The Best Storyteller Ever!

       It's embarrassing how long its been since my last post; however, those true blog followers will accept me back with out criticizing and be patient with me as I attempt to catch up on the last two years!!!  I promise this post will make it worth it, you've never heard a story this exciting as only Preston can tell it....
      It's important to note that Preston doesn't know we've heard his story, since his school counselor is whom shared it with us! We chose to handle the situation by not bringing any attention to the issue, but rather address the bigger problem of lying.  Someday when he finally reads this post, he will be able to laugh and it will no longer be a problem of giving him attention for something wrong, very wrong, but so funny!
     I got a message on my phone from his guidance counselor one day last month asking me if myself or my family needed any support.  Her message mentioned that Preston had told the librarian something that caused her concern for our family and they wanted to see how they could help.  Needless to say, my first thought upon hearing the phone message was that Preston must have said something about bombs or blowing something up which is not unusual.  However, at school these days talking about bombs or shooting guns can get you in big trouble.
    Eventually when I finally spoke with the counselor on the phone the story unfolded, she mentioned that her goal was to verify the truth of the story because if true the school wanted to help support our family.  "Is your husband in the military?", she asked.  At that point my fears and worries were replaced with laughter because this story was definitely not true, but Preston's imagination, shared as fact, just got better and better.  After assuring the counselor that this was not true she said, "You might want to know then that your husband is in the military, and he was shot through the heart."  Wow, really where does Preston get this stuff and how does he believe it enough to tell it as fact.  The story goes on that Kendall is in the hospital awaiting surgery because he was shot in the heart during combat.
    You see how it is so over the top that we couldn't help but laugh.  Obviously Preston needs more discussion about telling the truth.  Apparently our lives aren't exciting enough, he has to start making up some really interesting stories.

Lydia Rose Walker has Arrived!

     We were so excited to have Lydia join our family at 11:40 am on January 29, 2013! Weighing in at 9lbs 1 oz she was our biggest baby yet, and was 20 inches long! We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 AM to be induced by Dr. Reardon. Dr. Reardon has delivered all four of our babies, so we love her and are very much attached.  Since I had a C-section with my previous delivery of Garrett, Lydia's birth is considered a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) which most Doctors will not perform.  Most people think this is because it is too risky, although the risk are severe, they are very uncommon.  The truth is most doctors won't perform a VBAC because it requires you stay with the patient the entire time they are in labor, which can be hours, which is inconvenient for most of them!  I did not enjoy the recovery that a cesarean requires last time with the birth of Garrett, so I did not wish to do that again.  Therefore, we chose to do the VBAC and it went perfectly.  In fact, I can honestly say it was my easiest delivery even though Lydia was my biggest baby!

   I adore this picture of our sweet baby Lydia with her big Brother Garrett.  You can see the pride on his face, even though Garrett was only 2 1/2 years old, he senses the magnitude of this new arrival.

     All of Lydia's siblings are equally proud to have her join the Walker family.  Ashlyn is very excited to have a sister!  Lydia will be well protected with her two big Brothers Preston and Garrett.  We are so blessed and grateful for her safe arrival.
    Grandma Bell was there by my bedside as she has so lovingly been for every birth.  Grandpa Bell got to be a part of another grandchild's arrival for the first time, first out of the waiting room when they finally gave him the all clear to come in and meet Lydia.  As usual Grandpa and Grandma Walker hold down the fort at home with the other kids and patiently wait for their turn to come to the hospital and meet their newest grandchild.  We are so grateful, because without these people I don't know how we would manage all four of these wonderful kiddos we call ours.
   The excitement continues as Lydia was first to arrive, we are still waiting for her cousin to be born.  Lydia and her cousin shared the same due date of Feb. 1st, but Lydia beat them out.  Nick and Colton are expecting a surprise gender on Feb.1st when Colton is scheduled to be induced...

Making Memories at Silver Dollar!

 Another year of season passes comes to an end!  We try to only get passes to Silver Dollar City every other year, keeps the excitement alive!  It's been another great year, with lots of pictures, good times and great memories!  In fact, some of my fondest childhood memories are from Silver Dollar City, as I child we went all the time, only because we got in free.  My parents worked there as woodworkers, we traveled around doing craft shows to promote Silver Dollar City.  I loved going to those shows, sitting in malls all day for several days.  Then we'd go play at Silver Dollar City whenever we wanted to.  Back then we were allowed to run all over the city by ourselves, riding rides, going to shows, goofing around.  Now days I wouldn't dream of it, its much bigger now, but some things never change.  Hopefully my kids will remember all the years they got to come to Silver Dollar City and have the same memories I did!

