Life in General

So, life has been a little crazy lately. I've had very little time to sit down and come up with a meaningful post. So, here's a collection of randomness about my life right now.

-I love that I can let my kids play in the back yard by themselves now. Sayonara kids, I've got TV to watch! (Just kidding! Well, a little.)

-If you leave Halloween candy sitting on the counter, I will eat it.

-OU Men's Basketball rocks. Season tickets rock. Sweet old people behind us rock. Crazy little girl in cheerleader outfit across the aisle does not rock.

-Christmas is coming soon. I have 7 Christmas parties to attend this year (so far). I love Christmas and I love parties.

-My hair bothers me. One day good, next day bad.

-I'm good at figuring out people's secrets. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

-I like to knit. There. I said it. I can't make anything other than hats and scarves, but I like to do it. I aspire to knit like Mitzi. I know, I'm a dork.

-It's nearly 80 degrees and it is November. It's just plain wrong.

-I have been married for almost 9 years now. Awesome!

-Life is going by crazy fast. Luke is almost 5, and Payt is almost 3. in some ways it downs't seem possible, in other ways I can hardly remember life without them (no, it's not old age).

-I hate whining.

And on that note, Payt is crying, I must go.

Booty Shakin' Santa

The 7 Days of Halloween

Well, it's official. I've never spent so much time celebrating Halloween. It all began last Wednesday when Payt had his FIRST class Halloween party at Mother's Day Out. That's right. The first. Thursday they had another one. That's right. The next day. Then, on Friday, Luke's class had a fieldtrip to the Pumpkin Patch (my baby's first field trip!). He and Whit had a grand old time running around together, jumping on hay, riding bikes and going through hay and corn mazes.
Next was the Fall Festival at church on Sunday night. what a great event Odra and the team put on! The boys loved the moon bounce, games, and trunk-or-treating. The picture at the top is of Luke and Hope at the festival. Just above is Payt and my mom (will the woman ever look at the camera?).
Monday Todd and I took both boys to the Pumpkin Patch since Payt had not gotten a chance to go yet. We went about 45 minutes before it closed, so we had to rush around. Payt was hilarious running after big brother and daddy in the corn maze.
Halloween day brought many more festivities. First was Luke's class party, which Todd and I got to go to. How fun to see him interact with his school buddies! Right ater the party was over, I got a phone call that my mom was being taken to the ER by an ambulance. She had some sort of super-dizzy spell at work and was unable to get off the floor. Luke and I spent the next 4 hours or so in the ER with my mom and dad (Todd and my brother were there for a while also). There was no shortage of "Oh, look at the cute little firefighter!" in the hospital. Apparently hospital workers dig the uni. Later, after my mom was admitted to a room and was doing a better, my dad took me and the boys to the place where he has physical therapy for his shoulder (recovering from rotator cuff surgery) because they were having a little carnival. It was pretty cool, actually, they played games, ate hotdogs and loaded up on even more candy!

We returned to the hospital for a few minutes, then home to get ready for trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Luke and Payt had an awesometime walking the neighborhood for candy. Payt would say the following everytime somebody answered their door, "Trick-or-treat-or-treating!" Too cute. We finished up by trick-or-treating at Gramp's house. From there Gramps and I returned to the hospital for a while. I'm happy to report that mom is now out of the hospital (still no explanation of what happened) and doing better. I'm also happy to report that Halloween is OVER!!! Now, if only I could get rid of all of this candy!!!

Race for the Cure 2007 Video

Race for the Cure 2007

I've been looking forward to the Race for the Cure for a while now. Last year was our first year to put together a team from church. We called it "Team Melinda" in honor of Melinda Evans, a dear friend, who was, at the time, battling breast cancer. We had about 65 people on our team last year. Melinda told me so many times how awesome and encouraging it was to have so many people come out to support her and raise money for the cure. Melinda was a warrior. On August 17th of this year, Melinda lost her battle. But it's not over. We continue to fight for her and for so many other people affected by this disease.

Yesterday was the 2nd annual RFC for our church team. This year we called it "Team Evans" because now, not only do we honor Melinda's strength, wonderful personality and awesome legacy, but we also honor her family, who have to continue on without her. How big was our team this year? We had OVER 150 people! I'm proud to say we had the biggest non-corporate team. What a powerful statement of love and support! You can bet that every one of us thought of Melinda, thought of her family while we ran/walked. I was overjoyed by the sheer size and amount of support. I was also saddened that this year Melinda wasn't with us. In her absence she provided strength and endurance to those of us participating.

I know we will continue to do this race every year, and I hope it continues to grow each time. Melinda's legacy really does live on.

So, now I know you are wondering, how did I do in the race??? Horrible. Not to make excuses or anything, but I was sick, proven by the bloody nose I got DURING the race. I had to stop for a little bit, then walk for a while before I could run again. I think my time ended up an abysmal 46 minutes for the 5K. Ouch.

The picture above is the back of the t-shirt Kathryn and I made this year for Team Evans. Later this week I hope to post a video with lots of pictures from the race. Stay tuned...

-ectomies

Yesterday Payt had a tonsillectomy and adnoidectomy. Here was my sweet, brave boy just before surgery. What a trooper! Surgery went well... doc came out and said his tonsils were huge and adnoids were so big they were blocking 75% of his nasal passage. They told us he would probably throw up once after the surgery because of the junk that runs down to their tummies during surgery. Well, at 7 pm and at least 6 changes of clothes later, the on-call doctor called in some nausea meds for poor Payt. Happy to report he has not thrown up since and he is in a happy drug-induced nap as we speak.

On another note, Luke had another soccer game this morning. He did great! He scored one goal all by himself, and then he and another teammate, Joel, kicked the ball at the same time for another goal. He did such a great job at keeping his hands to himself and playing hard that he got to go have a special lunch at Red Lobster after the game (is it bad to bribe your kid like that???). Ahhhh.... these are the days...

Dancing With My Little Stars

One of Payt's more tame versions of DWTS.