Independence, Homework, Basketball, and A Fun Party

Well, January at the Madden house has been busy and fun so far.


Grant is discovering his independence and it has been slowly but surely driving me CRAZY!!! More times than I can count, I walk into the kitchen and this is what I see.....
He pulls a stool up to the cabinets, climbs up, and decides to help himself to whatever appeals to him in my pantry cabinets. When he realizes that I have caught him once again, he turns around and grins...he knows this will make Momma less mad.....

Little stinker....can't help but take pics of him even when he is getting into trouble.

Since entering first grade, Garrett's evenings now include homework....can't believe my boy is doing homework....he is growing up too fast.

He has also started winter basketball. They have been practicing since early January and had their first game on Thursday night. Well, I really couldn't tell how practices were going but boy was I impressed with him during the game. Imagine my surprise when the coach put him at guard and entrusted him to carry the ball down the court every time..... He did sooooo well!!!! He was also a key rebounder and showed some very aggressive play. You will be able to tell from the following photos that he was NOT afraid to fight for the ball.....


Garrett's team won the game. I can't wait until this week's game.

Finally, Friday night Ryan and I got to go out on a real "grown up" date. Ryan served as president of our Chamber of Commerce for the 2007 year. On Friday the Chamber had its annual gala and Ryan presided over the gala and officially turned over his position to the new incoming president.

We enjoyed a speech from Ryan, a wonderful dinner, a sweet dance, and a night to be together without the boys. A huge thanks to my friend, Karissa, for babysitting the boys for me. I had a great time!

Starting Off the New Year Right

Well, we started off our new year by meeting our insurance deductible right off the bat....and let me tell ya.....our deductible is WAAAAAAYYYYYY high.....

Grant had to have another eye surgery. So on January 10 we went to the Eye Surgery Center and had the procedure done. He was NOT very happy about having to go but to his credit he was a very big boy. He really didn't cry at all until they took him from us. They gave him some medicine to hopefully make him fall asleep before they took him back but it really seemed to have no affect on him. Anyway, the surgery went well and they came and got us as soon as he started waking up....he was NOT happy coming out of that anesthesia. He complained of pain all day Thursday so he took the prescription pain meds that the Dr. gave us. By Friday morning, the only way you could tell he had surgery was from the redness in the corner of his eye. It didn't slow him down at all. Here is a photo I took of him on Thursday afternoon.....

He has recovered completely although his eye is still a bit red.

Garrett had his big Hispanic Heritage Day Parade at school.
They marched around the school circle all dressed in their cultural clothing. It was pretty chilly....mid 40's.....but the kids didn't seem to mind. Here is a photo of Garrett at the parade....
Here is a pic of Garrett and his best friend Gabe....aren't they a cute pair?

We are finally back into our school routine. I think life may slow down for a couple of weeks until I start getting ready for their Birthday parties. Tomorrow night is Garrett's first basketball game of the season. I'll have lots of pics from that....see you soon.

Wow where to begin. The Holiday season came and went in a flash. I hardly had time to realize it was coming before it was gone. Oh well, my boys enjoyed it and here they are with a few of their Santa surprises.....

Garrett got a Razor dirt bike...yes, I know, what crazy mom lets their six year old have a dirt bike for Christmas....well, since it was electric and not "real" I thought it would be ok......WRONG.....he had a wreck within three minutes of climbing on it....pretty bad....that made for a "wonderful" Christmas morning with LOTS of Mommy guilt....someone should have told me this job came with all the guilt. Here are some pics of him enjoying his bike....

Grant got a Razor four wheeler. OMG...He LOVED it!!!! He thinks he is such a big boy on his four wheeler. Thank goodness he has not wrecked his yet.

The only thing Garrett asked Santa to bring this year was an electric guitar....well, he got one....amp and all.....now I have a regular rock star on my hands....

Of all the gifts that Grant received this year, I think his favorite is this Sock Monkey....he fell in love with it from watching Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium....He takes "Monkey" everywhere and talks to him and plays with him and sleeps with him....soooo cute!!!!

As you can see, my boys have definitely grown in the last six months. I have missed posting here and will do my best to stay current.

We have already started our new year off with a bang.....but I'll save that story for later!!!!

WOW!!!! Has it really been that long since I posted here? I'm sorry for the lull....for some reason life was screaming by at a frantic pace and I couldn't keep up with it and so keeping up here was impossible. I have missed you all and promise to post again later with some new photos and all of our news!!!

Excuse me, Mr......Where is my little boy?

Did you ever have one of those moments where you realize time is moving so fast and it just sucks the breath right out of you? I had one of those moments last week. Garrett had a week of golf camp and after I picked him up on the first day, he wanted to go outside and practice his swing.

