his license. I asked if Tom had given the cop a hard time or something, and they both said no, he didn't say anything, he just gave the cop his license & then the cop made him get in the back of the car.

I got back out of the van to go see what was going on and as I was headed back over Tom was getting out, so I commented loudly enough in hopes that the cop would hear "Ok, our kids are freaking out that you just left them!" The cop didn't really acknowledge if he heard anything.

So when Tom got in the van he told what happened. He had indeed pulled into the striped area for a minute & was checking his e-mail on his phone while he waited for some old person to pull out of the parking spot about 4 spots down. The person was really slow I guess, and just as he was getting ready to pull out, he saw the cop coming up behind him & put his lights on. He figured he would pull into the spot & then see what the cop wanted. As he pulled forward the cop got onto his PA and told him the blue flashing lights mean stop! So, Tom stopped, stepped out of the car to point to the parking spot so the cop would understand he was just pulling in to get out of the way and for whatever reason the cop got ticked off. He told Tom he was not supposed to get out of his car, but asked for his license & told him to get in the back of his car.

In the end, he gave Tom a parking ticket for parking in the yellow striped lines. I guess when Tom tried to tell him he wasn't really parked there, the cop was real snippy & asked "was the van in park?" When Tom replied yes, he was like "well, you're parked then!" What a jerk. What cop would make you leave your 4 kids unattended in a van?? I was so mad! Of course he claimed that Tom didn't tell him he had the kids in the van, but c'mon, what guy is going to be driving a mini van mid-morning on a Friday & NOT have kids in it?? A little common sense please!

So Tom is going to court in May to fight the ticket. I mean really....the guy couldn't have given a warning?? Is "parking" in the yellow lines really a big problem around here that we need to give out tickets?

What do you think?

Yard work!

My parents have been down here for a week visiting. We met up with them last weekend in Louisville, KY for the Thunder Over Louisville fireworks show. Anyways, we have been working non-stop on our yard since they've been here. It has been absolutely wonderful getting so much work done!

We got the landscaping done (planting bushes, flowers, etc.), mulched, and pretty much re-planted grass seed in our entire front yard! As long as the grass grows, we will have a fabulous looking front yard!

When my mom wasn't busy working in the yard with us, she was working miracles in the house! :) She cleaned all the windows, walls & doors, kept the laundry going, and made dinner most nights! It was great having an extra set of hands to get the "day to day" stuff done while I was busy either outside, or running kids to their activities. She also watched the kids while Tom, dad, and I went to the races over the weekend.

They'll be leaving tomorrow morning, and they'll be missed greatly!

$450,000

I got a call the other day from Winners International, and guess what?? I won $450,000!!! The guy proceeded to take a 1/2 hour or so to tell me all about how it was going to be delivered, etc. I told him I was a bit skeptical, and he said that yeah, some people are, but that they are legitimate & they work with the IRS to make sure that most of this tax-free! He had answers to all my questions. All I had to do to get this money is wire a small insurance fee of $1250!

I'm sure all of you have figured out by now that I obviously didn't fall for this scam, but I did google "Winners International" and was amazed to find that there are people that HAVE actually sent money to these idiots!! The guy called me back a couple times to see if I'd wired the money yet because they were ready to deliver my check, they were just waiting to get confirmation that I'd wired the money.

Oh well....I passed up the big money! :)

Discipline failure

Last week, Jenna came home from school with an "oops" note one day. Basically that means she had bad behavior at school. Evidently, she & another girl were supposed to wipe down the lunch table that they sit at when everyone was done, while the rest of the class headed back to their room. Well, they wiped the table off, but then proceeded to play around in the lunchroom, then head to the bathroom to play for a while, and finally came back to the classroom. Not necessarily a horrible offense, but it still warranted an oops note in my opinion so that she learns she needs to obey the rules at school. Anyways, the rule at our house is that if you get an oops note, you get spanked at home, then have to write sentences. Each time you get one, you have to write more sentences. This is only her second one, so she had to write 15 sentences. She HATES writing sentences! But, she got through that, and when it came time for bed, I took her to my room to give her the spanking. We had company over, so I didn't want to cause a big scene for all of them! :)

Now usually I grab a plastic spatula, but they were all dirty, so I grabbed a wooden spoon. She hopped on my bed, and I smacked her butt twice, and she winced in pain, but as I was hitting her the second time, the spoon broke and half of it went flying across the bed and hit the wall. She instantly looked at me and started laughing. I tried so hard to keep a straight face since I was in fact punishing her, but when I innocently asked her what was so funny, she was just like "something just hit the wall" and so then I burst out laughing, too. We picked up the broken spoon & then I carried her off to bed with probably a memory that will continue to come up in our house for years to come.

