Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Nate's family. The kids and I drove down there and stayed for the day, eating and playing! Nate was on duty, but got to drive over and have some Thanksgiving lunch with us. After that he started a monster week, working everyday that weekend and now everyday this week. The kids enjoyed spending some time with their dad, even if he was answering the "bat" phone every 5 minutes! Unfortunately people find ways to hurt themselves or get sick on holidays. :) The kids had a blast playing with Sarah, Meagan, and Morgan. We found out there are 1001 ways to destroy brand new playdough! Poor Carolyn, I think I owe her a new supply! LOL Carolyn was so great and allowed all of us to leave with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, so we had our cusromary turkey sandwiches this past weekend. For me, it wouldn't be the holidays without those!
The week before, Nate and I had gone to Dallas and attended the 2009 Texas State EMS Conference. We got tons of CE hours and Nate shmoozed and networked like crazy for Pioneer. The kids stayed with Mom and Dad for the first part of the week, before we headed home. When we stopped by last Wednesday to get the babies, we got to help celebrate my Dad's birthday (the 26th). Seth had the idea for us to buy Dad a new flat screen HDTV. He picked it up on the way there and we were all present to see the look on Dad's face when he saw it! It was awesome! :D After he opened it, Amy had to go buy him a new entertainment center! LOL The TV wouldn't fit in Mom's cabinet.
I apologize for the lack of pics. When we left Palestine on Wednesday, I accidently left my purse there. No one discovered it until we were halfway home, so I went the weekend without my stuff. When we went down to Carolyn's I remembered I had left the camera in my bag, so there were no pics that day. A couple of days later, when I finally got around to kinda unpacking (still not totally done, lazy me!) I found the camera in my satchel! Sometimes I impress myself with my blondeness! LOL Even though I am a definite red head right now! I'll post pics of my new hairdo soon!

Renaissance Weekend 2009

This past weekend Amy, Sara, and Stacie came down to Houston for our annual Renaissance Festival trip! We go every year and have our favorite shows and attractions...yep! we admit we are a little nerdy! :) This year Amy's boyfriend Chris came along, also. Nathan, Hannah, and Micah dressed up in honor of the event, while myself, the girls, and Chris were sticks-in-the-mud and went in our regular attire. Hannah was a renaissance queen, Micah was a knight,and Nathan was a gladiator. They all looked great! :)
We were able to see our favorite band, Tartanic, again this year. We were very excited to see them there...there website said that the 2008 festival was their last, so we definitely weren't expecting to see them again! They are a Scottish band and have a ton of personality and energy to go with their kilts and Highland flings! LOL Last year Amy, Sara, Stacie, and their friend Abby took some great silly pics with the band after a walk-through performance. We also caught the joust (the kids love it!!) and a new act called Clan Tynker. Clan Tynker was a group of jugglers who performed some really awesome juggling tricks and sword swallowing and fire eating! Micah was mesmerized by the fire eating and terrified by the sword swallowing! LOL Hannah said they were her favorite act of the whole festival.
We did the dragon swings, the merry-go-round, the pony rides, and the fireworks show, as well as eating turkey legs, sausage-on-a-stick, chicken-on-a-stick, ice cream sandwiches, and candied roasted nuts! We spent the entire day at the festival and completely wore ourselves out. Nathan was sad though because his favorite store had changed. They no longer sold swords for 10 dollars! LOL I asked him how many swords he wanted...he has about 8! :) In fact, he wore one to the festival (legal as long as it's sheathed and "peace-tied") to complete his gladiator outfit.
Other than the festival, we partied this weekend with the Beatles, laughing ourselves silly at some of their lyrics! The girls, Chris, Nathan, and I played for a few hours Friday night, staying up way past out bedtimes and enjoying every minute of it. The whole weekend was really enjoyable and relaxing. Cutting lose and being silly is something we need to do more often! Here are a few pics of our weekend:

If you would like to see more of the 120 or so pics I took, check out my Facebook page! :)

Trick or Treat

This year we took the kids down to Philip and Kimi's house for trick-or-treat. The kids had so much fun trick-or-treating with their cousins! Hannah dressed as Pocahontas, Micah was High King Peter (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), Sarah was a Masquerade Princess, Meagan was Belle, and Morgan was Ariel. The kids had quite a haul, too, which they were extremely excited about! Micah's bucket got so heavy he "couldn't" carry it! LOL Here are some pics of our fun evening:

