The Williams Family Traveling Circus

Trip to Branson, MO

2009-12-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

JD had a week off from school in November (to work on his thesis) so we took advantage of part of the week to take a family trip. We went to Branson, MO since we knew it would be all decked out for Christmas and boy was it ever!! We all had a fabulous time! We went to an Old Christmas Time at the theme park, Silver Dollar City, we took a Ride the Ducks tour of Branson, we went to the Worlds Largest Toy Museum, and went on the Sheppard of the Hills Trail of Lights. The kids loved staying in a hotel for a couple of nights too!! Below is a link to all of the pictures (the above one is from Silver Dollar City) if you didn't catch them in an email or on Facebook. You do not have to be a Facebook user to view this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128113&id=500423169&l=80fc0c9099

Veteran's Day Parade 11/11/09

2009-12-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

Kudos to the city of Leavenworth for doing up Veterans Day with a first class parade. We really enjoyed the first Veterans Day parade that we've ever been to and found it deeply moving!

Less than 2 years apart and double trouble!!

2009-12-09T13:28:00.001-08:00

Who would have thought these 2 would bond during diaper changes...but they do! They love to hold hands and giggle at each other while I'm changing their diapers. This is my first experience having 2 in diapers and quite frankly it's not fun!! At least these 2 baby boys make it worth my time! :)

Guess who lost their first 2 teeth?!

2009-12-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

That would be our little princess GRACE!! :) Grace has been ever so patiently waiting to have a lose tooth. This entire school year she has pretended to have a lose tooth, shown me excitedly, and been so disappointed and sad when I've told her that her tooth is not lose. Needless to say she was beyond thrilled when she lost her first tooth. He first tooth fell out at school on Monday, November 9. She got to go to the nurse to get a tooth box, she got a certificate, and she is now on her teacher's tooth chart. Then 3 days later, on Thursday, November 12 she lost her second tooth. Of course she was thrilled to get 2 visits from the Tooth Fairy in 1 week! :)

Do you think JR LOVES Lightning McQueen and Disney's "Cars" or what?!-HA!

2009-12-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

Fort Leavenworth's Haunted Tour

2009-12-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

It is RARE that JD and I get to go out by ourselves. Luckily we've found a babysitter down the street from us. It's still a bit nerve racking to leave all 3 kids with our sitter since sometimes it's overwhelming for us, and we're the parents. On our first date, leaving the 3 kids with a sitter for the first time here in Kansas, JD and I went on a Haunted Tour of Fort Leavenworth. We live on a very beautiful, old historic post, but it's also known for being haunted as well. I've never been on a ghost tour and those who know me know this is right up my alley. We definitely found the haunted tour fascinating and very interesting. We also learned a lot about fort Leavenworth. It was definitely spooky too!!

Grace's Cheerleading Season

2009-12-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

Grace did cheerleading for the months of September and October. B/c my life is crazy with the 3 kids, I've decided to put a "1 activity at a time" limit on each child. Grace's dance class in Alabama last year was pretty rigid and not near as recreational as we wanted. B/c of this, Grace wanted to take a break from dance and do cheerleading this Fall instead. I agreed, not realizing how time consuming it would be! She had cheerleading 3 times/week! She had practices on Mondays and Wednesdays after school and football games to cheer at on Saturday mornings! It was crazy enough just dragging the toddler and baby along......not sure what I'm going to do when the boys are old enough for sports! At least they will be able to function more independently when they are older.........so I won't have to worry about timing baby's breastfeedings between the chaos of extra-curricular activities and trying to chase after a 2 year old all while trying to watch Grace cheer-ha,ha! These pictures of Grace in her uniform made me realize how much older she is looking these days.

