Home on the Range...

We hadn't seen Robert's son Hudson for a long time so it was great to be around him again. He has gotten so big and talks so clearly for a little 2 year old!

Hudson and Ashton are only 3 weeks apart in age, so she was super excited to have a friend around. They got along great. There was a cat out on the property that had a mouse in its mouth which they thought was fascinating- but really it was super disgusting.

Here's Austin just hanging out drinking his rootbeer. Austin Brown kept teasing him that he was named after him. There is a story behind that but I'm not going to get into it... :-)

And here are the cousins... we were trying to keep them all coralled (I think that's how you spell it and how you say it! I'm not a country girl so I don't know for sure). Actually they found this place by themselves and stayed in it all night. They were so dusty from the rocks when we got home!

The After-Party

Robert and Jenny put together a little barbecue out at Loafman's land for those who came in from out of town. It was a nice night out in the country. Robert and Jenny traveled up late Friday night from Houston (a 9 hour drive) to be a part of this day and left early Sunday morning. They brought a lot of big ticket items for the silent auction and Randy and I really appreciate all they did to help out!

Austin Brown and Lincoln Kent are two of Roberts friends who came out and cooked for us! Neither of them live in Bartlesville anymore so it meant alot for them to sacrifice this day for us. Lincoln played in the tournament and Austin brought the really big ticket item for the raffle, a gun of some sort. :-) I'm not a gun person but it brought in the most money!

Ryan was also a huge help Friday and Saturday getting everything set up, and we really appreciate Jessica taking the kids full time so he could help out! The Reheis' also came out to the barbecue, Gary played in the morning round of the tournament.

We were all exhausted by this point of the day but it was a great way to unwind. I hadn't seen my kids all day so we had picked them up and they enjoyed hanging out in the country where they were free to roam!

Julie John Benefit Golf Tournament

Back in December 2009, we found out that Randy's sister Julie had a tumor in her jaw that needed to be removed. She was pregnant at the time and it was decided by the doctors at MD Anderson of Houston that she could wait until after the baby was born to have her surgery. On July 9th Julie had her surgery which consisted of the removal of 3/4 of her jaw and taking bone out of her leg to make a new jaw. We knew the bills would be outrageous, but once we found out that she had to have $25,000 upfront to ever get teeth back we knew we had to do something. Randy and I decided to put on a golf tournament on her behalf.

We were hoping for 18-24 teams and shooting for the moon with the goal of $10,000. Never did we expect what we were blessed with! We had an outpouring of love from our community, family and friends. People who didn't know Julie but knew members of our family, and even people who didn't know any of us were donating money for our cause. We ended up with 47 teams so we had two shot-gun starts, amazing raffle prizes, silent auction prizes and door prizes from donations and a great lunch which was also donated.

We had a HUGE number of volunteers that we could have never done without. I hate to start naming people because I would forget someone, but I'm so indebted to each of them for their time and efforts into making this a successful event! A lot of volunteers went above and beyond what we could have ever asked for and they have been such great examples to me of service! We had some volunteers who stayed all day at the golf course with us (including Avery who got very comfortable on the golfcart) and we truly appreciate the sacrifice of their Saturday. What we didn't expect was after each round of golf and the winners were announced, we had 3/4 of the golfers return their winnings so it could go back into the money raised for Julie. It was an overwhelming feeling.

I'm so proud of my husband and all his hard work that he put in to this tournament for his sister. The whole John family (and some of my family as well because I couldn't have done this without my mom, Jordan and Jen) came together for a special young woman. Through the help of everyone, we were able to raise $20,000 to help with the bills Julie has and will acquire. We found out just this past week that Julie did have cancer. The doctors feel as if they got it all but she will now be treated as a cancer patient and will be returning to MD Anderson every 2 months for scans of her jaw and lungs. She has a long road ahead of her but I hope she will always know how much she is loved by so many!

Mother's Day Out for Ashton!

