She gets it from her daddy...

Sunday evening Luke ran in the house yelling, "Sophie has a rat in her mouth!" To which my response was, "good dog."

Justin, however, said he heard a squeak, went to check it out, and came back in with a bunny.

I went to choir practice, and by the time I returned home, one bunny had turned into two bunnies.

If you know my  husband and me at all, you know that he's the animal lover, and I...well we'll just say...am not.

Monday morning we fully expected the bunnies to have gone onto bunny Heaven. We even spent Sunday evening preparing the kids for it.

But...they were still kickin'. So after they insisted on giving them names, I was elected to take them to work with me and feed them throughout the day.

Tuesday morning, I texted Jess (our favorite vet) for HELP! She came by and picked them up and agreed to do the best she could to raise them. She reminded me, though, that they were extremely hard to raise.

When E got to my room that afternoon, she was hysterical about the fact that I let the bunnies go with Jess. I explained to her that she could care for them better than we could, but she was rather dramatic about the fact that she wanted them back.

Last night one of the bunnies died, and E actually took that news better than I expected. Her response was, "it's with MawMaw Nell now, and she can pet it and feed it."

Bless her heart.

(By the way...1 DAY UNTIL SPRING BREAK!!:)

MawMaw

Today I found this picture in E's schoolwork. It cracks me up because if you know my mother-in-law at all, you know how crazy she is about being "fair".

Justin and Chris's birthdays are a day apart, so they always get the exact same card with the exact same phrases underlined the exact same number of times (and usually a check for the exact same amount of money too:). At Christmas, they get the exact same gifts, so if one opens something before the other one does they will just throw the gift to the side since they already know what's inside.

When I asked Emma what this picture meant she said, "You know, MawMaw always gets Cheyenne and me the same clothes and the same cards and the same stuff so it's fair."

Farm Hands

We rode with Daddy to keep him company while he delivered some cows this afternoon. We barely got out of the county before the kids were out like lights. :)

Boyd

On Friday we finally got to meet the newest little guy in our family.

John Boyd, who is named after my maternal grandfather, was born December 19th in subzero temperature Minnesota.

We were tickled to finally get our hands on him!

Luke LOVED this guy too. On Saturday night he

declared that he wanted a "Boyd baby brother" at home.

Sweet Cousins:)

Moms & Boyd - Boyd is her 4th

great-grandson and 5th great-grandchild!

Moms, Boyd, Emma & Luke

We just thought E loved her Aunt Carrie B.B.

(before Boyd), but her value has greatly increased;).

This is pretty much what Emma did all weekend, and she may or

 may not have sulked when someone else wouldn't give him up. :)

E pretty much summed up our feelings:)

T-Ball

We kicked off E's final season of t-ball this week. I cannot believe how quickly the years have flown by and that next year she will have to move up! Here's hoping we have another fun season...

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Just change Alexander to The McCollums and day to week:/.

But I'm too blessed to let it keep me down.

This is a new week, and I choose to focus on that.

And the good things that happened last week:).

Crazy Sock Day & Twin Day

I got to hang out with these sweet girls (and J.T.) one afternoon!

My silly little cowboy:)

Mrs. Janet entertained the kiddos at Partners Saturday night!

Today we took full advantage of the new time and beautiful

weather. Although, I must say I think the kids had as much

more fun playing with their "pet worms" than they did fishing.

 

Thought for the week: Parenting is tough. Some days I wonder why God loaned me these little people. I feel assured that He is disappointed in the way I'm doing things. Some days I'm disappointed that my greatest parenting accomplishment was to get them fed, bathed, and in bed before having a total meltdown.

But then something always happens. Like laying down in bed with my 6-year-old when she tells me a story about a girl who is sometimes mean to her in class and when she told the girl that Jesus loves her the girl's response was, "no he doesn't, because my mom left me." My 6-year-old's thoughts on the subject? "Mama, I think that's why she's so mean...because she's really just sad."

Maybe, just maybe, I'm not doing it all wrong.

Or this afternoon on our way to go fishing when our 3-year-old tells us that Jesus fed a lot of people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.

Wow. Maybe he actually does listen.

God winks. I like to call these moments God winks.

And He knows just when I need them most.

Surprise Trip to T-Town!

Back in December, Justin and I decided to plan a trip to Tuscaloosa to see a gymnastics meet and a basketball game. We didn't tell the kids for several reasons -- one being, what parent wants to hear "how many more days until we go?" a thousand times between the "announcement" and the official day of departure, and two, surprises are more fun!

Friday morning Justin mentioned to E that if she got up and got dressed for school with no hassle, she might get a surprise that afternoon. He picked her up from school and she immediately asked if she could open her surprise when she got home.

So...when they got here I pretty much had everything packed up, and she was wondering why I packed bags. I told her to get dressed and then we would tell her what her surprise was. When her daddy told her, she started jumping up and down on the bed, ha! She was tickled, although I'm still not sure if she was more excited about gymnastics or the hotel.

Alabama v. Florida Gymnastics Meet - No. 4 Alabama beat

No. 3 Florida (and defending National Champs) 197.675-197.400.



Saturday we slept in, did a little shopping (and fishing;) at

Gander Mountain, and walked around campus before the game.

Denny Chimes

Alabama v. Auburn Basketball

Bama won 73-57 -- Roll Tide!

We had a great trip, and thanks to Dr. Seuss we are looking forward

to a fun-filled week at school! And...20 days until Spring Break:)