Halloween 2009

2009-12-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

We had a FABULOUS Halloween!! Since JR was born, I have always loved coordinating costumes for Grace and JR. I figure I will do it until they complain about it-ha,ha! My mom bought Grace a Belle costume at the Disney store this past summer. So of course the Beast costume came to mind for JR! It was SO hard to find and too expensive but the Beast costume was truly priceless. JR was scared of wearing the costume at first (he would point to it and say "I cared, Mommy!"), but he quickly warmed up to it. What a sport he was for wearing it! :) The bonus was that JR won 2 costume contests!! The night before Halloween we went to a Halloween party at a kids salon, Shear Madness, where we take the kids to get haircuts in Kansas City. JR won the grand prize for the costume contest and won a free haircut there-woo-hoo! The kids then got to go trick or treating in the shopping center, Zona Rosa, where Shear Madness is located. On Halloween Day we went to a Halloweenie Roast at Fort Leavenworth, before trick or treating. JR won first place again in the Halloween costume contest for ages 3 and under. I was so proud of JR, and it was nice for our middle child to be the "man of the hour" on Halloween! Grace also had a book parade at school for Halloween. Scott David was suppose to be a monkey for his first Halloween, but somehow I lost the bottom part of his costume the night before Halloween when we went to Shear Madness. I have no clue how I managed to lose the pants to his monkey costume, but not having a brain that functions correctly is the price I've paid for having 3 kids-ha,ha! Anyway, after being upset and agonizing about it, I had an extra costume that my mom bought JR when he was a baby. So thanks to Nana, Scott David still had a puppy dog costume to wear! :)

Texas A&M/Kansas State Football Game 10/17/09

2009-11-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

JD and I have not been to a Texas Aggie football game since we were in college. Some of our dear friends from our Fort Irwin days, The Thomas Family, (their daughter, Mackenzie, was Grace's best friend in CA) are Kansas State alumni and K-State football fanatics! :) When were lived in CA, I remember them flying back to KS to go to K-State football games. They are now stationed in OK, and we thought it would be fantastic to all meet up and go to the A&M/K-State football game in Manhattan, KS. We had a great time! The game was not until 6pm so we drove in earlier that day (Manhattan is a little over 2 hours away from Fort Leavenworth) and took Mackenzie to dinner with us so Grace and Mac could catch up on old times! :) We all sat together at the game and it was so nice to see some old friends and catch up! Of course Grace was on Cloud 9, and I think it was so surreal for her to see Mackenzie in person. They have been writing letter back and forth for the past 1.5 years, and I'm not sure Grace ever thought the day would come that she would actually get to see Mackenzie again. Needless to say we all had a blast (even if Texas A&M got KILLED!!), and we're hoping to get to the girls together again while we're here in KS this year.

Dallas Cowboy Game 10/11/09

2009-11-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

My parents are so hard to buy gifts for! JD had a great idea to take my Dad to a Dallas Cowboys game when they came here to play the Kansas City Chiefs in KS City! After all, how often are we stationed this close to a major league football team? The tickets to the game were SO hard to get as they were super expensive, and when JD was first trying to purchase them, he would also have to purchase tickets to another game as well! So JD tried to buy the tickets on Ebay and lost almost every single bid! It was SO crazy! A couple of hundred dollars later, JD bought the tickets to the Cowboys game. My mom flew into KS City the Thursday before the game to spend some extra time with the kids, and my dad flew in the day before the game. My mom, the kids, and I had a great time shopping, getting Scott David's picture made, seeing "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", and this was the time that my mom got to go on Grace's field trip to the fire station with her and watch Grace cheer for 10 minutes at her football game (it was SO cold and the little cheerleaders did not last long!). Well guess what?! JD got sick with strep throat a few days before the game! After all the hassle and trouble of buying the tickets and having my parents fly in, he was sick in bed for a few days before the game and was dead set that he was not going to go to the game.....neither my mom nor I wanted to go freeze our booties off at the game with my Dad! I forced JD to go to the doctor and after having some heavy duty antibiotics in his system, he was a trooper and went to the game (That weekend it was freezing here in Kansas with the high temperatures in the high 30's!). All I can is thank God for miracle drugs as the men had a great time at the game, and this seems to be the Dallas Cowboys turning point for a more positive football season!

Scott David's First Pumpkin Patch 10/4/09

2009-11-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

Our crazy kids!!

2009-11-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

As you can see from these pictures of Grace and JR playing, we've got some silly kids! JD and I are always complimented on how happy and friendly our kids are. Yes, they are extremely happy kids, but that also means they are very busy and energetic!! (which makes them high maintenance in my book!). They love to go, go, go and are always up for FUN! They are quite exhausting for their parents! :) We do not have the type of kids that like to play by themselves (even though Grace's room is HUGE since it's the old master bedroom before they renovated our house. It's probably the biggest bedroom that she will ever have. But, nope, she's always playing wherever Mama or Daddy are!). I must admit that it's really cute to see Grace and JR play together. I was not sure if they would since they are 3 years apart and are different sexes. I think one of the positive things with our lifestyle is that Grace and JR may end up being closer since they have to move around all of the time. They will be the one "constant" in both of each other's lives. I've already seen this happen since we've moved 2 times in the past 1.5 years! They are definitely buddies and miss each other when Grace is at school during the week.

