bsmiles and sunny days

We don't have a lot of space anywhere except the living room and the yard, so even though I do not get excited about having that extra space taken up by toys and projects, I allow it because I have a lot of kids that need to practice their creativity, which more often than not, takes space. This particular project was a fort; not a little fort, a house for all of the children with separate rooms and passageways. Dale got right on board with this one and attempted to build them a spectacular establishment, but after the dogs made new entrances where there were none previously the walls came down. Kennedy, being the natural born leader, took matters into her own hands and began the reconstruction. When she couldn't maintain any sort of permanence, she built a train with private cars for each passenger. The sleeping cars allowed even the conductor to nap as he drove the lucky borders across the country. I love this kind of creativity. Yesterday I told the kids to be thinkin...

I've come into the office several times and started to write but my time has been cut short every time and there is so much I want to write about. One of those things is the way I find myself staring out into the landscape and wishing we could just run for the hills. If you know anything about these Suttons, you'd know that we all keep a hawk-eye out for mountain lions on the most highly populated trails, and torment each other with the prospect of one jumping out of the trees on top of us. And you'd also know that we all ran inside the yurt and locked the door at 7:30 the night of our campout because a raccoon was pilfering through the crumbs from our dinner. I, for one, am not cut out for life in the sticks. But a couple of days in the yurt looks really nice about now. Everyone is vacationing. We ran into one neighbor that had just gotten home from spending the week in Arizona. On our way home from the walk another neighbor was leaving for Colorado. My brother and sis...

This is our favorite burger place. The only menu items they serve are burgers, fries, sodas, and milk shakes. The owners are Christians and have John 3:16 stamped on all their paper products. The fries are made cut and fried while you wait and the burgers are out of this world. We ventured on to the milk shakes on our last visit. Let me tell you; that was a serious mistake. Can't ever say no again. I was seriously considering taking a nap instead of posting these random things today, but I decided that in honor of my sweet mother-in-law Dana, I will write and *hopefully* nap later. Besides, I have SO much to tell you. Wednesdays are my favorite. As much as I try to prevent busyness in our lives while still keeping the clock moving, I love Wednesdays because they are busy. This morning I made lunch and dinner at the same time so that we can eat and head out early for Awanas tonight. I cleaned house last night so that at the end of the day we can come home and I can just relax....

Becky tagged me last week or last month and like I generally do when tagged in a live game, I walk around and plot how I can catch someone with as little physical exertion as possible. Here it is so many days later and I'm still it, so... 1. I think about my Aunt Mary in the Spring. She divorced our family several years ago and drastically reconstructed her life. I haven't spoken to her or heard anything about her for a long, long time. She introduced me to *creme rinse* when I was a kid and had long hair, so I loved her. She was never a small woman by any stretch, or beautiful, but she never seemed to lack self-confidence. I remember being at a family reunion somewhere and she took me shopping with her at Wal-Mart. What sticks out in my mind is that everything she bought was yellow. She bought a yellow shirt that had ducks on it along the top and white stripes along the bottom, it matched her yellow pants and new yellow shoes with navy accents. In that era it was a fashion fa...

Lots of busyness around the Sutton house today... Kennedy spent the morning at basketball camp with her friends from the neighborhood. Around 11:30 she ran in the door and informed me that she had a play date this afternoon. I guess her day is full. Micah, Jasmine, Tre , and Leila started out in front of the TV but eventually all wandered out to the trampoline. While I was grilling pork chops, they moved to the patio where there is a swarm of crane flies. That's where they've been ever since. We've come full circle with the crane flies, my friends. When they first started to migrate, no one wanted to walk through the patio because they are so creepy. Now they are collecting them, dissecting them, making them their pets; I even heard one of the kids disciplining them. Kennedy's play date invited all the kids to come play, which is a gift from heaven. There is usually a little bit of jealousy when one of the kids gets to do something special, but I am of the thinking th...

I feel a little conspicuous posting another full page of Easter festivities, none of which carry any spiritual connotation because of a conversation I had yesterday about this very thing, but let's be frank. I'm not going to snap pictures while we are taking communion together on Easter Sunday. *She is scoffing at my ridiculousness right now, because that conversation did not warrant any sort of an explanation. So here it is, another full day of wonder and excitement on the home front . For the first time, I was in over my head with our celebratory tradition. I didn't realize that on the past the kids have always been at someone else's house to dye eggs and my job was to: a. show up, and b. assist between my own creative endeavors. I never realized how unnerving it is to have all these kids at the table with all that dye in the middle, and not only that but the dipping and the passing and the questions and the frustrations... My sincere apologies to those of yo...

