Tornados, Birthdays, and More

Yes, I know I am slow. I have been trying to blog all week, but it hasn't happened. Sheesh, this week has been a whirlwind!

Last Friday we just happened to be out of school for Good Friday. That was a very good thing! We had had bad storms all night the night before and all throughout the morning. About noon, it started getting really bad. A friend texted me and asked if we were all ok, because it looked like the storm was right over us. I turned on my tv to the news, to hear them say, "Let's turn over to the traffic camera on I-24 in Murfreesboro." I watched as they did that. At the same time, a man had called in and was frantic, sounded scared to death, and said he had just seen a tornado. As I watched the traffic camera, all of a sudden, you saw a tornado form, then get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. The news people were freaking out. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! It just so happens that my back yard is pretty much I-24 and we live less than 10 minutes from Murfreesboro. Then the news people said it was coming right towards us. I told the kids to get in the bathroom, I threw in some blankets and pillows then I ran to my back door to see if I could see the tornado. I was sure I would be able to, that thing was huge! I also tried calling Lindsay to tell her, since she also lives right here. She didn't answer of course. I kept watching, and calling. The kids stayed in the bathroom for quite a while. I kept watching outside and watching the news. It ended up that the tornado went to the right of us, and took a lot of Murfreesboro with it. Over 150 homes were destroyed, and a mother and baby were killed. :( I never get freaked out by storms, and don't worry about tornadoes at all, but seeing it form right in front of your eyes, and to have it be right down the street from you, is a little different. We saw some of the damage the next day. It is bad. Poor, poor people. That was a crazy day.

The next day was Avery's Birthday party. The kids were so excited. They drove me crazy all day. AJ went in the morning to pick up Avery's new bunk bed. Then after that we went mattress shopping. It was hard for them to wait all day for the party, but they were so excited about the new bed. Avery loves it, but at the same time is having trouble sleeping, and tells us it is because he is too high up. We keep offering to take it back and get him a normal bed, but he doesn't want to do that either. I told him that he would get used to it quickly and to keep giving it a try. He went from not going to sleep until 9:30 or later to 8:30 on Wednesday, and finally last night was normal. I praised him a lot today, so hopefully it goes better from now on. Here are pictures of his "new" room.





After all that, it was finally party time! We had his party at a new bouncy place in our city. It was very nice and lots of fun. The kids loved it. We call Avery our little monkey boy, and he definitely showed it. He won a little monkey head from one of those, put in a quarter and drop the claw to pick out a toy games, and he ran around holding that in front of his face the whole afternoon. Thankfully it still looks like him. ;)


During the opening presents part, Avery got all weird and un-Averylike. He seemed to get all shy and quiet. He wouldn't even smile. WEIRD! I think he was overwhelmed with sitting in the big chair and having everyone watch him. I don't know. It was kinda funny though! Oh, guess what his favorite present was?! Pajamas and underwear! Weirdo! Here are some pics from the festivities.







The next day was Easter. The Easter Bunny just happened to bring the Lego Batman Video Game. Now that is an extravagant Easter Bunny! He does NOT normally bring things like that, but he must have taken pity on our "deprived" children. Or maybe it was just a long story, consisting of two kids that have been dying for that game since before Christmas, and the 5 year old Birthday boy trying to spend all of his bday money on that one thing. Like I said, long story. They did get that game as a together gift and only candy to go along with it, so he must not be as nice as I originally thought. ;)





Busy Weekend!

The week was even busier!

Tis week was crazy at school. We had standardized testing this week. My class had testing for 2 days. Sam's class and the upper grades had testing for 4 days. Our schedules were all messed up, the days were crazy, and the kids were insane. All the teachers were ready for this week to be over! It was also report card week to top it all off. I never knew filling out report cards could be such hard work! Not only were our days busy, but we have had something going on every night this week, so I haven't even gotten home until 9:00ish or later each night. It's weird not seeing my house for that many hours! Good news though, I sold my old kitchen table. Now I can buy chairs for my new kitchen table, and I won't have a table sitting in the middle of my photography room. :)

Well, I know this was an incredibly long post with lots of pictures, so you can be done reading now. If you want to continue on, I have a few more birthday pictures to show you. :) See ya next week!