All About the Argyles

As a mom, are you ever just so grateful that your children are surrounded by good friends? That is one of the many blessings we have found since we have moved to Prosper. There is always an abundance of friends to play with. Friends who come from great homes where they have been taught character and integrity. My girls went to a birthday party last week and the hosting mom sent me these pics from the party. It made me smile. Especially the pictures of them "kissing frogs". :O)

Tanner is a HUGE "Office" fan. So are most of his friends. Tanner, Kade, Dmitri, Tyler , Sean, and Dalton. (Dean came later) Steve Carell is the star of "The Office" -or atleast has been until his departure this past thursday- so we had a "FAREWELL TO CARELL" party at our house. There was even a litmus test. You had to know all the characters by name in order to be invited. Only SERIOUS office fans were allowed. They ate dinner. (I had to take out a loan & Brent had to barbecue a few thousand chicken legs to feed 7 teenage boys.) Laughed about their favorite episodes from "The Office". Speculated about who would permanently replace Steve Carell. And watched his final episode. They even tolerated a few pictures from this obnoxious, blogging mother. I am so gratified to know the caliber of young men Tanner chooses to associate with. Some he knows from church and some from school. You know they are a good bunch when they leave their shoes at ...

I stole this from Shawni Polthier of "71 toes" (See right). She posted it on her kitchen wall before Thanksgiving. Let's face it, though - it is good to think about your many blessings all year round. I have too many windows and not enough wall space to post it up on my kitchen wall so I improvised and put it on my kitchen table. I think I actually like it better. The kids LOVE it. Some of them have gotten really artistic and colored little pictures too. All you need is a roll of paper, markers, and some tape to secure it and you have a great way for your family to be mindful of some of the things/people they are grateful for before each meal. I also love it because it encourages my kids to come sit in the kitchen and visit with me while I am prepping dinner, breakfast, etc. Its a great conversation starter, a few worthy of mention are: Sister Lloyd (YW leader) Brother Romney (Tanner's Seminary Teacher) Sister Ziminskas (Jensen's Sunday School Teacher) Uptown P...

What are the odds that when you are getting a new roof, you might step on a roofing nail? Apparantly pretty good. Because I did. After the fact, my roofer estimated that 12,000 nails came down with my old, hail damaged roof. They ended up all over my drive way, yard, and sidewalk. I just happened to step on one. It went through my flip flop. (Yes, I was wearing flip flops, not one of my better moments) It also went about an inch into the heel of my foot. In case you are wondering it hurts. It also makes for a really lame date night to spend it at the ER getting a tetanus shot. And although I should be the one getting a note to release me from participating in P.E., I found this in Reagan's room. Do you think the P.E. teacher fell for it? When I asked Reagan about it she said that she lost the note I actually-validly- wrote for her so she wrote this one in it's place. Likely excuse.

Then this is for you...

On Monday, April 11th @ about 1 AM we had visitors in the form of large wicked balls of ICE, (a.k.a hail.) We ran out to move cars inside to the garage. (I don't know why we don't park in the garage, we are just lazy, it's not like we have alot of junk in there.) When we saw the hail we changed our mind quickly. Some of it was the size of a racquetball. It was accompanied by 70 mile an hour winds. We immediatlely ran back in the house to get kids up out of bed and move them to an area where there were no windows. We waited out the storm. The kids went back to bed. We started calling insurance companies. The next morning we saw this: See the hail damage in the backboard? It punched a hole clean through the plexiglass. Top left Dormar window (in the attic) broken. Two windows to the garage were shattered. Trampoline was damaged. Playground and fence have little white spots all over them from being pelted by the hail. Our skylight was broken in our kitchen. We need to repl...