Owensboro Hot Spots

Well, this weekend was great! Other than the adjusting and some hiccups with the kiddos and all of us trying to adjust to our new routine we really did have a lot of fun. Tex is bound and determined to show us all of the fun hot spots in Owensboro or rather all of the spots he went when he grew up!

We started with the going to KK's game at the ball field! The kids had a blast playing in the dirt and Palmer even ran into his "best friend" from school. It was too cute. Michael (Palmer's new bff) had even told him mom that Palmer was his best friend too so I am glad it is mutual :) They had so much fun playing and running and getting dirty!

This pretty much sums up Annie in Owensboro right now. It is all about Papaw and no one else! She is a stinker and knows how to work the system. Her and Papaw are pretty tight, he even paints her fingernails and toenails!

Our next stop I was looking SO forward too. We were going to the Big Dipper. Apparently the Big Dipper is only open in the summer and fall and serves literally THE BEST everything! You walk up or drive thru and then you sit on picnic benches in the parking lot. No restrooms was my only reservation :) haha I think I ate enough for the whole weekend. Cheeseburgers, onion rings, ice cream, etc..! We had about 15 of us and the kids LOVED it! It has been an Owensboro fav for years and it did not dissapoint!

Right behind it is the infamous Moonlite BBQ, you know Owensboro is known for bbq, right? They even have a bbq festival! :)

Here are the kiddos waiting for all of their greasy and delicious food on the picnic table they were on cloud 9!

The rest of the weekend was spent doing things around the house. At one point my husband had the chainsaw out cutting down all of the overgrown trees outside. You can see our windows and house now, I can't wait to share before and after pictures!

We had some of our friends over Saturday night and it was a great night!! The kids played and we talked out on the patio and I think everyone had fun! Apparently without knowing we hit the jackpot on awesome neighborhoods. We have the kind of neighborhood where the neighbors have neighborhood block parties, kids are out playing flash light tag in your back yard way past their bed times and this one I can't even make up... we were walking last night and Mr. Draper (who is probably 80) literally stopped us and asked the kids to come in the back we sat on his porch and he went in and got two truffle chocolates for both kiddos and made his wife come out and we sat there and talked to them for 30 minutes! Who does that anymore? Him and his wife have 5 kids, 10 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren and said they miss the sound of kids playing in the backyard. Those are the kinds of things that are unexpectedly wonderful!!

More pics to come!!!

GREAT ADVICe

It is no coincidence the way that God's timing works! I was sent this article by one of my best friends at a time I needed it most! Our family is loving so many things about our new life in Owensboro but there are a lot of things that we are missing as well and there is an unexpected adjustment period that I didn't think would be so hard. I want my children to feel secure and right now we have had so many changes I think all of us are holding on a little tight to each other! I know it will get easier and get better with each day, each week that we continue to make Owensboro our home but this article was wonderful and just for a tiny moment removed my "mom guilt" just for a little while :)

Trust your instincts. If you think you will feel better buying the baby monitor with the TV screen, then do it. But if you realize it will lead to obsessing about whether or not the baby is breathing, then don’t. If someone tells you your baby looks flushed and you disagree, you are probably right.


2. Trust your kids. If they indicate they are ready for grown-up forks and deciding for themselves how much toilet paper to use, then they probably are. If they make a mistake, help them learn from it and move on. You knew that someday they would grow up, you don’t want to be pouring the milk for a 12 year old anyway, do you?

