T ball time

The season is halfway over and we still haven't won a game. But hey, we look good trying!

Keep Calm and Polka On

 I live in tornado alley. This time of year, you are expected to have a few nights of storms that either knock out your power, or just have the weatherman break in on your favorite prime time show.  You may even have to take shelter in a closet a time or two.  However, never in my life has a tornado hit this close to home.

High winds woke me up at midnight about a week ago.   I knew something was wrong, I could just feel it.  However, our favorite weatherman, Pete, didn't say anything about rotation in our area and the tornado sirens weren't going off.  The electricity went out during these high winds and then it settled down a bit.  We listened to the police scanner on our phones and heard there was damage downtown.

Then we took a look at Facebook on our phones.  Wow!  There wasn't just a few limbs down, there were entire buildings almost torn up.  Our historic downtown was in sad shape.  Here are some photos from the damage:

Awnings were down all over the place.

Power lines and poles were out everywhere.

This pole was tilted and then the rebar was taken out of this concrete pillar.

 The blue stuff is the roof from the motel in the background.

 The whole side of this restaurant was gone.

Turns out it was an EF1 tornado and apparently went so quick that no sirens went off.  It did not hit any residential areas, only businesses.   

Earlier this week, the day after the EF5 tornado that destroyed Moore, OK, we had high winds that  created even more damage.  This photo was from our neighbors house.  Its barely missed their house and cars.

This was 9 days before our town's biggest money maker of the year, our Polka Festival.  Again our downtown is in shambles, but they vowed not to cancel the Polka Festival.  

So....

The show must go on! 

My sister and I took the kids to the annual parade.  It had rained the night before so it was cool and humid.

Grant found this microphone in Laura's car, so he decided to give us commentary the whole way to our spot for the parade.  He said he was our 'tour guide' who pointed out all the dinosaurs and the details of the dinosaurs on the way.  I LOVE his imagination!

Reagan was feeling much better from her ear infection.

Vivian was also all smiles.

Grant was in charge of the pre-parade interviews.

Crazy cousins!

Equally crazy sisters!

Vivian loves her Sissy!

This giant HEB shopping cart cracks me up.  

Apparently it runs on HEB brand cola..haha.

Clowns were everywhere.  I'm glad the kids weren't scared of them.  

Best part:  Shriner on a segway!

Wedding #2 - Our New Brother-in-law!

Wedding #2 of the year we were more a part of than wedding #1.  Daniel's sister got married.  Grant was to be the ring bearer, so we have been preparing for this day for quite a while. 

We arrived on Friday to the rehearsal dinner.  Grant did great running through it with the flower girl.

I failed to get any pictures at the dinner...I was trying to keep one child from going wild and the other from screaming too much from being tired. 

Saturday morning, we decided to do a family outing to kill time until the wedding.

First stop was to good ole Wal-Mart to get the things we forgot and things we don't need.

Hence, Reagan's new 98 cent shades!

Next stop was mini golf and go carts.

We when went to visit some family in the area, but noticed Reagan didn't feel to well.  We went back for a quick nap before the wedding. 

An awful adorable shot of us.

We almost ran late to the wedding between trying to get everyone ready and Reagan screaming from feeling bad.  However, we made it just in time!

 Everything went well, even though it could have been about 10 degrees cooler!  Grant did was he was supposed to do and did it without complaining.  He earned his castle that we bribed him with!

I failed to get pictures of many things I wanted to take pictures of but there was too much chaos to focus on that.  I'm sure I'll get plenty from everyone else!  

 Grant fell asleep as soon as we got in the car, and so did Reagan after fighting me quite a while.

 Reagan ended up having fever later that night, so we left early the next morning to go home.

When we were packing the car back up, we realized we had WAY too many balloon animals from the wedding.  A family member did them for the kids, and the DJ did some for Grant as well after everyone left the wedding.  

After this picture was taken, I convinced Daniel to come at me with his pocket knife and take care of these things.  I'm sure that was a sight to see!

Oh the horror!

Welcome to the family, Adam!

Manic May

Things have been going nonstop lately. Baseball and softball is in full swing. Here is Grant before his first game.


We had a good cheering section going....





Reagan is 5 months now. She can sit up on her own!


She was playing peek a boo with me :)


I've been making her baby good from scratch. So far we've eaten only carrots, but she's getting to like them.


Here is me and my little ones on Mother's Day. Blessed!


I haven't been to a wedding in years, now all of a sudden I have a handful! Wedding 1:


The bride smiled so much I thought her cheeks were going to fall off! Congrats Larke and Seth!