what's that smell?

Mason is the craziest kid around here. He has always been a *smeller*. The boy smells EVERYTHING....good or bad! He has always smelt everything that he puts in his mouth and anything else that comes his way. A few weeks ago my best friend Renee (who lives in Oregon now) was visiting us. Ashlyn stayed busy pulling things out of her suitcase and tossing them around the bedroom. I walked by the room and see Mason inspecting a bag on the floor. It is a clear Ziploc bag with round, brown objects in it. I see him swipe his hand across the bag and then smell his hand and he walks off. I bust out laughing and asked him what he was doing and he tells me "I was seeing if that was poop in that bag!" Haaa haaaa it was a bag of chocolate covered nuts :)

So when it is time for my best buddy to go back home we take her to the airport and pull up to help her unload her bags. I knew that we weren't going anywhere else so I let Mason get in the van without taking any shoes. When we stop and unload her bags he gets out and decides that he wants to know what the airport smells like! I try to talk him out of it because he has no shoes on and his booty is a little too big for me to carry around....but I end up caving. After all, how could I deprive him of *smelling* the airport? So here we go- me carrying his big ol' booty, cradling him like a baby in through the sliding doors...tell him to get a swift sniff and we run out the other door! Ahhhh the things we do for our kids!

Princess A~

New parents who get a diagnosis of Down syndrome for their baby are often frightened and concerned about how this will affect their other children. My son Spenser is 12 years old now (almost 13) and love his little sister Ashlyn to pieces. How many pre-teen boys do you know that will let their little sister sleep with them at night? Ashlyn has been so spoiled this summer by NOT sleeping in her own bed. She wanted to sleep with Spenser about a month and a half ago and now asks every night to sleep with "Pensa" aka Spenser. Those rotten rascals lay in there and watch t.v for hours and I know that it is going to be so hard when school starts back less than 2 weeks from now.

Spenser has told me several times that he will always take care of his little sister and that as long as he is around I would never have to worry about her. I hear stories all the time of how siblings *argue* over who will take care of their sibling with DS because they both want to care for the sibling with DS.... awesome to hear that they aren't arguing because they *don't* want to care for them. :) I think these pictures speak for themselves........

Rain rain go away....

ooooops, wait, wait never mind...we are having too much fun~~

Girly talk

So last week my cousin had a Home Interior party and several of the family *hens* were there including me, my mom, one of my sisters, 2 of my cousins and a family friend. Our families do not get together very often since our grandmother passed away so this was a nice treat for a few of the *girls* in our family :) We had the Home interior demonstration and then we all hung out to eat snacks and chit chat. My aunt passed away 6 years ago (WOW, it seems like yesterday) and 2 of her daughters were there and we sat around and talked about the good ol' days when we girls were all little and all of the mischief that we got in to. It was awesome going back to our younger years and reminiscing the care free days of youth. We were all giggling as my 2 cousins talked about how strict my mom was on us and how they always knew they would get in trouble when they spent the night with us! She just couldn't believe that they thought she was soooo mean when we were little, he he! When my mom and stepdad would go out we would have *skate night* and put our skates on, cut on the disco light and skate around our pool table on our wood floors in the dining room. Lord have mercy, they would have skinned us if they knew we were doing that! Our parents date nights also meant that we would catch an episode of Benny Hill too! Boy we were living it up, ha ha! We also talked about how we would lay in bed at night, all on our sides and would lay there and tickle or scratch each others back until we fell asleep (typically there were at least 3 of us in the same bed!) After so long, we would turn over and tickle or scratch the other persons' back. The lucky person in the middle always got their back tickled or scratched...those on the end weren't as lucky, ha ha! We talked about how I (being the sneaky girl) would lay on the floor and let my step-sister and best friend tickle my feet as we had a *who can tickle my feet the best* contest! ha ha, I was such the trickster... They would tickle my feet for a while and then ask who was the best....I would tell them that they needed to tickle a little bit more so that I could decide who was the best tickler! how bad was that? Would you believe now that I cannot stand to have my feet tickled???

I hated to leave because I was really enjoying myself, but my head was throbbing so I cut out a little early. I told my mom that we have got to do this more often....get all of the girls together and go back in time. I honestly want to find a way to do this, as I am the only one out of the group who works a funky work schedule. Next month my sister is having a Home Interior party at her house so I REALLY REALLY hope that everyone shows up again and we have lots of time to sit and go back to the 1970's and 80's.

Can you tell why I haven't blogged too much this summer? Mason is on the left and Spenser is on the right...and well you can't see Ashlyn in this picture because she is on the sideline crying :(
Somebody HELP! I am losing it over here! :(

Got Jesus??

I love this shirt...it says it all. There are only 2 choices, Heaven or Hell?? What is your choice?

Outside fun!

We took a walk this afternoon and decided to go down the road and see what the blackberries are doing...

Mason was disappointed :( Pouty face

Spenser and his *smoke bombs* ...it doesn't take much entertainment for this boy...anything will do!

We love popsicles!!!

Ashlyn is having fun *beating* this tree! :)

Yep, she is a CLIMBER :(

A mommy and her kidlets...

Assortment of holidays!

I'm slack... I don't deny it!
Here is priss at our DS group Easter egg hunt.






mommy and Ashlyn at another Easter egg hunt!




A few extra's!

Spenser stood up for his sister. I am so dang proud of him. For now I am posting pics of the two kiddos. I will post later how he stood up for what he believes!

Can't you tell that they adore each other? Well, they do *MOST* of the time!







WILD THANGS!