A Blink in Time

Afternoon "Bath" August 2010

Do these faces look innocent?

Thomas and Friends 2010.

The remaining pictures for 2010 are on my iPad. I must figure out how to get them from there to here.

Go VOLS!!

A friend's 40th birthday, UT fan/golf nut

Boys, bring the basket of eggs over here when you find them!

Jackson's first performance. Preschool Choir Spring 2011.

Father Knows Best. Spring 2011

Happy Birthday, Gideon!!

This is the good life!

Sweetness.

Jackson caught his first fish. June 2011 in SC.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy.

I'll put Bubbie down for a nap.

First day of 3rd Grade.

Horse Cake

Get along little doggie.

Who needs a pool?

Jackson's Dino Party

First Bites...

Da-Na, Da-Na, Da-Na

Just hanging around in Charleston!

Think these faces will make it on the front of the brochure for the "Happiest Place on Earth?"

This one would!

Kid Approved

While clearly not as cool as the current cooking blog trend, I thought I would share some super easy recipes that my kids enjoy. This are the recipes that, if you haven't thought of yet, would think, "well, I could have thought of that!" Bon Appetit!

Kick off your morning with hint of dessert but zero guilt in a warm bowl of cereal.

Apple Pie Cream of Wheat

1 serving Cream of Wheat

1 Tbsp honey or pure maple syrup

1 tsp. Apple Pie Spice

1/2 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp dried or fresh apples, diced

• Cook Cream of Wheat according to package instructions
• Pure prepared Cream of Wheat into bowls. Add honey or maple syrup, butter, and apple pie spice. Stir until butter is melted. (Use ingredients to your taste)
• Sprinkle with apple pieces

Try the Pumpkin Pie version, too! Just substitute pumpkin pie spice for the apple pie and pureed pumpkin for the apples.

With this take on a classic, just ditch the stick and skip the deep frying!

Corn Dog Muffins

1 box Sweet Corn Bread Mix

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1 cup shredded Sharp Cheddar cheese

1 Tbsp mustard

4 Hotdogs, quartered and sliced

• Preheat oven to 400
• Lightly spray a muffin pan with cooking spray.
• Pour corn bread mix into a medium bowl and set aside.
• In a small bowl, combine egg and milk, whisking until smooth. Add cheese
• Pour egg mixture into dry corn bread mixing just until moistened.
• Fill each muffin pan about a 1/3 full of batter. Add hot dog pieces to top of batter. Cover with the remaining batter.
• Bake for approximately 14 minutes.
• Serve with mustard or ketchup. YIELD: 12 muffins

Who says your only choice is white or wheat?

Grilled Ham and Cheese Waffle Sandwiches

2 frozen toaster waffles

1 Tbsp sandwich spread (1/4 cup may and 1 Tbsp mustard)

4 slices thin deli ham

1 piece cheese, your choice

1 Tbsp butter

• Heat skillet over medium heat while preparing sandwich.
• Spread sandwich spread on one side of each waffle
• Top one waffle with ham, cheese, and second waffle (spread side down).
• Spread the tops of each waffle with 1/2 Tbsp of butter
• Place sandwich in warm skillet buttered side up. Cook, pressing occasionally with spatula, approximately 4 minutes per side, until cheese melts and waffles are golden brown.

And So It Begins...

Riley is really into defining boys and girls. Who the boys are in the family and who are the girls. The other day the kids where at the table as we were preparing for dinner. They were acting up and Danny said, "Calm down guys." Thus begins Riley's tirade, "Daddy, I am a girl. Daddy, I am NOT a boy. I am a girl. You said guys. You, and Calen, and Jackson are boys. Me and mommy are girls. We are not guys, DADDY!" Ok, calm down, my feminist sprout. We explained to her that "guys" can refer to a group of boys or a group with both boys and girls. She seemed to accept that explanation.

Today, the term sister cemented into her mind. She found another doll, Jerri, to be a sister for another doll, Olivia. We have Olivia, Lucy, Daisy Mae, Baby Jessica, and now Jerri. She began talking about Jerri was her sister and that would make Olivia her sister, too. Then her mind took the next step. "Mommy, when do I get a sister?"

Best of 2011

Before we go forward, let me go back a few weeks to December 2010. Calen got to be Santa for the first time. this year. Christmas Eve, after we put the little ones to bed, he got to eat the cookies. At first, he just sat there grinning and uncertain. We had to assure him it was okay that he ate the cookies that he put out. The kids (and I) were very excited to have a beautiful White Christmas!

This was a whirlwind year in the Lewis household. I'm not sure where it went, even Calen has remarked several times how fast it seemed to pass. Here are some highlights of what the year brought us.