3. Don’t be a single parent unless that is your official classification. My husband is a 100% parent and so am I. He takes care of poop accidents, he makes ponytails, he cooks, he laces shoes. Not every day, not every time. But neither do I. But between the two of us, it gets done. Having a good Dad makes you a good Mom, and vice versa.
4. Talk it out. Talk to your kids. Talk to your spouse. Life is a battlefield and you need a plan. If you wander through life, then you will get nowhere. But if you have some sort of plan or purposeful response to a parenting situation, you will do better. After a troublesome day, BAGD and I often talk about ideas for next time. How can we reduce Geetle’s sassy talk; maybe we should implement a reward system. How can we keep Pookie from accidentally dressing himself out of Geetle’s side of the closet; maybe we should hang a scarf on the closet rod to separate the sides.
5. Don’t be too hard on yourself. If making cupcakes for preschool is fun for you, do it. But if its not, then buy them at the grocery store. Parenting magazines are great for ideas, but NO ONE can possibly do all those crafts, made-up backyard games, finger puppet plays and funny face veggie pizzas. By my estimation, the average Mom (who is probably also a “good mom”) does less than 5% of the things in the magazine. Your kids would love a funny-face pizza, sure. But they would rather have you spray them with the garden hose or listen to their 10 minute story about the pile of dirt behind the fence at preschool.
6. Your kids are part of your life, your whole life. I take my kids to the grocery store, Jiffy Lube, the bank, and Great Grandma Jones’ antique-saturated home. If you learn to integrate your kids into your normal everyday life, you will get to spend more time with them, you will teach them how to behave in different situations and you will be able to get all the necessary tasks of life done.
7 . Try to be organized. This can be a hard one, but it really makes a difference. When your physical surroundings are chaotic, so is your mind. At the bare minimum, organize the parts of your life that directly affect your parenting. I have a giant box of household papers that I know I will never file; I stuff them in the sump pump closet in the basement. But, my the closet my b/g twins share is organized by gender and type of clothing. I have hundreds of recipe clippings that I stuff into a folder, making them useless. But, we keep our 25+ piece Mr. PotatoHead set all together in a lidded plastic box with his picture taped to the side.
8.¬† Keep your sense of humor.¬† Stepping in poop that fell out of someone’s droopy pull-up is funny.¬† Explaining why some peepees have hair on them is funny.¬† Realizing that someone let the hamster out is funny.¬† Cutting a patch of maple syrup-encrusted hair out of your daughter’s ponytail 5 minutes before the bus comes is funny. ¬† Hearing your son belt out “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” at the top of his lungs at the bank to hear the echo is funny. ¬†¬† You might not realize it immediately, but its true.¬† If you don’t think so, try telling one of your stressful parenting stories to the Grandpa and see if he laughs.¬† If he laughs, its funny.
9.¬† You reap what you sow.¬† Screamers beget screamers.¬†¬† Whiners beget whiners.¬† Do you know why Geetle listens to me when I tell her to pick up her toys?¬† Because I listen to her when she tells me her theory on why car tires have silver stars in the middle (hubcaps).¬†¬† Why is Pookie willing to sit still in the doctor’s waiting room?¬† Because I sit quietly and cuddle with him on the couch at home.¬†
10.¬† Let your first thought and consideration when making any decision or action be “what about my kids?”¬† Really, if you do this one, you can skip all the other rules you read here or in any parenting book.¬†¬† This is the silver bullet of good mothering.¬†

MISSING IN ACTION

I know I have been a little MIA lately on the blog! I miss it! We have been slightly busy to say the least! We took off Friday and picked up this....

I am pretty sure (I know I have said this before) but I don't ever want to move again! We had a 24' Semi and my mini van packed so tight it was ridiculous! How do we have SO much stuff? Tex and I worked our tails off packing and loading and cleaning! Even though it was bittersweet it definitely was a HUGE relief to have our old home cleaned, cleared out and keys turned in!

When we got home the unpacking started. Thankfully we had wonderful friends come over (including our neighbor who Tex knows but I just met) help us unpack. It was slightly chaotic and I felt like stuff was flying everywhere but none the less it was unpacked that night! Now the real unpacking didn't start right away, it was so bad and crazy I didn't know where to start :)

On top of moving with 2 kiddos this little girl had been acting NOT herself for the past week! She had been on amoxicillian for 10 days but something still seemed off. So Saturday we took a trip to the Owensboro Hospital lab and stayed there for 45 minutes drinking 20 oz of Sprite and singing Jesus Loves Me until Annie could finally pee-pee in the potty! Luckily, the urinalysis came back clean...

Here is Annie thinking this whole pee-pee thing was a blast!

 The next morning she woke up with a 102 fever so we made another trip to the Urgent Care and found out that she still had a double ear infection and also another infection from the antibiotic! Thankfully they were wonderful, fast and prescribed a heavy duty 5 day antibiotic that has finally made my baby girl act like herself again!

In the meantime, she kind of potty trained herself! I don't want to speak too soon but we are on day 3 of wearing underwear even at school, she has done great so far! We shall see :)

It hasn't been all work (mostly work:) but we did find time to play with our cousins in our backyard! It feels so good to say that! Not having a yard for 2 years was definitely challenging with kids and that is one thing that I looked most forward to when we moved! Watching them run and play was definitely the highlight of my weekend!

Palmer, Annie and their cousins playing with the hose and water table!

Things are coming together slowly but surely my most productive time is at night when the kiddos go to bed and I can actually unpack and organize which I love to do! We LOVE our home and I feel so blessed everyday we get to live there! I am liking Owensboro and my job and I love how you can get anywhere in 5 minutes. I have to admit though I am pretty homesick and miss a lot about Louisville and the people and friends there. I know it will get better and it is just a short drive anytime I feel like going!

So, things are starting to feel a little more settled and normal! I have most of the house unpacked minus the kids closets. Decorating is a different story but that is going to take a while and I am fine with that!

So for anyone that wants to come to the big O our doors are officially open!

It's Official!

