Fishing with Grandma

The boys and Grandma Mary Kay share a love for fishing, and I'm so glad they do because I don't :) Fishing is one of those things all boys should do, right? Well I'm thankful Grandma is here to teach them the ropes lines.

Friday the boys were out of school so Grandma & Grandpa came to town and took everyone fishing at an employee's pond.

They had a blast and Chapel and Dwain kept hitting a "hot spot" however the biggest catch of the day was by Deacon's friend, Zach.

Overall the day was a success, we are so thankful Dan let the boys fish and now we are ready for a fish-fry!

Chapel then went home with Grandma & Grandpa and spent the week fishing more!

Grandma even provides "fishing clothing" :)! Thank you Grandma & Grandpa for the life skill you are teaching these boys!

Bobbleheads, Balls and Brothers

If the boys aren't entertained, they're fighting.... physically and verbally. This quickly gets old and I get so tired of saying "stop fighting, be nice, the Bible says to love one another," etc, etc. I've gotten where I just throw out a punishment, "run around the house 2 times, run the stairs 15 times, 10 push-ups, " etc, etc.

Growing up I babysat a family of 4 boys, the Crossley boys. I was continually impressed with the way they loved each other. Anytime one of them would go to the store or on a trip, they would come back with something for the other one. Now I'm sure they fought, I just never saw it.

Thankfully this weekend the Banner boys made me smile in the same way!

Deacon and Jake went with some friends to Columbia to a MU baseball game. Bo was left at home with Chapel and mom & dad. We took them shopping and when Bo saw this soldier bobblehead, he just had to buy it for Deacon. :)

Later that night, Bo was up late waiting on Deacon to come home, anxious to give him the gift. I noticed he was on his ipod a lot. Once he fell asleep I grabbed it to see what he'd been doing. I was so pleased to see that he had been texting his big brother...

There's nothing like brotherly love!!!

Sunday morning they were exchanging hugs after waking up, Bo of course presented the Bobblehead and was given the foul ball Deacon caught at the MU game.

 So at least for today, my Banner boys are loving each and acting like the Crossley's.

And as I was typing this blog, Chapel and Jake were going at it (for real) ... "30 seconds of wall sits, boys!"

My Airsoft Warriors

These boys are ATE UP with airsoft. Any time they get on the computer is spent shopping for more gear or watching game ideas on youtube. I guess there are worse things they could be doing :)

They dream of defending our country someday, we respect so much the men and women who are doing that now! 

The night before a "war" Deacon and Bo get everything ready to go.

Even Chapel prepares :)

He has a few years to go yet... thankfully!

Sisters & Sequins, For Real

Recently I visited my parent's house and we had a girls' night at home. For some crazy reason we decided to try on our old prom dresses. It was so fun, we laughed with and at each other most of the time. Good memories!

 

(My mom and I designed my dress and she made it! :))

Becky thought I looked liked Cruella Deville in this picture. (Not sure if it's the fur coat or the wrinkles and highlights???)

So why, you ask, is this a "for real" blog? Well, you see...

After a combined total of 11 children, our dresses weren't able to zip :)

I Always Wanted the Perfect Dog... For Real

Since I've had a family of my own, I always wanted the perfect dog. It's no secret to our friends and family... we are terrible dog owners!!!

First we had Boomer, a gorgeously huge golden retriever. Boomer was a lil too crazy for us. We sent him to obedience school, just to have them recommend we sell him... to be a drug dog because of his "excessive energy".

My quest for the perfect dog didn't end. Living spontaneously, we saw an Australian Shepherd puppy for sell and bought her right up... without researching the breed of course :) Well Sally was a sweet dog but she belonged on a ranch, herding sheep... not in our home, trying to herd hyper little boys. So it was a no brainer when we heard a friend had lost his Australian Shepherd (also named Sally). What could we do except generously give him our annoying beloved Sally??

What was the problem???

You've heard the saying

“There's no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner.”

But I didn't want to give up! I mean, a house full of boys needs a dog, right??!! So we tried again. Another Golden, this time a girl... Maggie (named after Dwain's Grandma). She was great, my perfect dog! Except one time we took her to my in-laws and almost had a family division after she chewed Grandma's wicker settee. Maggie loved to chew, but she was still a puppy.

Sad story... Maggie died before her first birthday. It broke our ♥. After years of searching, our perfect dog left us early. 