January: The new year rolled in and kept on going. We had LOTS of snow to enjoy!

February: This month started off rocky with two sick little ones. Riley seemed to bounce back quickly, but Jax did not. He was diagnosed with mild pneumonia and sent home with antibiotics. He seemed to be on the bends, but later nosedived and spent the next 48+ hours in the hospital. Later, Calen turned 8! The half way point to getting a driver's license. He's growing up. Not a big party or anything. Family and a couple friends. The cake? Tennessee football! Orange and White! GO VOLS!!

March: This was my third trimester and my first experience with sleep apnea. This was by far my most trying pregnancy, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I came to realize why God designed our best child-bearing years to be in our early twenties.

April: Time to get ready for Lewis 4.0! We had planned to go to Disney World, but I was not about to walk around all day, every day, for a week the month before my due date with a 3 and 2 year old. Calen had speaking parts for the first time in the Kids' Choir Spring Play. In fact, he ended up doing the speaking for two separate characters. At this point, the kids begin to spend a lot of time with grandparents. We had some visitation though.

May: Baby time! Gideon arrived on Cinco de Mayo. Everything went smoothly, and I was able to walk out of the hospital less than 30 hours after I had a C-section. The rest of the month was spent enjoying our sweet newborn, recovering, and watching his older siblings adore him.

June: Gideon took his first road trip at five weeks old. Danny, the boys, Danny's dad, and I went to South Carolina for a weekend fishing trip. I had dreaded this trip due to the fact that Gideon had not done well being in a car seat, but he did very well. It was the first time he didn't scream in his seat, and scream, and scream, and scream.

July: Calen started 3rd grade. The kids and I spent almost 2 weeks with my parents while Danny was out of town. We had a great time cooking, gardening, and playing.

August: Jax turned 4, and just like Calen he had a dinosaur party. We hunted for dinosaur eggs, dug for bones, and exploded a volcano. This party presented me with my first challenge of different age groups. We had Jax's friends and then we had siblings who are around Calen's age. With some planning, it worked and everyone had fun. We also took a family trip to Fairfield Glade for a week. It was a great get-away, and the kids loved the tub that was the size of a small pool.

September: Family trip to the beach. We hadn't been in about a year and half. Jax and Riley had no memory of the last time, but they took to the ocean like, well...fish. Calen started taking formal trumpet lessons. Jax started biddy soccer. So this is what it is like to have mulitple kids doing multiple activities.

October: Calen started this month out with breaking a molar on a sucker. Yes, kids, you CAN break a tooth by biting a sucker. We would visit the dentist 9 times over the next several weeks. This year for Halloween was the Wizard of Oz. Our cast of characters were Riley as Dorothy- complete with a basket,Toto and ruby red slippers; Calen as the Tinman (finally!); Jax the Scarecrow; and Gideon was the Lion. I must say they were ADORABLE!!! Riley turned thirteen, er three. I had a blast planning her party! O-liv-ia, O-liv-ia dut dut dut OOOO-liv-iAAAAAA!

November: This was a busy month. Danny turned 34 and began preparing for a major job change. While he would still be in his two clinics half-time, he would become the new CMO in January. We also took the postponed trip to Disney World. This was the first time for the kids. Riley had lunch with the Princesses. She didn't have a clue who or what one was when we got there, but, by golly, she knew them by name before we left. She was a trooper who had fun (and a little bit of a princess complex). Calen fit right in at Epcot, and can't wait to go back because we didn't get to spend nearly enough time there. He's our nerdy scientist. Jax loved Animal Kingdom and would ride anything he could at any of the parks. He's the fearless dare-devil. Gideon got to spend some time in the pool, he too, is a fish. He was a super-trooper! A cool bonus, we were able to watch the fireworks for both Epcot and Magic Kingdom from our balcony every night while we ate ice cream. Gideon also turned 6 months. Over the next few weeks he would achieve some major milestones. He started sitting up, became mobile, and got his first tooth!

December: We spent the month hanging out the family and friends. This month flew by, and we didn't get to do nearly as much as we had hoped. Calen spent the month playing indoor soccer and taking a break from karate. He had a great team this year, finishing second in the regular season- tournament, here we come! Jax seemed to become this big boy overnight. He became interested in learning his letters and sounds. Riley had lots of tea parties (with coffee to drink) and practiced being a mommy to her baby dolls, Olivia and Lucy. Gideon perfected his mobility by crawling on his hands and knees Christmas Day.

I hope to get some pictures up in the next few weeks.

Happy New Year

I have no idea where the past seventeen months have gone! Well, actually, I do. To catch up on life, here's a fast forward of our life while we were blogless. Our last post was in July 2010. Pretty pathetic, but I think understandable.

