Thankgsgiving 2009

Thanksgiving Day we went over to Greg and Laurel's. It was a gorgeous day! When we got there the kids right away went outside to the horses. Maddi really wanted to see them but was a little intimidated by the size of them and how close they got to her. She went to Greg and told him she wanted to see the horses and took him by the hand and led him over to them. Usually Maddi wants no one but Mommy and so it was extra cute the two of them standing there holding hands looking at the horses. When it was time to eat we were able to enjoy our delicious dinner outside on the back porch! We all got our fill of food and the kids were off again! They always love to play on the hay bales so Greg uncovered the hay for them and that was there next adventure. A friend of the family had let Greg and Laurel borrow his 4 wheeler so we all got to go on a ride on that too. Maddi didn't want to go but the other kids were all over it! We tried to get Gram to go for a ride but she didn't want to. James too me for a ride and it was a little scary at first but I got used to it. My fingers hurt from holding on so tight though! The wind kicked up later in the evening but that didn't stop the kids! While we were cleaning up the kitchen the guys were outside with the kids in the horse corral and the kids were just running around like crazy! When Kenni came in he was ready to go home a go to bed. Maddi fell asleep on the way home and it was too long after we got home Kenni laid on my lap and was out.

Climbing Trees

As you know from previous posts Little Man is our climber! Last Saturday after Daddy and Kenni got home from hunting they wanted to rest a bit. Gram and I took the other kids for a walk then it was such a beautiful day we hung out on the front porch for a while. The kids decided they wanted to try to climb the tree in the front yard. It's a pine tree and for some reason my kids like to collect pine cones. The limbs are pretty high and they can't reach them. There is one little stub of a limb that they can reach but it isn't enough to grab on to to climb. Laura got the idea to get a scarf and hang it over a branch and pull herself up. It was a good idea but they still couldn't do it. So finally I helped them and gave them a little boost. When Laura got up she was a little scared and didn't go any higher. Little Man got up there was trying to navigate his way from branch to branch to get pine cones. I made him stop though because he was pretty high off the ground and it was making me nervous.

Kenni's Big Hunt

Last Saturday James and a buddy from work went dove hunting. Each time James goes out he takes the kids in order from oldest to youngest. He didn't think Laura would like it the 1st time he went so he started with Little Man. This time it was Kenni's turn. Ever since James went the last time Kenni has been talking about going hunting. Last time James went Kenni helped James clean the birds and loved it! James told Kenni it was his job to get the birds and "field clean" them. I won't describe what that involves but if your a hunter I'm sure you know. Kenni couldn't wait! He was so excited to get his hands on a bird. Kenni came home with his bag of birds and a big smile on his face! He was so proud of himself! One grose thing that I have to share is something Kenni just had to tell me. He came in and said "Mom!!! The bird was still twitching and I got to stomp on it's head!" That was the highlight of his day! I was a little surprised because Kenni is our animal lover and cries if a bug in the pool dies. He sure has no reservation about hunting though! At a yard sale recently the boys each got their own pocket knife to use for hunting and other things (supervised by Daddy of course) and Kenni has been wanting to use his knife so bad and he got to when they got home with the birds and finished cleaning them! Now Laura says she is ready to hunting with Daddy too!

Life at the Ozbirn's

I know I have been really bad about posting lately. We brought Grandma Jackson home with us from IL when we went so our days consist of just hanging out with Grandma pretty much. She usually goes with to take and pick up the kids from school, or if by some miracle Maddi stays asleep in the morning Gram stays home with her. It's only happened a few time and Maddi was not happy with me. Gram said she would hide under the table and cry. One day I did go to the kids' school in the afternoon for halloween parties and Gram stayed home with Maddi and she was great. I did have to sneak out and Maddi asked where I was a couple of times but never cried. Maddi is warming up to Grandma now. It all depends on Maddi's mood! One minute she will tell Grandma she doesn't like her then the next minute she is telling Grandma she loves her and hugs and kisses on her. Grandma is just getting a kick out of Maddi's faces (if looks could kill...) and moods. We took the kids to the dentist the other day for cleanings and Maddi was not in a mood to sit. I kept getting on to her and there was an older man waiting for his wife and he either said something to me or Maddi (I can't remember) and she stuck her tongue out at him. I smacked her in the mouth and she did it again. So I smacked her mouth again and she did it again! So I finally took her outside but when we came back in she wasn't any better. Thankfully the man wasn't offended by it. He was telling us he had a little grandaugther about the same age and she was the same way.

