Prayers Needed!!

Our family is going through several things right now, which I cannot share on here at this time. If you read this, please take a moment and just pray for us. And at the same time, please pray for my Papa, who is not doing too well. He will be 86 in April. Thank you.

With deepest love, sincerity and appreciation,
Karen and James

Forsythe Five

Our friend and High School Youth Minister, Brandon, and his wife, Mandy, welcomed their third child into this world last Thursday, which was also Mandy's birthday and her mom's birthday. Kind of unique and NOT planned that way!

They are no longer called the Forsythe Four anymore since HARPER joined the family along with big brothers Dane and Aidan.

They are now the Forsythe Five!

Here's Harper with her first "pink" set of nun-chucks so she can defend herself from the two Ninja-obsessed big brothers she has inherited.

Mandy and Harper are doing great and went home from the hospital on Sunday. Congrats guys! She is just bootiful!!!!!

Spring Portraits

Here's a peek at the kids Spring Portraits from school.

Our baby - 7 1/2 years young, 2nd grader, bonafide charmer, football fanatic, comedian...and ALL boy!! He is Mr. T...


Our oldest - 8 1/2 years young, 3rd grader, smart as a whip, smiling beauty with a tender heart, with a touch of sassiness and a dash of drama! She is The Belle...

They grow up TOO fast!!
Enjoy!

Our New School...

As most of you know, since we moved to Spring from Pearland almost two years ago, the kids have gone to Roth Elementary and have really liked it. Well, we have known for a while now that this was all going to change when they started building Klein ISD Elementary School No.26 right down the road from us.

Our subdivision, we've been told for the 4th time in the last three years, is being rezoned again. To this brand new school. The kids were not okay with it at first, but now they are getting used to the idea and are actually getting a little excited about it. James and I went to an informational meeting last Monday night for parents. Our new school is named Mueller Elementary, after another founding German family in the Spring/Klein area. Our mascot, which was voted on by the students including Shelby and Thomas, will be the Mueller Stars. Thomas doesn't like that by the way, he voted for Mustangs, which I kind of like better too. Their colors will be Midnight Blue and Silver. Thomas does like that. HA!

Here's one of the latest shots of the new school, still being built. The Principal told us last week that she is crossing her fingers that everything will be completed and ready to go by August 24th, the first day of school. From the pictures, and all the carpet, paint, tile samples, etc...that we saw at the meeting, this school is going to be state of the art. And Shelby and Thomas will be part of the very first group of students to enjoy this school. Which is really cool.

On August 20th, we will be able to go into the school for the first time to meet their teachers, tour the school, and buy their school supply packets. From now until then, I will be posting new pictures every now and then of the school being completed.

Go Mueller Stars!!

Roth Carnival 2009

Last night was the school carnival from 5:30 - 8:30pm. Fortunately, the rains decided to stop around 4pm yesterday, the skies parted and other than dealing with a few mud puddles, it turned out to be gorgeous weather!

Here's a look at Bounce House Row:

The Giant Saber Tooth Tiger...

A sea of people...Roth always has a good turnout. See how blue the sky was?

Here's Shelby with her best friend Rachel. She will miss Rachel next year. Rachel will stay at Roth. They won't even go to the same high school. Kind of sad.

Here's Thomas playing a game...if you look closely or click on the picture you can see I captured the ball he threw in mid-air. I like shots like that.

Here's another shot of Rachel after they got their hair sprayed...very cute!

Thomas and his friends did it too...although his looked a mess by the time I snapped a picture because well, my boy is a sweat factory. He opted for green and blue stripes on his head with a football painted on his cheek, or what's left of the football that the sweat had left behind.

Here's a clip of Thomas bowling - he almost got a strike!!


Shelby getting her hair sprayed...

Shelby and Rachel dancing to HSM music on the big screen in the gym...they were so cute!

We had a great time and were very tired when we got home!!

Trinity's Vet Check-up

Trinity just turned 15 months old on Tuesday. Yesterday, it was time for a trip to the vet for her annual exam amongst other things. She was due for just about everything...heart worm check, blood drawn, two shots, rabies, and more heartworm pills. The vet and techs are always so happy to see our girl.