As we were walking to her room, though, we were still giggling, and my friend Tracy kinda gave me a funny look since she knew what I had gone in the room to do. I don't think she expected us to come out laughing. Is that what you call a discipline failure??

Baths

Ok, so I will openly admit that I usually only bathe my kids once a week. That may shock some of you, but I feel like we're so busy that I just don't have the time. By the time my girls get off the bus at 4, do homework, eat dinner, then either play or have some activity going on, there's limited time in our evenings for bathing. They can do it themselves, but they still like to take their time doing it, so it's not just a quick & easy thing.

Now my boys on the other hand, probably need bathed more often now that they're playing outside & getting filthy. Problem is, as I stated above, there's usually not much time in the evenings. I could do it in the mornings since there's probably time, but mentally I always tell myself what's the point of bathing them first thing in the morning when they're just gonna go out & make a mess & make the bath pointless?

Which brings me to my "story" for today. I mentioned how we were crazy busy last weekend with all our egg hunts, but I did not tell about all the fun the kids had outside as well. Since it was Good Friday, Tom had the day off work. He borrowed a digger (don't know the official name...sorry!) from our neighbor & finally moved around the huge pile of dirt that has been in our front yard for forever. Most of it went to finish back-filling all along our driveway. He also filled in some bare spots & holes in the backyard. I worked on cleaning inside the house much of the day getting it under control & the boys were in & out. Finally late in the afternoon, Tom took a break & I went to help finish raking out the dirt while he watched the boys. They had a blast in the dirt, sandbox, and just being outside. When the girls got home from school, they joined in the fun. When all the dirt was raked out & "cleaned up", Tom headed to the store to get more grass seed & hay so we can attempt once again to grow some grass. He got a bunch of the grass seed down & hay out, and started watering right away. Well, you know how much fun water is, so the boys had a blast in the mud! Now let me backtrack a minute & just say that they had played outside Thurs. night, too & since they were so dirty I DID give them a bath Friday morning. Now, back to Friday night. I was inside making dinner when in trucked Camden with muddy shoes, and muddy/wet pants up to his knees. He of course walked right across the newly vacuumed & clean carpet. As I turned around to tell him to get off the carpet, in trekked Trevin but w/no shoes on, and both his pants & shirt soaking wet. He of course tracked his mud across the floor, too. I realized immediately that the only option at this point was to put them both in the tub. I ran to the bathroom & started the water in the tub. Then I grabbed Camden & took him back to the front foyer to remove all his clothes so I could throw his shoes outside to clean up. As I took him back to the bathroom, I discovered that silly me had left Trevin alone in the bathroom, so he had proceeded to hop in the tub w/ALL his clothes (& diaper) on. What a MESS!!! The water was so dirty that I had to clean the tub before I could actually give them a bath. Oh, and did you remember that before all this started that I was making dinner?? Once I got the boys settled in the now somewhat clean tub, I returned to the kitchen only to discover that the soup I was making was now burned & sticking to the bottom of the pan. At that point, Tom walks in obviously clueless to all that is going on & mentions that it smells like something is burning. Yeah, what else isn't new?

In the meantime, the girls are happily playing in the garage & are just as filthy, but at least keep it from spreading all over the house. After I had bathed the boys, I just put them in their pajamas since it was getting late. We still had to eat, but one would think that we could make it through the meal w/o too much of a mess. Think again - we still ate the soup I had made (we just skimmed off the top) and since I turned my back to Trevin for a minute, he proceeded to dump the last of his soup (bowl & all) over his head. Since he had already had 2 baths that day, I told Tom it was his turn to bathe him because I refused to give him 3 baths in one day!

Let me just say that the rest of the weekend, the boys had several more baths. I truly think I outdid myself this week,and I seriously lost track of just how many baths they got! Gotta love boys, and gotta love that they're not afraid to get dirty!!