In August of 2010 Danny and I celebrated a big milestone- our 10th anniversary. We celebrated by going to Asheville to a B&B for the weekend. Then later he surprised me with a scavenger hunt of sorts over the next several weeks ending with a week long trip to New England in the fall. Shortly after our anniversary, we were blessed with another gift that wouldn't arrive until mid-spring of the next year. Big smile! At the end of the month Jackson turned the BIG 0-3! Following in big brother's footsteps, he celebrated with a Thomas the train party.

September 2010 we started our new homeschool co-op. That brought lots of challenges and rewards. The kids loved getting together with friends and the taste of a "class-like" atmosphere.

October 2010 Danny and I took off to enjoy New England in the fall, after some delay in getting there by plane. Unfortunately, the weekend before we arrived, the area had suffered the worst storms in 30 years and most of the gorgeous foliage had succumbed to the high winds and torrential rain. The weekend after we left the area received several inches of snow. For Halloween, Calen decided on a theme- superheroes. Calen dressed as Batman, Jax as the his trusty side-kick, Robin, and Riley was the ever sneaky, Batgirl (black NOT pink). Riley also turned twelve, I mean two. She had a cupcake party with my first topsey-turvey cupcake cake.

Blink through the holidays, and we arrived at 2011! More to come in our catch-up posts...

I Go Mamaw's?!

As one season fades, another blooms. Jax is now in mamaw and papaw heaven. Don't get me wrong, he's always loved them, but now, he really understands what mamaw's and papaw's are all about. In the past few months, Calen has begun to transition easier. Jax's transition has become more difficult.

For the past three weeks, Jax has randomly made plans to go to mamaw's. It could be at 8:30 in the evening, in the car, first thing in the morning when he gets out of bed, or while at the store. It is, "I get my socks shoes. Go to Mammmmaaawwwwww's!" He's even had me call a couple times so he can ask, "Mamaw? I come to your house? Okay." Hands me the phone, "Mamaw said I come to her house. Okay?"

So he's going to mamaw's all by himself. For 3 nights and 4 days. I have a feeling Sunday night is going to be a little difficult. Just a hunch based on prior experience. It kicked in around the same age for Calen. I expect lots of crying and protesting for the next several years. This time next year...there will be two. Hey, what are grandparents for?

Calen's Blog about the Zoo

This past Friday I got to go with my church to the Knoxville Zoo for "Bedtime with the Beasts." We got to the go to the zoo, take a nighttime tour after the zoo closed, and got to the spend the night in a little building in the middle of the zoo. It was a wonderful trip! I just love animals, and on our tour I learned some interesting things.

Since most animals in the zoo are not nocturnal (which means active at night), they were asleep. Who would want to to see animals sleeping?! We did get to see a couple of the noctural animals at night. The next day we went a skunk, bat, and raccoon exhibit. These animals are nocturnal and in the day they would sleep. Who would want to see that, right? That wouldn't be fun for people who come during the day. So they flip flopped the time of day in this exhibit. To do this, they have this light on a timer. The lights were off in the day so it was dark, and the animals would think it was night and come out so we could see. Then at night, the lights would come on the animals would sleep.

We learned that people actually went in to feed some of the animals. Other animals, like the lions and tigers, they had to feed from outside. But, everyone has to go into the cages to clean them. These people got special shots that last for a year. They do this so if a raccoon and skunk has rabies and they get bit or scratched the people wouldn't get sick. That's a really good idea!

They also have a beaver exhibit at the zoo. If you look really closely their teeth look like candy corn because they orange at the top and white at the bottom. I didn't come up with that, another boy did, but I thought it was pretty cool.

There was this bird whose wings get longer than our arms! Like 15 to 20 feet long!! I forget the name of the bird, but it would eat dead animals (that means it is a scavenger). It will stick it's head in the animal to eat the meat inside of it. That is gross. Did you know that it doesn't have any teeth, so it uses its sharp beak to pull off the meat and swallows it whole.

Another neat bird that I saw was the screech owl. This poor owl had lost one of its eye. There is something bad about a owl, they don't pay any attention to a car's lights. Then they get hit by the car and can die!

Did you know they also have some ferrets at the zoo? Ferrets are not related to rats even though they look like one! They can shape their bodies like a ball very easily. They also do not like be kept in cages. Ferrets are very friendly, but will get scared around loud noises.

Two more interesting exhibits that I enjoyed were the red pandas and the gorillas. Red pandas look a lot like a fox. Even though they are red, they are camouflouged in the wild. This is because the moss that grows there is the same color as their fur. I learned that if you stare at gorillas they will think you are challenging them. Also, only baby gorillas get along with each other, but that is only at first. The bigger gorillas will fight with each other.

