A New Chapter

Wow! Big things are happening at the Graham house. As Chris best put it, "There's a lot of sad babysitters throughout Allen, TX now that the Grahams are off the market."
Now that Charlotte is 11 we feel comfortable leaving her home with the kids for a few hours when we're close by.

We put her skills to the test last Friday night and headed to a ward High Priest Sweet 16 party. This is where all the High Priests and spouses meet together with dessert and watch some of the March Madness tournament games. Heaven and heaven. A plate full of dessert and a big screen T.V. full of basketball.
We left Charlotte with Chris's cell phone and texted her throughout the night. These were some of our awesome texts back and forth, and yes, she is awesome. I guess through all these years of awesome babysitters Charlotte picked up on the best ways to do it. We were so happy when we got home and found sleeping kids, a clean house, no babysitter to drive home or check to write.

We have a long going tradition of leaving notes for the kids on their magna doodle's after they're asleep for them to read in the morning. Charlotte did this completely on her own.


Hey yo!, I turned your aquifer (humidifier) on 4 you, - thank you Charlotte -, why you are so welcome

Hey yo' I turned your alarm off 4 u -thank you Charlotte - why your welcome!

A little visit from the shoe fairy, who looks to be more generous than the tooth fairy.

Love Her!!! -and I love that she loves babysitting!

11!

Charlotte's birthday always falls during spring break. That means no school, sleeping in and a week long party. This year her only request was an ice cream cake - she's an easy kid to make happy. Chris was home all day, we opened presents in the morning, went to Olive Garden for lunch and had a movie party at night.

I'm thankful for this girl in so many ways. Here are just 11 of them.

1. She very FUN!! Always up for an adventure - any adventure, my kind of girl.
2. She's a great peacemaker, she always helps with her little brothers and sisters to keep peace.
3. She's very musical, she's doing great at both at the piano and harp. Sometimes when I'm cleaning I'll ask her to play just to have beautiful background music in our house.
4. She's smart!! She's a straight A kid and is very responsible with her schoolwork.
5. She loves family time and being home.
6. She's grateful, she'll always thank me and leave me nice notes.
7. She's very sure of herself, she doesn't notice what others are doing around her or compare herself to others - a true gift!
8. She's very kind to others.
9. Her favorite thing to do is to snuggle up with a good book and read, I love that she loves books so much.
10. She is neither dramatic or emotional - yahoo!!!!!!!
11. She's very teachable - she loves to learn, looking things up on the internet, reading encyclopedias or non-fiction books, She's been our "why" girl from day 1.

I'm savoring these last years of elementary school and primary with her. There are so many big changes coming up so fast. We are going to enjoy 11 before that all happens.

March 21,2012

My day went something like this, from start to finish.
1. 9:00 - Drop off Mallory at school, get in the van to get home and then smell the odd smell and realize it wasn't really my van after all. Awkward.
2. 10:00 At Lowe's, picking up some home improvement items (hooray!) when I ask an employee a question and he responds, you really should send in your husband for me to explain this. Angry
3. Praying for rain all day so that soccer practice can be cancelled. Please, please, please!!!
4. 3:00 pick up Mason from school to his worsening cough. Run him to the Dr. with hopes of getting some meds so we can all (mostly me:-) get sleep tonight. He seems to sleep just fine.
5. I really needed a treat all day and our house had nothing to satisfy.
6. 5:00 - I look out the window to find the most amazing discovery. My sweet, new, garden was growing green things. Hooray! I was so happy at that moment. My only goal after all the labor I put into it was just for something to grow, anything. I immediately took pictures of the life and sent them to Chris. High Point7. 5:30 Load up the kiddos to pick up girls from Activity Days. The key won't go in, our car wasn't going anywhere. Mallory had somehow lodged a pencil in the ignition. Grrrrr. Low Point, maybe even breaking point8. Miss soccer practice because our car is stuck in the garage. Maybe a secret high - see #3
9. A cute husband who comes home early to make everything better. See #2 He is handier than I, I must admit.
9. Breakfast for dinner to make everything better. The syrup almost was a substitute for the treat I'd been craving all day.
10. The bigs clean up dinner while I put the littles to bed. Bless them.
11. 9:00pm The littlest little, aka Mallory, is still not asleep. Charlotte just came down and asked if there was a mute button on her. Why is she always the last one to sleep???
12. Book vacation to Destin, Fl - hello ocean & white sugary sand beach, I can hear you calling my name now! Like, right now! 12. Only a few hours to go until Chris comes back home from a meeting.
Que the music: ............ Mamma told me there'd be days like this........