Easter egg hunts

Ok, so it's been forever since I've put any kind of update. I've been inspired by one of my cousins (she knows who she is) to try to do a better job. We have had ridiculous amounts of computer issues, so I can't promise a lot of pictures, but many people tell me that they enjoy even just reading about the crazy stuff that happens in our lives with 4 kids!

So, sit back, relax, and hopefully have a good laugh!

The weather has been beautiful the past week down here as I'm sure it has been just about everywhere! So, my kids have all been outside a TON! Down here, Easter egg hunts are a big thing. Everyone has them, and it's not a big deal to go to several of them. This year we may have set a record, though. The weekend before Easter we went to one for the "big" city of Pell City. By big, I mean it's bigger than Riverside where we actually live. Anyways, they have 10,000 eggs "hidden" in the grass (i.e. they're all thrown in the grass) and then there are different sections set up for each age group. Last year we showed up about 5 minutes after the start time, and found out the hard way that they start on time, and in 5 minutes EVERY egg is gone. So, we showed up 15 minutes early this year & got a good spot for when the whistle blew to take off to get our eggs. 1 problem....age groups were divided 0-3 yrs, 4-6 yrs, 7-8 yrs, and 9-10 yrs. This meant that unfortunately, Mackenzie was on her own to do the egg hunt. Tom stayed with the boys, and I stayed with Jenna. Kenzie wasn't too happy, but I can only be 1 place at at time! Next year I'll just move Jenna up to go w/Kenzie's group. These are things you learn through the years!! ha ha! Anyways, it all worked out OK, and the kids were happy with all the eggs they got.

So then this past weekend, it got a little crazy! We started Saturday out by going to an egg hunt at the Talladega Superspeedway at 10 a.m. We got there only to find out that this one advertised to start at 10, but the first egg hunt didn't actually start until 10:30. It was threatening rain, so they ended up starting a little early, but we had to leave after the boys did their egg hunt because we had another one to go to for our church at 11:00. We arrived at 11:00 to our church one just as it was downpouring. But, after about 10 minutes, it cleared up, and the next egg hunt started. After this hunt, we enjoyed a picnic lunch, headed to a birthday party for about an hour, then had to leave for the next egg hunt! This one was at the little church down the road from where we live. Not a lot of kids come to this one (we went last year), but it's the only one where they actually hide some of the eggs! The girls love it! Mackenzie even won a door prize and came home with a huge basket filled with even more junk, err uh candy. Trevin didn't get to participate in that hunt, though because he fell asleep on the way there & we couldn't get him to wake up! Oh well...he woke up in time for the snacks afterwards :)

Then, on Sunday afternoon as we were getting ready to finally color our Easter eggs (better late than never, huh?) our neighbor asked if the kids would like to join in an egg hunt at their house that their grandkids were going to do. Sure, why not? Jenna ended up finding an egg with $5 in it! She of course said that was her favorite egg hunt! Once they finished coloring their eggs, the girls wanted to do another egg hunt of our own. So, we did our own egg hunt in our yard.

Did I mention that Jenna had also had an egg hunt at school on Friday?? Are you getting the drift that it's ridiculous how many egg hunts they do around here? But, the kids love them and they're free, so I'm not going to complain! We've got enough candy around here to last the next couple years. Oh, and we're going to the dentist tomorrow....

Mackenzie's 8th Birthday

Mackenzie had 2 friends over to spend the night for her birthday this year. We did all sorts of fun stuff! Here's a few pictures from the party:

We started off with a string maze....



Each person had a different color string that they had to follow throughout the upstairs, rolling it up until they got to the end & found their prize



Of course their was cake...



Trevin loved his cake as usual



Poor Tom got attacked by the girls!



They decorated pillowcases since it was a sleepover



Then it was time to get ready for a fashion show



After the fashion show, they did each other's make-up....blindfolded!! It was hilarious! Erin is doing Jenna's make-up here:



This is Mackenzie doing Alyssa's make-up



And the finished product...



All 4 girls after their make-up is done



To end the night we did chocolate face masks! Yummy!



Saturday morning we added a couple more girls & they did silly string out on the trampoline



It was a great party, even though the girls tried to tell me at 2:15 a.m. that they had had a good night's sleep! Needless to say I told them to get in bed, and 10 minutes later they were SOUND asleep!!