I wasn't going to rush into a new relationship too soon! I didn't want to make a mistake with a "rebound" dog. We waited quite awhile, but after we got settled in a different house, my "puppy fever" returned. 

We went back to the same breeder (Lance Roweton) that sold us Maggie and got pick of a litter. We had learned our lesson(s). We picked the laziest, least friendly, most boring, smallest puppy of the bunch. 

I'm happy to announce Annie is our perfect MOST LOVED dog! We had her now almost three years and she truly is a part of our family. She thinks she's one of the boys!

And.... she acts like one of them. She's not prissy. I always saw pictures in home decor magazines where the dog was a "fixture" looking like the perfect dog!

But that's not exactly our Annie!

She's one of the boys, a "tom-dog" you might say. She likes to play with them... wherever that is...

In this case, it was the pond :)

But we're so thankful and love her! She's our princess... you just won't be seeing her like this...

So, whatever your style of dog.. be patient and open minded, your perfect dog might not be exactly what you thought... it might be better :)

SOS

My grandpa has so many funny/cute little sayings. We all have heard them for years and can quote them all! Some of them are...

After he took a bad fall, he assured us "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
Do you know what's ILLEGAL? A sick bird!
Great day for the race... the human race.
The Lord has done great things for us, therefore we are glad. Ps 126:3

One of our favorites is "SOS... Scoot Over Some"

My brother sent me this funny pic with the caption "SOS". It made me smile and I hope it does you too. Happy New Year!

Family Vacation... Every 6 Years

Now don't feel sorry for us, we get to go plenty of places... ball games, business deliveries, visiting family... but we don't take very many family vacations. Dwain HATES vacations! He likes to work, only. The last one was 6 years ago, but this year I was determined to go. The boys were all a good age to visit Disney so I started "planning" our trip.

Now most of you know what a planner I am... always thinking ahead, HAHAHA. We booked our airline tickets and hotel to go to Orlando about a week or two before we went. The boys remembered Legoland was in Florida, so that had to be on the agenda too. Off we went, taking everyone out of school and DRAGGING Dwain away from the shop.

(Chap's face cracks me up!)

It was Bo, Jake, and Chapel's first time to fly, commercially (they fly often with Papa Rex.) They were all so excited!

Our first theme park was Disney. The night before we started googling tips for the Magic Kingdom and quickly realized we should have started that 6 months earlier. Thankful for last minute tips from Facebook friends, we got crash-course advice.

It was... magical ;)

I told the boys it was hard to look tough in a teacup but they did their best.

Chap and I rode this over and over again, waiting on the bruders to ride the big-boy rides.

Some days I'd like them to be tied up!

The next day we were at Universal Studios. We enjoyed the Despicable Me show the most!

It was also fun seeing all the characters.

Our 3rd and best day was spent at Legoland. Deacon loved the rides at Universal but all together this was our favorite park. It was so clean, friendly and not crowded. They had such cool attractions!

This Legoland was built over the old Cypress Gardens so it had especially amazing landscaping. This was so interesting to me, Dwain and I have always loved renovating rather than building new so we enjoyed seeing how they restored a theme park :)

We were there on October 18th - Jake's birthday. He wants to be a builder, lego-builder that is, so it was the PERFECT place to celebrate with our Jaker.

Seriously impressive displays! I'm so impressed with the Lego company as a whole, we ♥ legos!!!

Lego Driving School

Lock-down the Banners!

And this place... Build-A-Car, we could have spent hours!!! The boys walked in and were given 4 wheels each. Then they got to pick from all the parts in the room to create their own car. There were ramps and racetracks... all kinds of fun ways to test your creation. 

We had a GREAT week and look forward to our next vacation... when Deacon's 18! :)

Itchy Bum... For Real

Last night one of the boys (who will remain anonymous) came to me upset that his bottom was itchy. "Mom, it hurts so bad... I cleaned it so good too! I even used wipes!" I had no solutions to help rather than "well go take a shower" and apparently that helped because I never heard another complaint. This morning as I was cleaning the boys' bathroom I discovered the problem...

Disinfecting Wipes aren't the same as wet wipes. :)

 Just like McDonald's coffee requires a disclaimer

 "Coffee is  Hot"

Disinfecting Wipes should make the disclaimer

"May Cause Itchy Bum"