Spirit Week

This week was homecoming for TCS. In celebration, this whole week has been uniform-free and themed in fun and wacky ways. One day was "twin" day when you had to dress exactly like another student at the school. Hannah and Emily wore t-shirts decorated by Emily's mom (the girls were supposed to do it but ended up playing the whole time) and Micah was twin with his little friend Shane. Unfortunately the camera was completely dead, so I didn't get a pic of Hannah and Emily. I did get one of Micah and Shane with my phone. If you are interested in seeing the "twins" the pic is on Facebook under "mobile uploads". It's a cute photo!
Then they had "all navy day" and "sock it to 'em" day, etc. The end of the week was "spirit day". Today the kids got to wear tattoos, hair paint, face paint, etc, to advertise their school spirit. The homecoming game was today and the school hosted a hot-dog social, which we did not attend this year. I have some pictures below of the kids and their school spirit! When I picked the kids up from school today, their spirit had multiplied! Hannah had her whole face painted like a cat (their mascot is a tiger) and Micah had a kitty nose and whiskers. The whole week was fun, but I'm pretty sure the kids enjoyed today more than any other! :)

Family

Got the news yesterday that I'm going to be an aunt again! We are so excited to welcome new members to our little world. My sister, Angela, is expecting her third child, due next summer. Micah has already decided it is a boy! LOL Of course that brought up the discussion of whether or not there will be any more "babies" for our family. I have to admit I'm not totally against the idea!
But anyway, congratulations Angela, Jason, Sophia, and Olivia! We hope its a boy! :)


The Mapp Grandchildren (Jan. 2009)

Micah's New Hairstyle

Take a look at Micah's new 'do! He has decided he wants his hair spiked, like some of the other boys in his class. He definitely did not want me to cut his hair, LOL, so we went to Cool Cuts tonight and he put in his order. The finished results are cute! :)

Rock Stars

Today Nathan and I splurged and bought the Rockband Beatles game for the Wii! We decided that the kids had played with the demo unit in Best Buy enough! LOL Micah and Hannah have been drumming, singing, and strumming all day...well kind of. Micah can't drum or strum, but he LOVES to sing into the microphone. Hannah wants to do everything, but takes it very personally when the game fails her! She's sure she's the best at everything. LOL Here are some pics from today:

We are thinking that the Rockband will have to travel with us when we go gome this Christmas! :) I know my Mom and Dad will get a kick out of this!

Hannah, Micah, and I met up with Grandma and Grandpa Eye and family today and went to the zoo. Aunt Marilyn is here visiting from Kentucky and we wanted to actually see her before she left! LOL Philip, Kimi, and the girls came, too. After driving around for 45 minutes looking for parking (may be a slight exaggeration, but not much) we finally made it inside. After the prerequisite bathroom stops (kids pee A LOT), we started our tour. We made it through the first few exhibits pretty well, but then the kids were hungry, or hot, or itchy! LOL I think we managed to see four or five exhibits in 2 hours! LOL We spent most of the time in the chuildren's zoo, watching the kids run around and climb on the animal stautes and slide through the hollow "logs" and turtle shells. I took some really nice pictures, but they are on my phone, so I have to figure out how to upload them. Our camera is not working very well right now, so I have to learn a whole new set of technical skills! Overall, we had a great time. Hannah and Micah were troopers- this was our first walking activity without the wagon! Micah walked 99% of the time and never forgot to hold my hand... :) We looked at every snake, lizard, spider, bat, etc., etc., but managed to miss the monkeys, the tigers, the koalas, etc. LOL The priorities of a little boy are so boy-ish!! LOL I love it! Hannah didn't mind either. She was way into the frogs and the white alligator. By the way, that white alligator has been there forever!

I'm sorry I don't have pictures to put up, but I will post them when I learn how to work my phone! :D In the mean time, I will upload them to Facebook if you can't wait! Oh! and I apologize for all the exclamation points...I'm on a sugar high right now! LOL

