One year older and starting to give mom anxiety

We are in party season at the Rollins house. Between birthday's and Holidays things will get a little hectic around here over the next few months...OK, things are always hectic, this just adds to it!

 

Samm's birthday always sneaks up on me and every year I swear it's not going to take me by surprise, but I was still running between stores last night trying to find anything to get her. Eleven year olds are really hard to buy for. They don't really want toys, but they aren't quite into clothes enough yet either. After wandering up and down isles, making a few phone calls for ideas, and starring at books for 45 minutes, I finally settled on a few things that I thought she might really like. I was mostly excited about the book I found here because it combined the two things she is most in to right now, horses and Greek mythology. And then she opened it and said "oh, I love this book! I read it at school."... Of Course! I offered to return it for something else, but she said she really did like it and wanted to keep it.

James was super duper sweet to Samm all day and kept wishing her a happy birthday to the best sister in the world! She is really is!

Her main gift was a much needed bathrobe. She loves all things zebra with hot pink right now, so this was the perfect find at her favorite store, Justice.

And Laila just loves anything the older kids do, say, eat, play, or wear. Do not ever cut up her food, unless you want to see a full blown Laila meltdown!

Laila wearing Samm's bathrobe kind of kills me, because that was just Samm. She was my baby just yesterday, and now she is a full fledged tween. I honestly never imagined it would be this hard to let her grow up. I am so lucky to have her as my daughter!

She's 2!

Officially, Laila turned two on August 22nd. We didn't celebrate until just last week though due to some lack of planning on my part. Part of that lack of planning means that instead of a real party with cake and ice cream, we had Swedish pancakes for dinner and put a couple candles in Laila's. The kids thought it was pretty great.

The main reason for postponing the party was because I didn't decide until the night before her birthday that I wanted to get her a rocking horse. I had to order it, but it was worth the wait. She Loves it!

So hard to believe my baby it 2! She is turning into such a fun little lady full of personality and spunk. She knows exactly what she wants and doesn't let anything stop her. Some days it can be really frustrating, but mostly I admire that quality in her. Love you Bug!

Crazy, Hectic, Crying...Yep, school has started again!

I won't bore you with all the details of our crazy morning, but let's just say school is definitely back in session. I have a love/hate relationship with school. This morning I kind of hated it, but the kids loved it. All of them, including the boy who hates school, so it was a victory! He even said he can't wait to go back tomorrow! We have our fingers, toes, and arms crossed that this is going to be his year.

"Guys! Wait a me!" Poor thing, that's the story of her life.

5th grade here is separate from the other elementary schools so Samm has to catch an earlier bus than the other two. Thankfully, it was running late so I was able to snap a few pictures of them all together, and then braid Macy's hair while we stood there.

She is way too grown up! And Beautiful!

Josh was giving me a hard time about taking the camera to the bus stop, because he said Samm was too old for that. She turned around on her way up though and made sure I took a picture so I guess she's not too old yet.

After Samm got on the bus Laila had a major melt down because she wanted to go too. She even refused to come back in the house because she was so mad at me. I got her calmed down just in time to head out the door again for round 2. It was pretty chilly this morning so we had to put on some warmer jackets also.

James is in 3rd grade this year and getting to that too cool stage. He didn't want to put his arm around Macy or even have his picture taken, but he did it anyway because he loves his momma.

These two have finally started becoming buddies, just in time for Macy to be gone all day.

Macy has been ecstatic for months to finally be starting school. She could not have been more excited to get on that bus this morning.

And just as the other two loaded up on the bus, Laila started wailing again, until she noticed me taking her picture. This is her, I'm trying to pretend like I'm not crying face. Fortunately we stayed pretty busy today and even went to the park for a while so she wasn't too lonely. Tomorrow will be a different story though.

Rollins Family Talent Show

I am so behind in my blogging. This post has been on my to do list for months now. So, here is the last of our family reunion posts. The Talent show! We had a lot of fun this night, especially the kids.

Uncle Jason

Cousin Sydney

 

Cousin Bailey

 

Cousins Avenly and Paisley

 

Cousin Logan

 

Cousin Gabe

 

Uncle Beau

 

Cousins Lexie and Ashlynne

 

Uncle Corey

 

Samm and James

 

Macy

 

Our Family

 

Cousins Mayson, Jordan, and Ashlynne

 

Grandma and Grandpa

 

Cousin dance party



Super Slugger Laila

Poor Laila is the only one that does not get to play baseball and she does not like to be left out! This evening we were sitting on the back porch together and she decided it was her turn to practice batting. She got the bat and tee out of the box all by herself and started hitting away. I guess we will have another tee ball player in a few years.