I don't know if every Federal Prison is as community oriented as this one, but they go all out to build community between the employees. Last weekend was the Easter Egg Hunt. The kids were up and dressed early, constantly peeking through the curtains to see if a crowd had gathered yet. We all stuffed Wal-Mart bags in our pockets because I wasn't sure they'd have baskets for the kids, even though they were certain they could fill their pockets and jackets with eggs. When we arrived, I was thrilled to see the elaborate set-up. They had games, two bounce houses, face painting, a craft table, and three different areas to hunt. Shortly after we arrived they fired up the barbeque and started grilling hot dogs. It was all pretty exciting. They even had a real live Easter Bunny. I know someone took a picture of some of my kids with the bunny, but I was mostly following Leila around and she wouldn't get within six feet of her. She was so cute. I don't like costume...

Almost everyone I talk to on a regular basis is still seeing snow on the ground or at least donning a hat and mittens to brave the cold. We are living large in the sunshine and starting to see fields of flowers color the fields on our way to Wal-Mart. The hope of spring inspired me to change the look of my blog. Obviously my first attempt was not quite what I was looking for, but brighter none-the-less. This time I viewed a couple of tutorials and found a lot more help than I originally found when I started construction forever ago. Tonight we will venture to the city for AWANAs, our favorite night of the week. The kids get excited about the program, we love that they are learning the Word and having so much fun, and every Wednesday night marks another week away from my former existence as a wretch in the face of opposition or under pressure. God is generous and full of mercy. But I also love Wednesday because it means when we get home Dale is already out of his work clothes and...

Friday we started our Passport adventure, which entitles free entry to a bunch of educational places and a free t-shirt at the end. One place we visited was this cool aquarium on the pier. This gal clearly loves her job as the manager of the touch tanks. This on has sting rays, little sharks, and some other kind of fish in it. They were all safe to pet. The kids could have stayed for hours here touching sea creatures. The educational activity for this stop was a trip to the Wet Deck. I tried to get a good picture but to no avail. This divider guarded a big square in the floor that was open to the ocean. The captain of the wet deck was a scientist that showed us how to capture water in this little tank and we did a bunch of tests on it. You can kind of see down through the floor here, but it still doesn't really show the water. I was fascinated by all of this. Can you see that giant lobster? My photographic genius is not much help, I know. There was another touch tank upstairs...

We found green hair spray in Wal-Mart so all the redheads resembled true carrot tops, green on top, orange underneath. We must've been a sight chasing Max all over the neighborhood with green hair. Even Scooter got in on the action. Max only got a few streaks because he's a fraidy-cat of anything that makes a spraying sound. He ran away before we could write anything significant like, "Kiss me, I'm Irish." I don't know who took this picture, but there's a profile of my belly for those of you that have asked. Seven weeks and counting. And there's my long, long, desperate-for-a-trim hair that I'm just about to cut off. It is becoming a burden. I won't take it all off, but I can't be getting it caught in other people's car doors and things like that. It's just too embarassing. They look like action heros. I think they felt like movie stars walking through Wal-Mart. Kids were pointing and talking about them everywhere they went. Tr...

We haven't gotten into the full swing of St. Patrick's Day celebrations yet for this year, so I thought I'd share our revelry from last year because I adore these pictures so, so much. Sarah was especially festive with all of her green accents And our green apple juice And green milk and green waffles, and of course all of our green Mardi Gras beads. Mawmaw partied that weekend with us too. It was a fun day. This year we will make corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, and make lots and lots of Irish decorations around the house. After that we'll go to Wal-Mart and hopefully find a nice St. Patrick's Day movie to finish out the day. Being that this is my first year to make the traditional meal, we'll hope for the best and have pizza on back-up just in case. Happy Day to you!

This year we took Spongebob off the naughty TV list and he has become a part of our everyday lives. I banned it when it first came out because I thought the humor was too crude for preschoolers, but since most of mine are in school now and have matured into a new level of acceptable crudeness, I decided to allow it. And besides that, one of my most virtuous and godly friends had an influence on my decision when her son performed an entire episode of Spongebob for me when I came to visit. I don't regret it. I didn't, however, know that they show hours and hours of it everyday. There are serious limitations to how long an adult can withstand this kind of entertainment. For those of you still on the outskirts of Spongebob-mania, he works at the Krusty Krab and his job is more than a job, it's his joy in life. At the Krusty Krab, they serve Krabby Patties which are made from a secret recipe but are the most popular entree in town. Kennedy in all her ingenuity, set up the Krus...

Kennedy loves to party. With her ability to dream up great ideas, cook, sew, and a little independence, she rallies the troops and VOILA! PORDEE TIM WOOHOO! (party time woohoo!) She and Jasmine lay in bed and talk for hours after we send them to their rooms for the night. My leniency usually shows itself in this one thing because I treasured hours and hours of conversation with my siblings after my parents sent us to bed. So they laid in bed plotting this party for me and the baby the other night. Tre made the pictures and he and Kennedy put up the streamers. Kennedy made this little bag with a pillow and a stuffed toy for the baby. And then she made pancakes and even made the syrup this time. I don't know what she does different than I do, but her pancakes are delicious. This kid is a natural born cook. So I undulged and instead of my Raisin Bran, ate delicious pancakes and homemade syrup. Yummy. The general concensus is that we're having a boy, with no scientific reasoning...