The Williams Family Traveling Circus AT the CIRCUS!!!

2009-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

Yes our crazy circus family thought it was only SO appropriate to take our act on the road and actually go to the circus-ha,ha!! As these pictures probably show, a great time was had by ALL! It's so much fun to relive your childhood through the eyes of your children! :)

September 11, 2009

2009-11-08T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm so grateful for living on an Army post this year for so many reasons! One of the many reasons is that I like Grace going to kindergarten at an on post Army school. September 11 was such a patriotic day for Grace's school as they did a Freedom Walk. The above pictures are from the Freedom Walk on Patriot Day as Grace's school, MacArthur Elementary.

Labor Day Weekend

2009-11-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to get caught up!! My parents, Nana and Rara, came to Kansas for a visit over Labor Day weekend. We took them to the train restaurant in downtown KS City (since we had SO much fun the first time!), we went to a Lego Exhibit in Crown Center, and we went to Science City (a neat children's museum) in Union Station. We also went shopping for the kids, and my parents were so nice to buy them Fall clothes. JD and I also were able to go the movies and dinner for a long overdue date night! We had not been out by ourselves since before Scott David was born so needless to say we had a blast. We saw "The Hangover" which was SO hilarious! :) The pictures are of the kids from our outings in downtown KS City. These pictures are from my camera. I didn't take many and figured I would get the pictures from my mom's camera. Of course I've never gotten the pictures that my mom took which are far better......not to mention have Nana and Rara in them too!!

A fun night with the family in downtown Kansas City

2009-10-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to attempt to keep up with this blog more! Life with the 3 kids is crazy and fun and it always seems like we are going from 1 activity to the next.......which is quite overwhelming at times! These pictures are from August. We took the kids to Fritz's. It's a really neat train restaurant where your food is brought to you by miniature trains! You also get train conductor hats and you place your order by a telephone at your booth. The kids had a blast and were in awe. (We even went back a few weeks later when Nana and Rara came for a visit). On this night we also went to a Jo Dee Messina concert in downtown Kansas City at the Crown Center. JD and I have always loved Jo Dee Messina as she reminds us of our college and newlywed days! You weren't suppose to take pictures of her so I followed the rules! I was, however, able to walk the kids up really close to the stage as we were "pretending" to walk to our seats. They were able to see her up close and personal which was really cool. As we would walk by the stage I kept yelling at the kids to "look at her, keep your eyes on her!"-ha,ha! The kids were troopers as it was a really late night........but so worth it! :)

Grace on the front page of the newspaper!

2009-10-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

First of all I must say a HUGE thank you to my sister in law, Ann! She emailed me and told me how to change the background of my blog. I had fun doing this so many thanks Ann! :) As you can see our big girl was in the paper. Her kindergarten class went on a field trip to the fire station on post a few weeks ago. I had just picked my mom up from the airport that morning so she was able to surprise Grace and go on the field trip with Grace and her class! I had no clue that a picture of Grace was going to be on the front page of the newspaper the next week. Our post paper is delivered on Thursday mornings, and last Thursday morning one of the parents from Grace's class called to tell me a picture of Grace was on the front page of the Fort Leavenworth newspaper! She is coming out of a smoke tunnel. What a nice surprise for the week! :)

So long Summer

2009-10-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well I can hardly believe that summer is over and Fall is here to stay! This warm weathered Texas family is definitely in for a LONG winter considering the temperatures have already dropped to the 30's and 40's at night! We are really enjoying our time here in Kansas. However, I must admit that we really miss Alabama as well (not the money pit of a house we lived in though!) which surprises me. After Scott David was born and I knew we would be gearing up for a move in a few months I was ready to move so that we could get the move behind us and try to get settled yet again! But I do miss Sweet Home Alabama. I'll always look back on our time in Alabama with nostalgia as this was the first place (CIVILIZATION!) that we moved to after 3 years of remote, desert life. We also had JD home in a school environment while he attended the Air Force's major school. With his NORMAL hours, we were able to create a lot of fun family memories! Plus we had the biggest and most wonderful surprise of our life there, Scott David! :) I'm enclosing a link to some pictures I posted on Facebook of the highlights of our summer here in KS. The picture of Grace and JR I've shared with this entry sums up the perfect way to end a great summer......with treats from the ice cream man of course! Here is a link to the pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112065&id=500423169&l=3c99f3a6b4