And for anyone still holding out hope that I am going to post the talent show videos, I promise they are coming. I'm working on uploading the videos right now which takes forever. I'm hoping to have them all done in the next few days.

Take me out to the ball game

Whenever I have talked to other moms about sports or activities that the kids could be involved in I would always say something like "Baseball is so boring to me, I really don't want to be a baseball mom and I would die if I had to sit through hours of softball games."

So of course you know that all of my kids have decided that they love baseball and I just spent my entire birthday night watching 3 games in a row. And of course I loved it!

Macy's game was so cute with all the little kids running around not knowing what they were doing and hearing all the parents yelling "run, no drop the bat, stay there."

I was thrilled to be watching James play simply because he has found a sport that he likes and he is really pretty good at. He had a few good plays last night but struggled a little more than he has at practices because he was trying a little too hard to be the super star. He still had a great time though so I'm still crossing my fingers that it sticks.

And Samm was the biggest surprise of all. The whole time before her game Josh and I were both praying that she would at least make contact with the ball and have fun. She hasn't been the best fielder during practices and only an average batter and even she was nervous about being the worst one on the team. In her defense she hasn't played any sports since she was five and that was only one season of soccer. She is the only girl on this team and most of the other boys have played before. She ended up doing better than most of the boys on her team and way better than the two girls that were on the other team. She had two solid hits and only struck out once, but that was really because her coach was throwing horrible pitches. She scored one run, got one of the opposing players out at second and even slid into second once avoiding being tagged out. None of the boys even dared slide! Needless to say Josh and I were elated at how well she did and that she had so much fun!

Of course my camera battery was dead when I took it out to take pictures, but I did bring my video camera and got a quick shot of all the kids for their first at bat.

 

Need a laugh? Head over to Big Lots

I know you've all missed my Big Lots stories...So, I was on my way to Home Depot on Saturday to buy a deck box, but decided suddenly to stop at Big Lots and just see if they happened to carry them. Sadly, they did not, but I did find a few other things I needed so I ended up in the check out line. At first I didn't pay much attention to the couple in the line next to me until I noticed that the grumpy old cowboy who was clearly not happy to be there had a big fat stogie in his mouth. I watched him carefully for a minute and chuckled as he rolled it around in his mouth and barely grunted as his wife asked him questions. Then, I happened to see something white out of the corner of my eye and looked down to see a long strip of toilet paper coming out of the back of his jeans. I had to hold my hand over my mouth to not laugh out loud!

I seriously debated for the next several minutes whether or not to tell him, but in the end I decided it would be better if I kept quiet. And I'm glad I did, because his wife walked behind him the whole way out to the car and never said a word.

Yes, Big Lots is always good for a laugh!

And, if you need a new recipe check out how I revamped the family favorite Monkey Bars and turned them into healthy muffins that my kids can't get enough of!

AND, since my Dad isn't on Facebook, I had to post this picture of the girls. All they needed to do was start singing Roll out the barrels..

Family Pictures

For the first time since Macy was a baby, we had some family pictures taken. Betty found a photographer to come up to the lodge while we were in Oklahoma to take a group picture of everyone and then offered to do individual families as well.

Here is the link if you are interested in checking them out. http://kwphotography.ifp3.com/#/gallery/rollins-family-reunion/dsc-32701/

The majority of ours are on the first page, but we took a few more with her at the end so those are on page 6 and you don't want to miss our favorite! It's goofy, but we love it so much that it is going above the fireplace!

I'm always the outfielder

Cross your fingers, knock on wood, and hold your breath. I think James has found his sport. He loves Baseball! Well, he loves batting. That's why I'm holding my breath. We've been playing in the backyard non stop all week but he doesn't start his official practice at the YMCA until Tuesday. I'm hoping he still loves it even when he has to stand out in the field.

With all the ball retrieving I'm doing, I really should have a glove. I'm not a bad pitcher though either!

A few more from our trip to Oklahoma

Fishing was a big hit with all the kids

 

Sorry Kory, I love this

My pirate

We were driving in the car when James said "hey mom, what's this on my hand?" Gross. I think there were a few others that got ticks as well.

Checking out the nature center

We found a really cool stream that opened into a swimming hole for the kids to splash around in

Beau and Thor decided that EVERYONE should get into the water

For Laila to fall asleep somewhere other than her bed means she really was exhausted

Drying off on the rock ended up in just getting dirty

The t.v. was way up high over the fireplace, so this was the best spot to watch

Up next, the talent show...