This past week we decided to take our lives in our own hands and go to one of those traveling carnivals that set up in parking lots. I have never gone to one; I've read too many articles about lack of inspections, safety concersn, etc, and let those articles scare me. Well, one of those outfits set up in the parking lot of the old HEB by our house. We drove by, and drove by, and drove by and it began to look like A LOT of fun. So, we set up a "date night" for our family.
We had so much fun!! It was a total blast. The kids rode so many things- Hannah is really quite fearless, the little minx! LOL She loved the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Ferris Wheel and the Silver Streak mini-coaster. Micah decided the Tilt-A-Whirl went "too fast" and the Ferris Wheel was "too scary" but the Merry-Go-Round rocked! LOL Then it was Sara's and my turn.
Nathan dared us to ride rides I would probably never look at twice, let alone ever trust to be safe! But as I stood there looking at them, I felt my wild and crazy side resurface! I haven't seen that girl since I was 18!! Sara and I rode every last dangerous and daring ride...and laughed our heads off! The last ride we decided to try was called "Spin Out". It takes you up in the air then spins you head-over-heels and end-over-end for what seems like forever! It was in the middle of this that I remembered my phone was in my pocket. OOPS!!! It fell....like 100 feet or more to the ground, crashing into the metal flooring of the ride. That was the end of my phone!
We were all laughing and shaking our heads about the phone, but we had so much fun with the kids and each other that it never even fazed us. It was a blast. I told Nathan we need to be wild and crazy more often, as much for the kids as for us. They enjoyed seeing us acting crazy and being kids. I think they need to see that. They see us dealing with life and stress everyday, but when do they see us absolutely throwing our cares to the wind and living life with joy? Not as often as they should, I think. Maybe that's why today's kids are stressed out? Maybe they need to see their parents have fun more often. I want to make this part of our schedule. I think I will start planning a totally irresponsible, money-wasting activity every month with our kids. They will remember and appreciate that more than they will remember how we juggled finances to pay for private school, or how we had to run 90 to nothing to keep up with everything going on in all of our lives. I want them to have memories of me with my head thrown back, laughing until my muscles hurt. I don't want them to remember the stressed-out, tired, harried woman I feel like I have become. Maybe I need to remember myself laughing, too, though. Maybe the problem is that I have lost touch with that wild and crazy kid. It sure was nice to see her again...I forgot she still existed!
We had taken so many pictures of the carnival and the kids...but they were on the phone. We weren't able to get the phone to power up after its plunge, so I wasn't able to retrieve anything off of it. I lost all my pictures and contacts, but it doesn't bother me. We had fun and that means more to me than anything else! :D

I'm failing big time in the upkeep of this blog! LOL So sorry everyone! We had a fairly busy summer and now it has come to an end. We just finished up the first week of the new school year. Hannah started 4th grade and Micah is now in kindergarten. They were both ready to go back to school and see their friends and, I think, ready to get back into our "normal" routine.

This year Hannah has a Mr. for a teacher. Mr. Arthur is her homeroom and computer teacher. She still goes to Mrs. Hurst for science and bible, which I am not ecstatic about, as you can imagine. I am hoping things go well for Hannah in her room; I don't want things to carry over from last school year into this one. Micah has started full-day kindergarten, but he has the same teacher as last year! He was so excited to find out that Mrs. Slage transferred to K5. He has been very sad, though, that Raashad did not come back this year.

I am excited for them to be back in the regular schedule! It is comforting to me to have a routine. :) The only problem is that now I am having to keep up with everyone's schedules! Hannah has her own projects and papers to keep up with and Micah has show and tell and fun things to remember. I am living by the planner again! (Secretly I totally love it! Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)

Now we are anxiously waiting cooler weather and the Holidays! Here they come again! Yay!! This is my favorite time of year...now if only the Houston weather would cooperate and throw some faux-fall temps my way! LOL

p.s. Pictures of their first day are posted to facebook...wasn't able to import them from my phone to here.

Life In General

Hi guys! I find myself in a mood and feel the need to "take up my pen". It's been a rough couple of weeks, capped off by a rough evening. As any working mom knows, we are all exhausted from balancing work, home, kids, and hubby. This week it has taken a toll on me; more so than usual. By Friday I am generally emotionally and mentally spent from the constant juggling it takes to be success at work and home. This week it hit me on Monday.

My boss went out of town at the end of last week and we have had an easy few days at the office. We caught up on a few overdue projects and got ourselves more organized. We all love this time to regroup; but I was tired- and irritated. I wanted to be on vacation. I wanted to be spending time with my family. I found myself jealous- of being away from the office. Of all things I could envy- money, vacations, cars- I envied time with my kids. So I took off today (Fri) to spend with the kids and Nathan.