Never a Good Sign

Sometimes you see something and immediately you know it isn't a question of "if" or "is." You know what I'm talking about. The question that pops into your mind is "how big?". This is one of those moments. You spy a size 5 footprint in white powder on the floor. You follow them into the pantry where you find...

"What's going on in here?!" "I'm just rowin' (rollin')."

Everybody has to a sidekick... might as well be a cutie with a smile that can melt steel.

Think this will hold up in the court of law? Oh, well, it will in this house. GUILTY!

There's a saying that imitation is the best form of flattery, um, not if you have to clean up after it.

Climbing the Walls

Literally! Jax shows off his new skill of climbing up the walls. Here are some pictures of Jax being Jax.

The best part of mommy selling cakes? Licking the spoon!!!

New News

This past week I took on two new tasks. A new school year and my first bridal cake. As for school, I think we have finally hit our stride. I had read and heard many times that the first year is just really about getting your feet wet, the second year things start coming together, and by the third you've found your groove. While our first two years were very successful, I have found some truth in that advice.

I quickly noticed a change in our attitude. I was much happier to get back to the homeschool routine, as was Calen. He didn't complain about anything, he said several times he was looking forward to the next day, and he was bummed on Saturday to hear there wasn't any school. Jax and Riley are more involved, too. They hang out around or on the table more asking for paper and pencils. They are trying to sing he geography songs with him, and asking to help. I find myself with more confidence and a higher comfort level. I know what we're doing and where I want us to go.

My second new task was the bridal cake. It was really fun to design, and actually, I sketched out six different options to choose from. The one with dots and scrolls was the winner. I really enjoyed it, but there were a couple things I wasn't pleased with. Then with my worry-wart self, I started to stress that they would notice what I noticed. This was followed by images of bridezillas. I've never watched the show, but the commercials for it were enough! Now that I know that she enjoyed the cake, I look forward to doing it again, especially since I already have several designs already complete.

You've Seen the Before, Now for the After

It only took a week to finish our landscaping and new sidewalk, that included no work on Thursday and Sunday and only a couple hours on Saturday. The kids and I were in Ohio, and by the time we got back the sidewalk was almost finished and all that was left of the landscaping was the mulch and the monkey grass.

To go with our home's new face lift, we power-washed the siding. As a side note, we will not wait two years to do that again! I painted the banisters and freshened up our door. It was previously a reddish/orange/brownish-rust color. So I went and bought barn red paint. Yes, I bought a gallon of barn paint for the door. It says, "Come on it, take your shoes off, and kick back and relax a while."

We had the flower beds along the retaining wall removed and new beds added along the porch. Now we have one large bed that swoops out to about the tallest half of the retaining all. It opened up the yard even more. The landscaper even leveled up the yard several feet at one end since.

Here's the new sidewalk. The old one went straight down from the driveway to the porch. It was only two feet from the side of the garage, making that flower bed impossible to do anything with. The small bushes kept growing over onto the sidewalk and the ground cover was getting out of control. Now it is opened up and you can enjoy a winding walk to the porch past delicious smelling roses and the sweet bay magnolias.

We decided to let the yard grow in where that terrible, horrible flower bed used to be. Really, it had potential. I have no idea if it was never finished or if, at one point it had been and half of the contents were removed with the new owners or what. However, the owners that we purchased from were not the gardening type. The bed had been unattended for a year and half while they lived here. Then it was all but abandoned when we bought the home. It was three months of the growing season between when we closed and when we moved in, at that point it was too far gone. The only thing we put back was the Japanese Maple. At least we can mow the weeds now.

Blue is the Best Color

It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were taking a two year old Calen to Tweetsie Railroad to ride Thomas. Here we are five years later taking a train-crazy, Thomas-loving Jackson to do the same thing.

Here comes Thomas! Jax can't contain the excitement. Riley is gripping my arm and shaking like a leaf. There are squeals of delight as all the children see him pulling into the station.

ALL ABOARD! Jax is ready to go.

Calen is relaxing and taking it easy.

That is one cute chick!


Hurry, Thomas is getting ready to go again!

When Jax was Riley's age, he went to Busch Gardens and rode the rides with Calen. He even rode the merry-go-round by himself! Riley? Not in a million years. She had to watch from the sidelines. Maybe next year...maybe...big, big maybe.

Meet Jax's little friend. Jax walked around feeding the animals one grain at a time. He wanted to make sure everyone got a bite and that it was as fair as possible. This little guy came out to see him and followed him around. Jax would have spent the entire afternoon hanging out with this cutie!


Jax riding the black plane. He would only ride the black one.


Can we bottle this moment?