It is official! We finally closed yesterday afternoon and got the keys to our new (old) home! We are SO excited. Due to exhaustion and time I am just being lazy and posting my shutterfly slideshow on here so that you all can see the pictures!! I hope to do "before" and "afters" of each room once we get more settled! Right now we have 2 beds and the necessities to stay there at night but we are going to get our furniture on Friday! We are SO excited and the kids are just crazy, they just keep running around. I am pretty sure they don't have a clue what we keep doing to them :) haha

I can't wait to get settled and make this house our home, I know we are going to love it! This actually makes moving feel a lot more real now! There will be lots of posts to come! We get our Internet tomorrow and cable on Saturday oh life's luxuries, I have missed :)

Click here to view these pictures larger

We're Here!

We are in Owensboro, we made it! We haven't moved our actual stuff yet (hopefully this Sunday we will actually pack up the uhaul and close on Monday!) Today is honestly the first day that I haven't felt like an elephant is sitting on my chest, which a good thing!! Man, for someone that doesn't like change, I am really taking in a lot :) It is different for sure, not a bad different though. I can tell we will get the hang of things here and will make it home in no time!

The first day we got in was Mamaw's birthday! These Templeton's love birthdays :) Here is Mamaw with her awesome cake!

Happy Birthday!

The most fun part for the kids, singing happy birthday! We had no candles that day so we had to pretend :)

This guy is on cloud 9!!!

The kids did really well on their first day at their new school! Tex got to pick them up early and Palmer had already made fast friends and talked a mile a minute. Annie was a little more reserved and told Tex "I don't like my new friends" ha! I think she just likes to throw us for a loop! I really think they are going to like it and Tex said they did great today at drop off.

This is day 2 of my new job! I think I am really going to like it here, way different than my old office but I think it is going to be a good fit!

Other than living at the in-laws (which we are very thankful they are letting us) and not being able to find half of my stuff everyday things are going really well! I am still emotional, still don't know my way around, still trying to wrap my head around this move. I have to get to know the new layout of Walmart, Target, Kroger here and I definitely have to know the good radio stations! I haven't found a place for my morning fountain drink yet but I will! haha! Isn't it funny the stuff we miss or get used too!

I don't have a lot of pics because my camera cord is MIA at the moment! Thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes and prayers we felt them! Lots of updates to come!

The "going away" weekend!

Oh my blog has suffered! I am mainly posting at this point so that I remember what in the world happened in this last month, my head is literally spinning with everything going on :) New move, new house, new city, new job, new schools for the kids! It is overwhelming, but I know if we can just make it thru the next couple of weeks of adjusting, moving and getting into our new routine it will be GREAT!

So last weekend was kind of my "going away" weekend with all of my friends and family wrapped into one. The first night I went out with some friends to eat and then to see Friends with Benefits. I can't tell you the last time I went to the movie theatre, do you know how many people go see movies on a Friday night? I was in shock! It might have been my emotional state but I LOVED this movie! I laughed until I cried and then I did cry :) haha It was so awesome, one of the best chick flicks I have seen in a long time! It was such a good night with great friends!
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Saturday I had another going away dinner with some of my oldest and dearest friends that go all the way back to the good ol days at WKU! We met for sushi and then had ice cream. We joked at 10:30 pm when we were all stuffed and eating ice cream that our lives had definitely changed! It was such a great night out with friends and a much needed girls night!

Erin and Kourtlee!

Katie, Me and Jamie

Sunday it didn't stop! We headed to Georgetown for a big family celebration for my brothers birthday/going away and just spending time together! It was so much fun! We had 6 kids under 8 and it was hilarious, chaotic and perfect!

My dad and I!

This picture cracks me up, I was trying to take a picture of Dawn, Dad and myself and all of a sudden all of the kiddos (minus annie) jumped in. That is why we are laughing so hard! It ended up being an awesome pic, I just wish annie was in it!

Monday Kimmie, baby Sofia, Lindsey and baby Emma Claire came and brought me dinner since they couldn't make it Saturday! It was totally awesome and I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life that made time to see me before we head on, I know I will see them a lot still but it is definitely bittersweet!

To say we have been busy would be an understatement. We have traveled to owensboro and back, visited the kids school, packed up the house, took Palmer to his 4 year check up, made sure to spend as much time with Ashley, Joe and Bellies as possible and still be sane! :)

Palmer did great at his appt he was such a brave strong boy! He is in the 65% for height and 70% for weight! They said he was perfect and doing great! Unfortunately he had to get 5 shots and a finger prick, he looked like a crazy person with all of the band aids. Apparently the shots they use have live viruses and we always seem to fit into that "small percent" that get a high fever and flu like symptoms so last night was LONG but we survived and he isn't fully back to himself but close!

Tomorrow night we are going to my boss' house for a going away cookout and then we are leaving Sunday morning to start staying in Owensboro. We start school/work on Monday! The closing is still set for the 15th, fingers crossed so it isn't much longer now! We are all SO ready to be together and in our new home and for life to go back to somewhat normal again, whatever that means :)

This wore me out just typing it! haha Pics to come of all of the transition!