Open House

Before the kids took off for their big spring break vacation, we went to the school for their Open House. Chris was super dad and came home early so he could be there. Open House is always a little bit scary when you see the kids art work and writing posted on the wall for everyone else to see.
These Marin Luther King look-alikes provided some good laughs. There were some dreams that were really sad and embarrassing like "I have a dream that my brother and sister will like me" "I have a dream that my parents will quit fighting" and some good dreams like "I have a dream that no child will ever be hungry." Mason's dream fell into it's own category, I'm not sure the name of it. His dream was that all the water fountains would be chocolate milk fountains. His dream was probably the most honest and sincere. His artwork was also awesome. The "Guess Who My Parent is Wall" was a little more embarrassing. You read some of these and just hope that when you turn it over it doesn't have your name on it. This was the case for Chris.All I know is that if there was a matching game where all the dads stood by the wall and people had to match them to the descriptions nobody would pick Chris. Mason described him more as a guy who works out on a drilling rig, getting sprayed with oil who has dirt permanently under his finger nails and spends his weekends getting in bar fights.
There is nobody in the world that Mason adores more than his dad.
What are we to do with this crazy guy???? (here he is dressed up as his alias, Mr. Brown, for the Dr. Seuss parade)

Another Sunday

This morning was daylight savings, and we had 9:00am church, and I have to get the kids and me ready by myself, and I had sharing time, and we did it!

I'm staring down future Sundays in my life and I can only see it being easier than today. I also realize how fortunate and blessed I am in my life that a morning like today makes my list of hard things.

FHE classics

Here and then, we'll have a Family Home Evening that will finds itself a spot on the best ever Graham Family FHE list.

Such was the case on Monday night when this guy was put in charge.He had the lesson and he chose modesty. It was his choice and yes it was random. After a somewhat normal lesson he finished with this bold statement. He was very serious and dramatic.
"and one more thing, you should NEVER, NEVER, wear a necklace with a money symbol on it. It makes the poor people feel very sad."
and now we all know. Random - where did he get that from. It might come as a surprise but neither Chris or I have any chains with money symbols on them.$$$$$
(we'd like to thank Dylan, Mason's best friend, for this awesome shot of his Halloween costume)
There then was a follow up activity that he created, we each drew a piece of lead from a mechanical pencil. If you got a short one you went to heaven, if you got a long one, well you weren't so lucky. So after drawing our pieces of lead, we opened our hand and he pointed his finger in our faces telling us all where we would go. Only Charlotte went to heaven, the rest of us weren't so lucky.

This lesson was immediately followed up with a brief lesson from Chris on appropriate times to say "You're going to hell." It didn't ever include yelling at someone while pointing your finger in their face when you said it.

It was the kind of night where after it was all said and done you have to ask yourself - did that just happen.

I fear(look forward to) many more of these awesome FHE nights.

Single Lonely ~ looking for a mate

The Cricut has long been an appreciated piece of equipment in this household. We have everything there was to cut on paper, until this week. The vinyl purchased long ago was broke open and here's what I produced.
Stage 1


















Stage 2


















Stage 3


















Mismatched socks have never made me so happy. Every time I go in the laundry room I get excited. With Mallory in school a few days a week, I'm feeling like the crafty side of me is on the verge of coming back out.