Ashton has gone with me since she was born to take Addie to Mother's day out... and now it was her turn! Tuesdays are now Ashton's day for "school" and my day to do whatever I need to do. Today, my first day to myself, I'm catching up on my blog! But I'm excited now to be able to make appointments for Tuesdays (doctors, dentists, hairstylists, grocery shopping) and do them without kids. Wow, I can't believe I'm even saying that! Ashton has Miss Nadine as her teacher and we are so happy! Addie had Miss Nadine so it made it easy to take Ashton. In fact, at open house when we were leaving, she gave Miss Nadine hugs without me even saying anything. And today when I dropped her off, she didn't cry. It looks like she has a lot of girls in her class so that will be so fun. I'm happy for her... and I'm happy to have one day to myself!

First Day of School!!

It was August 11th, the first day of school! We went to the open house the night before to take the kids school supplies and meet their teachers. Austin got Mrs. Roseborough as his second grade teacher. He was very excited and especially so because one of his good friends, Silas, is in his class. You can already tell he likes this year much better, he never complains about going to school anymore! (Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!)

Avery was my child who couldn't wait for school to start again! Even though I missed my friends during the summer, I was never anxious for school to start back up. She also has one of her best friends, Kaitlyn, in her class so she was super happy about that. Mrs. England is Avery's fourth grade teacher. Avery found out that Mrs. England is expecting a baby in February, and her favorite thing right now is that Mrs. England brings snacks for everyone because she needs to have snacks throughout the day. Avery loves her snacks!

Ranch Heights Elementary recently went through an amazing renovation which included a new 4 year old Pre-K wing. Yes, we have all day Pre-K in our schools. Addie's teacher is Mrs. Eason. Addie was so excited to see her new school... and she was most excited to finally get to ride the bus with the kids to school. I was going to take them to school for their first few days but Addie really wanted to ride the bus! That turned out great because I heard the car line was crazy! When they got home from school after their first day, Addie was beaming from ear to ear! It was so fun to see her excitement!

Ashton, on the otherhand, was not excited for Addie, Austin and Avery to go to school and leave her behind. The first three days, Ashton cried to ride the bus with the kids. Two more years AJ! It will go by fast!

Saying goodbye to summer!

It was our very last day of summer! Yes, we are barely into our 2nd week of August and summer is over! Sniff, sniff. We wanted to take it for all it was worth so we headed up to Independence, KS to spend the afternoon with Auntie Jen and at the Independence Waterpark. Sadly, this was also our first time up to the waterpark this summer! I don't know what took us so long! WE LOVED IT!!

This was Ashton's first time to the waterpark... and I think she mistaked it for heaven! She was so happy! That girl was a water baby from the very beginning. You couldn't keep her head out of the water. I finally had to put her floaties on just to keep myself from having a panic attack. She is crazy!

Other years I would always wait for a weekend to take the kids up to Kansas because I get nervous in waterparks by myself with my kids. I always wanted Randy with me. Jen was the best! She is such a big help and we had such a good time. She hung out with the younger girls while I took some pictures and then she took the big kids over to the diving boards. They all had so much fun.

The waterpark doesn't open til 1pm, so we went early and brought lunch over to Jen and Jordan's house and hung out for a while. The only sad part was that the kids open house at school was that night, so we could only stay for a couple hours before we had to head back. Thanks for the fun day, Jen! We love you!

Happy Birthday, Addie!

Wow! Another year has flown by! Addie was so excited for her birthday to finally be here! It's hard for Addie because all of her siblings have birthdays before her... so she feels like hers takes forever to get here. But for me, I can't believe she is four! We started the day at, where else, the doughnut shop!

After the doughnut shop we swung by Walmart for Addie to pick out a few things for her birthday. Next we hit the pool to hang out for the afternoon. This summer has been ridiculously HOT. If you are not in the pool, you are inside! The thing about Oklahoma heat combined with the humidity is that you just can't breath! But the pool was very refreshing and my kids LOVE the pool!

After lots of fun at the pool, it was time for lunch! Addie chose none other than McDonalds for her birthday lunch! They continued their fun in the playground area until it was time to head to Gum-Gum's house for a little birthday party for Addie with Nana and Gum-Gum (my mom and grandma). Addie was so excited about her new shirt, princess umbrella, and princess plate, bowl and glass. I have to make sure her dishes are washed everyday because she wants to use them for breakfast each morning.

Two plus two equals four!! This was one of Addie's special purchases when we went to Walmart! Happy Birthday, Addie!! You have grown up so fast! You are such a special girl and we love you so much!!