Thought I would show what Miss Trinity looks like in my truck...

I have to cover the whole back seat with towels, but it works. If we had two Danes right now, I would probably have to take them on different days!!

Waiting patiently in the office...she's such a good girl!! She weighs 90 pounds now...which the Doc said for her age and being a female is TERRIFIC!

Back home at last...she immediately got comfy on her couch as she's contemplating forgiving me for taking her to that torture place!!

And now she's just about out of it here...getting ready to snooze a while. I think she had enough poking going on for one day. Going to the vet is hard work ya know!!

Here's a cute video I took of her while we were at the vet...she would NOT leave my side.

She had a great check-up! Dr. Scott said she looks great and that she's GORGEOUS!! As Shelby would say...."LIKE, DUH"...tell me something I don't know Dr. Scott. :-)

Fighting Allergies!

James and I had been looking for some local honey to help fight allergies, for all of us in the family, but especially for Shelby and Thomas!! Well, last Friday when James was off work and we were out running around town, we found some!!! A little ol' guy about 80 years old sells products from his farm under a tent at one of the gas stations and he was there on Friday!! He was very sweet and chatty and was telling us all about it. His bee hives are located about half a mile down the road from us. Perfect!!! Before it was all over with, we had bought not only a 2 lb. jar of honey but also a bag of shelled Texas pecans, and a small orange and honey coffee cake that his sweet wife made.

This 2 lb. jar of local honey cost only $8 bucks!! And let me tell you, it is really delicious!! I don't think I'll ever buy store bought honey made in South America or Timbuktu again. So, honey bees, if you are listening out there....you better not die off anytime soon, especially in the Houston, Texas vicinity!! That's an order!! Shelby loves honey so much, she will eat it right out of the spoon like this:

And from the looks of it...we will probably be buying some more yummy honey from Mr. A.C. very soon!!! Think I'll purchase two jars next time so it will last a little longer.

And believe it or not, I think it's already helping my allergies (knocking on lots of wood at the moment). Normally, by the end of March I would have been snotting and sneezing already. Worth every penny I think!!

Greenhouse Results - One Week

Well, the kids are very excited! After just one week, this is what we have!!

They are ALL growing!!!

Only thing is, they look a little top heavy to me. So...we'll see what they do. I'm just thrilled that something actually grew.

I'll let ya know how these turn out or if they just lean over and die! HA!

Great News!

Today, Shelby came home with her Reading TAKS Test results and I think you can tell by the look on her face that it was great news. Out of a total of 36 questions, Shelby got 33 correct. This is way above average. Standard score passing is 2100. Anything over that is above Standard or Average. Shelby scored 2400!! Woo Hoo! Way to go Belle...all that worrying for nothin'!! We are so proud!

She specifically asked me to film this for all of our loyal readers (aka...YOU!) Enjoy!!

Now we have to gear up for the Math TAKS test scheduled for Tuesday, April 28th! I don't think she'll worry near as much this time. She LOVES math!!

Kids Learning Garden

A couple of weeks ago, I found this cute little activity for the kids at Lowe's. It's a Mini Greenhouse, for the kids to grow their own little flower garden. Last week, after returning from Spring Break, they were ready to do it.

These were the two options of flowers to pick from: Lilliputs on the left and Teddy Bears on the right.

They each had three pots. I marked "T's" on the three that Thomas picked so we would know which side was which.

Here's Mr. T starting to work on his:

After the soil pellets were put in each pot, he had to add some water to each one and wait 5 minutes. "Moma, has it been 5 minutes yet?" I heard that at least 20 times within that 5 minutes.

Now, Thomas, it's been 5 minutes! He started selecting and putting the seeds just under the soil. Thomas decided he wanted two pots to be Teddy Bears (the yellow ones) and one to be the colorful Lilliputs. Shelby, naturally, did the complete opposite of him.

Here she is working on her soil:

And adding her water:

After they were done planting, they had to use a little spray bottle to water the tops with a mist.