 A favorite ride is the Great American Shootout, I used to be terrified of the buzz saw when I was younger, now its a nice laid back, kid friendly ride where you simply shoot targets with your electric gun. The kids love it, and its fun because the entire family can ride, especially Garrett!

Every time we visit we have to stop at the ball drop, the kids love chasing the balls around, sucking them up with giant vacuum hoses and waiting for them to all fall back down on their heads again.  I think this year it was especially a favorite of Garrett's, one of the few things he can play all by himself.  Since he isn't able to ride the rides with Ashlyn and Preston, he doesn't even know what he's missing.  The ball drop is as good as it gets as far as he is concerned!

 One trip this past summer we got Grandpa and Grandma Walker to come along, only if we rented them "a ride" to eliminate all the walking.  They love the city, but just can't walk around it like they use to!  So we rented both of them a motorized cart, we didn't think either one would ride if the other one didn't!  You can see Garrett is loving it just as much as they did!  They had the best time driving those things around all day, they could keep up with the rest of us and enjoy everything as much as everyone else without even breaking a sweat!  

Another one of our regular rides is the train, the boys love the train, and once again everyone can ride it!  There is one thing you can always count on, the notorious brothers who rob the train every day, every year, since I was a little girl riding that same train.  I tell you they haven't even changed the script since they were robbing my train so many years ago.  

 This is the year, the year Preston is finally old enough to ride the big kids rides.  Up to this point he's been limited to the train, shoot out and the carousel!  Not any more, he finally reached the magical height of 36 inches and can ride the kids coaster (pic, above) the swings, and Fire in the Hole!  You can see Preston and Mommy towards the back of the roller coaster, Aunt Colton and Kayley in front of us, and Uncle Nick with Cora behind us!  We're all holding on for dear life because although this may be the smallest coaster at Silver Dollar City, it is the roughest!

Ashlyn's favorite ride, ever since she was 36 inches has been the swings!  She always loves to swing, but these are the big ones that take you high in the sky and swing you around in circles.  Unfortunately she is only tall enough to ride with an adult, so now that Preston is on board too, Mommy has to endure the spinning around so that they can both ride!  A Mother's love I tell you, one of these days I'm going to puke on this thing.  That's why there are no pictures, Kendall and I are both always on the ride!

The years we get to spend at the city are always a great way to getaway for the weekend.  Grandma Bell's house is so close we always have a place to stay and better yet she always comes to sit with kids while Mommy and Daddy ride their rides!  The city changes every time you come to visit as they have different festivals throughout the year like Bluegrass and BBQ, World Fest, Kids Fest (the only festival we've never made it to, go figure), Harvest Fest and always Christmas! Now we'll take a year off, give them time to add new rides, and let the anticipation build for 2013 when we get season passes again:)

Firehouse Fun!

 Your looking at the newest Liberty Firefighters!

That's right the biggest group of 3 and 4 year olds to take over the fire station!  Look closely and you'll see my favorite firemen, Preston and Garrett front and center!  We have a church playgroup that meets every Wednesday and this time we got to tour the fire station!  Preston and Garrett were very excited to climb in the ambulance, drive the firetruck and even try on the firefighter hat!  You won't see the picture of Garrett driving the truck because although he got up there, he jumped back down faster then the camera could catch him.  Garrett was okay doing everything else, but behind the wheel of that big old truck was just a little too much for him.  On the other hand as you can see from Preston's picture, he thoroughly enjoyed it!

I love this picture, just wish it was closer up so you could see Garrett with the hat in his eyes while Preston tries to put yet another hat on him.  These two are one of the same and always playing off each other!

Halloween Has Come Again!

Their Best Disguises Yet! 

Since its hard to tell who is who because of their excellent costumes, Ashlyn is Jessie from the infamous Toy Story movies, Preston is a police officer (just decided as we were headed out the door) and Garrett is a tiger because he has no opinion and therefore we get to dress him up!  Halloween has become a week long event these last few years, which means so many opportunities to dress up that you can be something different every time.  For example, the picture above is at our church Halloween party, altough Preston was scheduled to go as Woody (the other infamous Toy Story character) so he could partner up with his sister "Jessie" he decided last minute he wanted to be a police man.  I think Preston chose a different costume every time he dressed up as you'll note in the pictures below!