Ok.....he goes outside and I do a few more things in here.....then spy my camera lying on the table and decide to go take a few shots of my little guy playing golf....

When I walked outside and laid eyes on my son, my breath caught in my throat, and I got all teary eyed.....When did this happen?

First of all he had taken off his shirt....and we have been going to the pool so much that he is TAN.....and his hair has these really blonde highlights in it from being in the son.....then to top it all off, and really this is the part that did me in.....his underwear band is poking out the top of his shorts......Wait a minute.....You are SIX years old!!!!!! SIX.......NOT SIXTEEN!!!!!

I just wanna scream WAIT!!!!! Don't grow up too fast.....being a little boy is sooo much fun (for you but also for me). So I stop and I imprint this picture into my mind.....because before I know it....I'll turn around and he really will be sixteen standing out in my yard tan....shirtless....underwear hanging out the top of his shorts.......and you know what? I'll close my eyes and I'll be able to see him again at six.....my sweetie who thought he was older than he really was....my little man who was in such a hurry to grow up and do "man" thing.....my little guy who would tell me he loved me at least ten times a day.....my sweet first born son who taught me how to be a Mamma.....I love you, Gar......please slow down.....you are growing up too fast and my heart is having trouble keeping up....... Please be my little boy for a while longer.....I won't look at how big you are getting if you won't.......although carrying a 56 pounder to bed every night is getting a little hard......love ya big guy!!!!!

Our 4th Celebration

Our Fourth of July celebration started on the night of July 3rd. I am extremely patriotic and will tear up when singing the National Anthem. I feel that the youth of today do not honor Country, Flag, or Servicemen like they should and want to teach my boys what an honor it is to be an American and how they should revere and respect our flag and the men who fight/fought to make this country free. So I took them to this patriotic program that Temple Baptist Church presented. It was wonderful and had just the effect on my boys that I wanted it to....(well, it touched Garrett anyway, Grant fell asleep about 20 minutes into it.....). Here is a photo I snapped of their re-enactment of this famous statue and the battle it represents.

After the program they presented a beautiful fireworks display and Grant was so still once the fireworks started. He wasn't scared but I think he was in awe of the beautiful fireworks.

On the actual Fourth of July we went to our friends' house Skip and Carolyn Russell. They live up the street and were kind enough to invite a bunch of folks over to their house and pool for a cookout to honor the day. The kids enjoyed themselves immensely. We ate alot but I think the boys liked the blue cupcakes the best.....

I couldn't resist this adorable photo of my little guy relaxing with a cup of iced sweet tea and taking in all that was going on around him.....
For once I actually asked Ryan to take a photo of me and the boys since I am usually the one behind the camera.....look at the boys swim suits.....I thought they were perfect for the 4th!!
We came home and rested for a while and then finished off the day by setting off some fireworks of our own. Here are the boys with their sparklers......always a favorite around here......


We had a wonderfully fun and patriotic day!!!! Hope that you had a wonderful 4th of July too!!!

Swim Blessings

Finally, I get to tell you about our swimming lessons. These lessons are almost a month old now though and Grant is now in his second week of lessons for the summer and he is doing FANTASTIC!!!

You may be wondering about my title here....Swim Blessings.....Well, this is Grant's way of saying Swimming lessons.....funny isn't it? You never know how a child's mind is going to interpret something that is new to them....it gets even funnier as you'll see later in my story.

I found a great deal for my boys. Mrs. Pam Owens taught Garrett last year and we liked her so much that when I got ready to sign my boys up for lessons this year....there was no question about who we would call. Well, Mrs. Pam teaches at Mrs. Carla Colvin's pool. Mrs. Carla Colvin happens to be Garrett's PE teacher at school and he loves her. So Mrs. Carla taught Garrett at the same time that Mrs. Pam was teaching Grant. It worked out GREAT!!!

Garrett knows how to swim and is a really good swimmer. I wanted him to have lessons just to gain more knowledge of different strokes and just so he felt really confident in the water....as you'll see from his photos, he does NOT lack for confidence...lol....

Once Mrs. Carla realized that he was such a good swimmer she let him work on his "dives."
Here is his run and dive move.....sorry for the blurriness....didn't realize until too late that my camera was not set on action.....His absolute FAVORITE jump of all is showcased here.......wanna guess? Come on, he is a little boy.....the CANNONBALL of course!!!! I'm not really sure how he pulled off this jump.....some kind of flip but he thought it was super cool and so did I!!!