Then it was time to put the pots back into the container, close it up, and then the little Greenhouse was put outside to get some sun.

It's kind of cold and rainy today so I'm bringing the Greenhouse inside today. I'll try to take some new pics and show what they look like after growing one week.

Youth Charity Volleyball Tournament

Sunday night, James and I went out to the church to meet with our small group and to also watch the Sr. Hi Youth (since James is a sponsor), play in a volleyball tournament for charity. It's the first time the sand court has been used and it was very cool.

While there, I snapped some updated pics. Things have already changed in just the last week. Remember the main office building barely had boards up??? Well, this is what it looked like as of Sunday:


Here's a shot of the sand court and the youth were all starting to warm up and form teams.

Where there are Youth, there is always food. They pigged out on grilled hot dogs and drinks.

This is when they were just about to get started. See the big gnarly dude in the middle with a pink shirt on? Yeah, that's Brandon, our Sr. Hi youth minister.

It was PERFECT weather to play volleyball and they all seemed to be having a great time! The winning team was also named after the charity of their choice.

Here's an up close portion of the building that is covered with license plates turned backwards that were donated by NCC members. It's really cool looking.

The all-boy winning team was "Make A Wish"!!

The youth were still playing around when we left but the tournament was over!

Until next time...

Sweet Bubby

Over Spring Break, while I was out of town with the kids, Josh and Kristal had Keaton's 7 month old portraits made.

This is one of my favorites and the one they gave us. It's already in a frame and sitting proudly in our entertainment center!! What a dumpling!!

Looks just like his daddy here!! He's ready to rumble! What a ham!!!

What a big boy standing up...he is crawling really well now by the way!

Love that strawberry blond hair!! What a sugar boy!!! Just like my Thomas!!

I can hardly stand how adorable he is...makes ya wanna slap yo' Mama good!!

Movie Review

This weekend, Grandma Hathorn came to visit and we had a movie outing to see the new Disney flick, which is a remake, called Race to Witch Mountain!

We all LOVED this movie...very clean, fun, action packed, family movie and it has "The Rock" in it!! If you get a chance, check out this movie in the theater.

You won't be sorry.

Spring Break - Part 5 - The End!

Spring Break Conclusion...

Well, the rest of Spring Break Week (from Wed. thru Sat.), it rained and was very cold in Texas!! We couldn't do anything fun outdoors after going to the Zoo last Tuesday. So, we enjoyed eating out, renting movies, playing games, visiting Grandma and Pop, amongst these other things:

My daddy took the kids to Hobby Lobby and they each picked out two things. Thomas picked out a model airplane to build with PawPaw.

It's a Stealth Fighter and it has a little stand to sit on...

Thomas plays with it all the time. He also picked out a box of tiny models of all kinds of guns...don't have a pic of those.

Shelby picked out a package where you basically stuff your own bear, kind of like at Build A Bear, except on a small scale.

Here she is stuffing away...

And now she's all finished...she named this bear, "Karate", can't imagine why???

Shelby has also really gotten into drawing pictures so her other item she picked out was a real drawing pad along with a pack of paint pens. These were two of her first drawings she did last week and gave to PawPaw. He requested she draw pictures of his two dogs, C.C. and Tuffy. I think Shelby did a pretty good job there! Anyone with any sense at all can tell these are none other than C.C. and Tuffy!!! I'll try to take some more pics soon and show several of her other drawings.

Another thing we did on Thursday was go out for some yummy pizza and we took the kids to Lunar Golf, an indoor, black light lit, putt-putt course inside the mall. The first game was a lot of fun and all 5 of us were playing. But I won't go into the major melt down Thomas had while starting to play the 2nd game...he gets SO frustrated sometimes and he lets it get the best of him and I hate it for him. The rest of us had a good time playing Game 2.

All that frustration tuckered him out I guess...

Also while in Shreveport, I was able to visit my two best friends, Sonja and Erika, and we had a great time!!! The only sad part was I didn't get to see my third best friend, Monica, who also happens to be my #1 Cuz, but we'll catch up on the next trip!!