Two hours into the morning I wanted to be at work. My day did not go according to plan at all. Nathan decided he didn't want to do anything outside the house since he was tired and hadn't had a day off this week. He came home and went to sleep. Micah and Hannah waged a two person war on my sanity- and they won. The laundry overwhelmed me, the kitchen floor disgusted me, the carpet enraged me. Where is my nirvana?? Where is my haven?? I actually told Nathan I should have gone to the office; I would have done less work there. So now I find myself divided. The work at work is easier it seems than the work at home. But, when I am at work, the work at home is easier. How long does it take to find balance in the load? I am not unhappy with my life- it isn't what I planned but I've learned my plans count for little in this world- but I wish it were an easier walk. Maybe, eventually, I will figure it all out. I won't give up, though, in any way. I will continue to want to be home and want to be at work, juggle the kids and the files, serve my boss and my husband, and fight through this life until we find peace and balance. Or at least until I can find a way to keep the floor clean two days together, the laundry piles from growing into mini Everests, and a way to eat the leftovers BEFORE they mold.

This is my life, the cards I was dealt, and I am determined to take the house with this hand, even if I have to bluff my way to the end- and I've been told I'm good at bluffing! Night all! Keep spinning those plates and balancing on those balls. They tell me it's worth it in the end....let's just hope they aren't bluffing, too!

:) Bethany

P.S. Thanks for indulging my melancholy mood :)

July 4th

Well I'm already tardy with my post! For fourth of July we went to a lakehouse owned by my sister-in-law's mom. The Mapps (both sets) and the Eyes got together for a relaxing weekend. It was a lot of fun. The kids really enjoyed the lake. It was a change of scenery for all of us and the water felt wonderful. We managed to avoid sunburn (except for my shoulders) and no one drowned, so we called it a successful outing! :) Nathan and my brother and dad spent the weekend fishing. They caught quite a few catfish (thrown back for next time); Hannah even got a chance and landed the biggest catfish of them all! She had never fished before, so it was really exciting for her!

Micah was really strong in the water this time. His new floatie is great...it gives him more range of motion, so he is trying all kinds of new things. We were laughing at him, though, for wearing his goggles on his head- he never once put them over his eyes and threw a fit when I tried to show him how they work! LOL He is too funny! My sisters challenged me to swim races which proved how out of shape I am! I did beat Stacie! Sara out stroked me...but if her arms weren't longer than mine I would have won! :)

We shot off a few fireworks Saturday night, which everyone but Micah enjoyed. He insisted on being put to bed before the fireworks and borrowed Stacie's iPod to drown out the noise. We think that loud noises are associated in his mind with the seizures he used to have. They were sometimes triggered by startling him with touch or sound. I guess he will have to grow out of it. He is terrified of loud noises for now, though. We got up Sunday and leisurely packed up and headed back into the city....withering from the heat. This summer has been ridiculous! Even I am hot! If you know me, you know that is a rare state of being for me! My sweater or jacket is always handy.

All in all in was a fun weekend and was a relaxing way to spend the holiday. My sunburned shoulders have faded into a nice little tan and the kids are getting brown as little beans between Mom and Dad's pool, the lake, and the neighborhood pool. Maybe one day I'll be a brown as them!

Our First Attempt

This is my first attempt at a family blog. I am hoping that this will serve our families by helping them feel connected and also allow us to follow our children's progress in life. I've never been good at scrapbooking (all my pics are on a harddrive somewhere) and photo albums don't seem to exist in my vernacular, but words have always been my friend. I like writing and detailing history and events, especially when it comes to my children! They are a never ending fountain of material! Funny and trite, spiritual and emotional, truth and jokes...it all seems to flow forth from their mouths. Didn't the Bible say "out of the mouths of babes"? It was definitely true!

Nathan and I are both "talkers"; just ask anyone in our families. There is a story, often told about me, in which I shocked and "out talked" my aunt who was the chatty Cathy in our family then...and I was 4. Nathan loves to communicate with words. He likes to find the perfect word to communicate his feelings, needs, desires. He revels in a well turned sentence. He will spend hours pouring over his business communications to ensure they are precise and professional, honing words and sharpening sentences here and there. It really is no wonder, then, that our children are professional talkers already! I have heard that men/boys use about 15,000 words per day and women/girls use 30,000 per day. At our house I think those totals have to be doubled!

So, needless to say, a blog is the best expression of our family in my opinion. If I get wordy at times, please excuse me...but I find so much pleasure in words that I will tend to get carried away! Feel free to skip ahead at times, if you must, but please enjoy our blog.