My Princess

2009-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some photos of Grace from her Diva Makeover. We take the kids to a really cute kids salon in Kansas City for haircuts. It's a huge deal for me and such a fun place for the kids to go as this is the first time that we've lived close to a kids salon. Grace had her first haircut at a kids salon in Texas and I was disappointed that we could not do the same for JR last year in Alabama. Anyway, after going to this salon for the first time I signed Grace up for a diva makeover that the salon was doing as a special on the 4th of July. (They were also doing "dude makeovers" and the boys could get their hair sprayed with red, white, and blue hair paint, but I thought JR was too young to really enjoy this.....or it might have really freaked him out! The boys getting it done sure looked cute though!).

JD and I get sad the more and more our princess grows up! I get sad when Grace tells me that some days she doesn't want to wear bows or that she is ready to get her ears pierced! She has become so independent too, something I think had to come quicker since she is now the big sister of 2 baby brothers-ha,ha!! She is definitely mommy's helper with her brothers and around the house. JD and I realize that we have our hands full with 3 little ones (it's funny to think that we've had 3 kids in 5 years and JD was deployed for one of those years!) so JD had a vasectomy a few weeks ago. As we prepared for JD's procedure, we of course were sad knowing the pregnancy/having babies phase of our lives is over. It's funny that I felt a sense of mourning for this considering we thought we were done having babies after JR. So as our way of dealing with this (I hope!) JD and I have briefly been talking about adoption in a few years (I know I'm done being pregnant as I'm not sure my body could handle another 9 or 10 pound baby). I'm not sure we would ever give it a serious thought, but at least knowing we have this option, made the vasectomy easier to handle. My point in telling all of this? I explained what adoption is to Grace and asked her if she wants us to adopt a baby in a few years. She looked at me, squinted her eyes and pointed to her brain like she was thinking really hard and said, "No, mom, I think I just want a dog!". That little girl cracks us up!

JD in the newspaper!

2009-09-01T06:36:00.001-07:00

Below is a link to a newspaper article about JD's experiences in the Army from his hometown newspaper: http://www.palestineherald.com/local/local_story_243201023.html

If you actually click on the homepage for the newspaper today, JD's picture is on the homepage: http://www.palestineherald.com/

Me and my buddy

2009-09-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, since our Scott David was born this past March I haven't always been my J.R.'s favorite person anymore. He's always loved the baby, but when we came home from the hospital he wanted nothing to do with me! This broke my heart, and as sleep deprived and hormonal as us moms are after having a baby, I cried about this! Before the baby came, JR and I were buddies! While Grace was at preschool 3 days/week and dance class last year we took a Kindermusik class, would go grocery shopping and run whatever errands we needed to do, and did countless play dates. In some ways, I felt like I lost my best friend! :( Since we've moved to Kansas I feel like we have bonded again (though J.R. still adores his daddy!). At least I've felt this way until last night. For some reason, J.R.'s new name for me is "mum". He's been calling me mum for the last few weeks. No, we're not from England and what's up with shortened version?! Hello, a 2 year old should still be calling me mommy! Anyway, JR finished his dinner (a rare event) and I was offering him a dessert of either a popsicle, pudding, or yogurt (his big thing these days is getting to pick.....makes him feel like a big boy!!). His reply to me, "GO AWAY, MUM!! GO AWAY!". He's never said this before and JD and I just looked at each other and cracked up! Yes, this boy has and will always keep us on our toes! Again, here are pictures during the move to Kansas at the end of June of me and my little buddy.

Video of Scott David at 4 months old

2009-08-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is a video I took of Scott David when he was about 4 months old. We were moving into our house in Kansas and Scott David was belly laughing when I was tickling him. Of course as soon as I started videoing him, he stopped laughing. So it's pretty much just mama trying to get the baby to laugh without much success-ha,ha!!

My First Post!

2009-08-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

Just testing this post out to make sure I know what I'm doing! I'm not crafty at all so this page will not be cute as I certainly don't have time for that-ha,ha! My goal is to just journal and include pictures so I can keep our families and friends updated on the Williams Family Traveling Circus. I know some of you have complained that you will not check my blog and would just prefer that I send my pictures out. So, I'll probably still send my pictures out......just not as many and only the highlights! :) Happy Reading!! :)