 Ashlyn was pretty excited that we stepped it up this year and actually dyed her hair red to make her look like the real "Jessie".  This is a big deal for a little girl who didn't know you could so easily change hair color, so I'm sure this is only the first color her hair will ever be:)  Garrett make one cute little tiger, even cuter when he actually wears the hood of his costume with the tiger head on it!  Garrett wasn't having that and pulled it off every time!  Preston's costume is simply stuff from the kids dress up box, we pieced it together last minute when I remembered a pair of plastic handcuffs we had stashed away in the Halloween box!  That made his day, and turned him into an official police officer, he loved getting to wear all the gear!

Once we start the holiday with the party at church, we have our annual playgroup Halloween party at our house!  Somehow it became a tradition to always have the Halloween party at our house, which is fine since everyone takes a turn hosting playgroup, at least I always know when my turn will be!  The party is always a big hit, meaning lots of kids in all kinds of costumes.  I lost count, but I think there was around 30 kids and adults this year, one of our smaller groups in attendance!  It doesn't take many bodies to make our house crazy full of people!  Thank goodness we can spread out into the basement, then it doesn't seem like as many!    Ashlyn missed our party since she was at school; however, Preston opted to be Buzz Lightyear for this event and I'm not sure Garrett even dressed up?  I was trying to find pictures to show how wild and crazy our party was and realized I don't even have any with my kids in them!  We played pin the nose on the pumpkin, a new concept for these 3 and 4 year olds who've never even heard of pin the tail on the donkey!  Then we did a craft downstairs with white paint that you rolled marbles around in to make a cool spider web on the paper! Kids thought it was cool, but by the time they dried half of them forgot to take them home!

This was an exciting year for pumpkin carving since Ashlyn and Preston are getting old enough to actually help do some of the work.  I don't think we even bothered carving pumpkins the first two years they were born, so this is a special bonus for Garrett to get to carve so young!  Who says there is no benefits to being the third born:)  Surprisingly, Preston was the one who refused to grab the gooey gunk out of the pumpkin considering in every other situation he is looking for a mess to make!  Ashlyn was very brave and got her hands all gooey cleaning out her very own pumpkin, at her age everything is very personal and "her" pumpkin is only hers! 

We tried to get creative with our pumpkin faces, but its easier said then done when it comes to cutting those pumpkins out.  Ashlyn decided she wanted a tongue on hers, wow, that became quite difficult to do.  Luckily Daddy came to the rescue and figured out how to cut out a tongue!  Each pumpkin was named, too bad I can't remember them, the consequence of waiting so long to blog:)  But the excitement really began when we turned out the lights and lit those babies up, they were all in awe!

 I love how proud Garrett is of his little pumpkin!  He saw his brother and sister posing with their pumpkins, and he rarely lets anything they do slide by without mimicking their behavior!

 Now it is actually Halloween, the official 31st of October, and we've invited some friends over to trick or treat with us!  Note the Garrett is now dressed as a ferocious, fire breathing dragon ( I couldn't resist), Preston is sticking with his Buzz Lightyear dress-up (he's changed costumes every time he dressed up this week), Ashlyn stayed focused on being Jessie every time, and we sprayed her hair red every time also.  By the time Halloween was over, she kept a faint red tint to her hair.  People even complimented her on the red "highlights"!  

It's become a tradition to have Ashlyn's friend Anna and her family join us trick or treating this year; however, Preston's friend Issac and his family also came along.  We've found it beneficial to trick or treat in a group of the same ages because they move at about the same pace and are equally interested in helping each other get more and more candy!  Pictured left to right is: Garrett, Preston, Elise Johnston (the puppy), her brother Issac (the member of the marching band), Ashlyn, her friend Anna (Gargamell's black cat) and her little sister Adiline (Smurfette)  Not pictured is Micah the smurf and Matt as Gargamell!  They are always way cooler parents then us on Halloween and get all dressed up in coordinating costumes, while my kids are just lucky we can buy costumes at the store because I can't make them anything!

Starting out on our trick or treating trek.  It took us all night to get our group of 1-5 year olds around the block, but they enjoyed every minute of it!

Saddle Up!

Lexington, Missouri

October 2011

Show-Me Trail Ride Outfitters

 That's us, you're not seeing things!  Kendall and Michelle on their trusty steeds, Jack and Chicka!  For those of you who don't know, Michelle loves horses and always has; however, rarely gets the opportunity to ride them (unless she sneaks in on one of Ashlyn's riding lessons:)  So when we found out about a trail ride in Lexington for half price, thanks to Groupon, Michelle signed us up!  At first I just thought Kendall was coming along as a very sweet and supportive husband; however, he had just as much fun, if not more fun riding the trails as Michelle!  Check out that view, just a little of what we enjoyed as we rode.  