We got report cards yesterday and were very pleased Laura is bring up her grades and we are very thankful for that. She has been staying after once a week for tutoring with her teacher and her Daddy has been able to help her with her homework every night, one on one, so I think that has helped a ton. Her attitude is better but still not anywhere near perfect. Kenni's report card was all O's except for handwriting was an S. That was the case on his progress report and the teacher said he was doing really good with handwriting after I told him Mrs. Lukens said he needed to do better. Kenni's teacher just loves him and he thinks she is really awesome too. Whenever Kenni brings a treat in his lunch he always has to bring extra for Mrs. Lukens. He brought in some banana bread this week and for some reason didn't bring any in for Mrs. Lukens. She told him she wanted some banana bread next time but she likes the kind with nuts in it (I don't care for the nuts so we usually leave them out). I told Kenni next time we would make Mrs. Lukens some. He's always talking about Mrs. Lukens and how she does things in class and what not so Maddi has picked up on it and she is always talking about Mrs. Lukens too. Maddi just calls her Lukensthough. It's really cute. Little Man's teacher forgot to put his report card in his backpack yesterday but she is always telling us how great he is doing. At the last conference she insisted that we get James tested for the gifted program. I wasn't sure if I wanted to because we already have a ton of work to do between the 3 kids after school. We decided to do it and he made it. I don't know what his exact score was but he made it in. I'm not too sure what it all consists of either but it's going to be an after school thing and today is his 1st day of that.

We haven't really been doing much of anything lately. Our weekdays are really crazy after school and our weekends have just been relaxing. All of us (but Gram) have all been trying to catch some kind of sickness. Coughs, sore throats, sneezing....the norm I guess for fall/winter colds. No fever though and it's severity goes up and down. James Sr has it the worst of all right now. It didn't help any that he worked extra last weekend at the Pinal County H1N1 shot clinic. He was part of set up/break down and traffic control on friday night and all day saturday. It wouldn't have been bad but it finally decided to rain here for the 1st time in months and boy did it come down good! We sure needed the rain but we sure had a good flood. A couple of weeks prior we had the worst dust storm in a long time and Gram could not believe it and then the rain came down in buckets and our yard was completely under water and the kids were all screaming and yelling and carrying on. Gram couldn't believe how excited these kids got over rain. That's what happens when it only rains once in a blue moon!

The boys, well all the kids have been fighting/arguing non stop lately. The boys get physical though and someone always ends up crying. One day last week they were fighting and James hit his chin on Kenni's head. The next day that thing bruised up like you would not believe and Kenni's head didn't have a spot on it. We always say he's got a hard noggin but from the look of James' chin I thought for sure Kenni's head would be bruised too. James hit his chin so hard it almost busted open.

Now this week we are just thinking about getting prepared for thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to that for Grandma. In IL it's always so freezing cold. Here we eat out in the backyard!

So that's the last few weeks in a nutshell. Sorry for the long read! Maybe if I was better about updating then they would be shorter huh?!?

Happy #@ Birthday James Sr.

I now it's almost been a week now but last Saturday was James' birthday. I won't say how old he is because he didn't want to be older than 21. The kids were so excited for James' birthday! Laura and Little Man made him breakfast in the morning all by themselves. They made him a toasted bagel and put candles in it (but didn't light them of course) and also a yogurt and chocolate milk. Kenni and I were still sleeping so Kenni was upset he didn't get to help make breakfast so he got to help me make the birthday pie. A co-worker of James made him a german chocolate cake the day before. The county had their big annual safety rodeo and she gave it to him there in front of the whole county. He was really embarrassed by that. So Kenni and I made butterscotch pie and topped it with whip cream. I got a picture of the pie but not any of James. He is anti-being on the blog.

Happy Halloween

On Halloween we had great weather! It was actually a bit toasty during the day but perfect once trick or treating time came around. We just went around a few streets in our neighborhood. There weren't too many other trick or treaters in our part of town. There aren't many kids to begin with but most of them that are around here go to the school or into Casa Grande to get the good stuff. We did just fine right here in our part of town though. Maddi wasn't too into the whole getting candy from strangers deal. She liked the houses that just left the bowl of candy on the porch. We couldn't keep up with the other kids! Kenni still has some manner to learn before going next year. He would get his candy and right away say "GUCKER!!! I got a ...." right in front of the person handing out candy and before anyone even had theirs.

Our Pumpkins

Laura (Storm Shadow), James (Snake Eyes), Kenni (Army Guy), Maddi (princess)

Kenni and his very Scary Vampire Teeth

Maddi being Scary with Kenni's Vampire Teeth

Cool Weather

Well it was short lived and here we are back up to 90 degress but last wednesday thru friday it was only in the 60's here. James got up friday morning and started a fire in the fireplace to warm things up a bit and keep up from having to turn the heat on just yet. I thought this picture of Blu was hilarious.
Hopefully it won't be too long and the cool weather will return. As for now we are still running our a/c in the afternoon!