Ok.....let's turn our attention to my little one. Now he is not afraid of the water so to speak. I dump huge cups of water on their heads int he bathtub when I wash their hair and have been doing that since before he was a year old so he is used to water in his face. However, what he is NOT used to is putting his face IN the water. Especially such a HUGE body of water as a pool. He was NOT at all sure he wanted anything to do with "Swim Blessings." However he took an instant liking to Mrs. Pam and did not hesitate to go with her into the water. The first thing she told him to do was put eyes in and hold breath....it was the quickest eyes in ever as he did it for like half a second! Barely time to snap this photo!!!!
After she got him used to this, he got pretty good at it. Jumping in the pool was a different story....When she told him he was going to go jump off the diving board, this is what we got....
But you know what? He did it.....now there was plenty of screaming and crying but he did it....and you wanna know why Mrs. Pam is such a great swimming teacher? This is the photo I got after he jumped.....

Grant really does LOVE her and he trusts her which I know has alot to do with the fact that by the end of the week he was doing this.....

YES!!!!! He was swimming!!!! He didn't realize it but that is what he was doing. I was so thrilled!! This week we have been taking a whole other week of lessons with Mrs. Pam and he has advanced so much that he can swim halfway across the pool before he has to come up for a breath and he is reaching and pulling REALLY great with his arms and kicking with his feet!!!

And now.....the rest of the story.....lol.....OK....when someone says Swimming lessons we all know exactly what is being said....however, Grant had not heard the term before or didn't remember for last year when we took Garrett and so was not familiar with the term. His little brain did not hear Swimming lessons......it heard Swim Blessings......I didn't think that much about it until yesterday when we pulled up at the pool. As I was getting out of the car, I heard him saying swim blessings, swim blessings over and over to himself....by the time I got to the back to get him out of his car seat, this is what I heard......"God is great...God is good....." LOL!!!! That is the blessing we say at home before we eat our meals....He was saying a swim blessing!!!! I thought I was gonna die laughing and who knows? Maybe he was so scared he felt the need to say a blessing before his lesson....lol.....!!!!!! Kids say the darndest things don't they?

Busy

This is such a busy time of year for us. When it turns warm outside and ballgames start we aren't here all that much and I don't get to update as often as I'd like to.


Just wanted to share with you a few pics that might clue you in to what we have been doing lately. This is one of our outdoor activities.....everytime I look at this picture my heart skips a beat...notice that all four wheels are off the ground....he is six!!!! His favorite thing to do is try to see how hight he can go over this little hill.....if he is jumping his four wheeler at six...what is he going to be doing at sixteen?

Here is how Grant entertains himself at Garrett's ballgames....lol....These glasses are Ryleigh's(she is our friend's little girl and like a sister to my boys)....he loves her pink glasses!!! When it gets warm and the sun is shining.....we are usually at the swimming pool....Garrett has turned into such a good swimmer and at swimming lessons this year Grant made such great progress.....I'll blog on our lessons soon...(I hope!!)

I'll leave you with this photo....I laugh everytime I look at it because this is Grant's "Puss In Boots Face".....he looks just like the cat on Shrek when he wants something and isn't getting his way....when he does this I've taken to calling him Puss!!!!

I hope that you are having great summer!!!! I have Garrett's last ballgame photos and our swimming lessons photos to share but I"ll have to save that for another day!!!

Sign Of The Times

Oh boy. You can definitely tell that the youth of today have been slowly, but surely submerged into the coffee culture. When I was a little girl people didn't drink coffee that much. Where I was from only older people drank coffee. I clearly remember staying with my Nanny(my maternal grandmother) and getting to drink coffee milk. Which was alot of milk with a little coffee with sugar in it. That is one of my very favorite childhood memories. Well, today.....EVERYONE drinks coffee. I had to tell you about this little incident because it just made me shake my head in disbelief......

Garrett, my six year old, has been drinking "Coffee Milk" every morning since he was 15 months old. This mixture consists of a huge cup of vanilla soy milk, a tiny teaspoon or so of coffee and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. He LOVES it and it is one of those things that I will always associate with my boy. Anyway, yesterday morning he came up to me and said,

"Mom, I'm ready for my coffee milk."

Ok....I'll get it for you.....

"Oh, but Mom, wait....I want chocolate coffee milk."

WHAT? .....I said, "Chocolate coffee milk?" Like I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing because in the five years that I have been fixing this for him, chocolate coffee milk has NEVER been a request.....

He calmly sighed and said with the utmost patience as if he couldn't believe that I was so uninformed he said simply......"Yes, Mom.....chocolate coffee milk....don't you know that is a Mocha?"

Ah, yes, sweet boy....you are right....it is a mocha.....I just had no clue that you knew that....

So in disbelief I fixed my big boy his "MOCHA" and the scrapbooker in me couldn't help but grab the camera and snap a photo to remember this little story of how my six year old schooled me on the finer art of coffee drinking.