 Although we tried to schedule our ride in early Fall, we got stuck with the middle of October!  I say stuck because we couldn't get the day we wanted, had to take a Friday off work, and we just knew we'd freeze to death riding this time of year!  Who would have ever guessed that we picked the most beautiful day in October!  Really it was PERFECT, meaning the weather couldn't have been better and the scenery was wonderful with all the Fall colors.  Also perfect because there was originally supposed to be 6 riders in our group, but we were the only ones that showed up on time (because we sped like racers to make it on time), so they took us on our own personal trail ride!  We enjoyed the sun as it began to set on our 2 hour ride through beautiful Missouri wilderness just when the Fall colors are at their best!

 This is just some of the excellent scenery we enjoyed!  That's the Missouri River way off in the background.  We had to take the high trail instead of the river trail because there were a bunch of men shooting their muskets off in preparation for their civil war reenactment!  

Thanks to Jeff, the trail "boss" for taking all our pics, Kendall and I were too busy just trying to stay on our horses to be able to take any photos!  Jeff had to go back after the first hour and get the late group, so he sent us on with his daughter Becca and wow that girl can ride!  All of them, including Emmett, the other trail guide were lots of fun, laid back and great to ride alongside.  You get to know a lot about people riding horses for hours with nothing else to do but enjoy the view and chat it up!

 This was the best pic of Kendall in action, you may not be able to see the hill their headed down, but you can see it in Kendall's face as he carefully maneuvers Chicka down the trail.  Look closely and you can see him holding onto her mane, that's the only thing that kept us on our horses sometimes.  It was quite the trail, a little scary in some places, going straight up and down some of those bluffs.  Although this isn't Kendall's first rodeo, this was the real deal and he did an awesome job riding those trails!  Even though Michelle had been trail riding, this trail was like nothing I'd ever ridden and had me holding on to my horse Jake for dear life sometimes.

 Here is Kendall thanking Chicka for getting him home safely! Note Jeff in the back, left corner of this pic (wearing the cowboy hat) he was the boss in every sense of the word and quite the character.  He even dressed the part of the cowboy with his foul language, mustache and mouth full of tobacco!  It was quite the trail, a little scary in some places, going straight up and down some of those bluffs.  Although this isn't Kendall's first rodeo, this was the real deal and he did an awesome job riding those trails!  Even though Michelle had been trail riding, this trail was like nothing I'd ever ridden and had me holding on to my horse Jake for dear life sometimes.

 Needless to say we were very saddle sore after that long ride.  Kendall was still feeling it even days after the ride.  They say horseback riding is good exercise,  and I believe it when I try to use those muscles to walk around after the ride.  If its true that it burns all those calories, that is my kind of exercise, because I could have sworn the horse was doing all the work!

"Johnny" Appleseed!

Allredge Apple Orchard

Second Friends Preschool Field Trip

Preston "trying" to pick his own apples.  At least he stopped trying to get them off the ground.  He even has his "picking" overalls on, thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Walker.  It was a beautiful day and lots of fun getting to know Preston's classmates.  This was his first field trip, which means he finally got to ride the bus!

 Very proud of his shiny apples. It was difficult getting him to stop 

picking them, since everyone only got three!

 Luckily little brothers get to tag along. Garrett's loving this trip, eating on the job.  Note his overalls match his brothers, Grandpa and Grandma Walker made sure everyone has a pair.

 There's more at the orchard then just apples!  We took a real hay ride around the farm, none of this fancy benches in wagons.  We're talking a bunch of hay thrown in the back of a wagon and off we go, fun, 

but not at all comfortable:)

 How sweet is that, they fit right in on the farm.  There is no way to get a picture with both of them looking and smiling, trust me we tried.  This one is just as sweet with Preston loving on his "mini me" while Garrett chomps away at his apple.

Preston also got to feed the chickens, or should I say throw food at the chickens.  He wasn't quite brave enough to let them peck it out of his hand, this is as close as he let them get before he dropped it on the ground and ran.

We loved the weather, feeding the goats, playing with the kittens and enjoying a picnic lunch outside made for a great day at the orchard.  Now that Preston goes to the same school as Ashlyn there will be lots of the same field trips, so I have to alternate whose I go on when.  Although Ashlyn will get to enjoy her own adventure at the orchard next week, I will not be along to take so many pictures.  

She will however, be sure to have her pink overalls on:)