Dinnertime Prayers

Family dinner is very important to me.  Every night during the week (and most nights on the weekend) I cook dinner, and we sit down as a family and eat together.  We always say a prayer for our food before we eat, and little R has just recently wanted to be the one to say the prayer.  He squeezes his eyes soooo tight, and concentrates soooo hard...it is just too cute!  You always know what his favorite things of the day are by his prayer at dinnertime...and he very rarely says thank you for the food!

This isn't the best video quality, and please excuse the big Sonic cup....I don't usually have a huge soda at dinnertime...but Happy Hour had called our name that day! : )

Translation:

Thank you for Jesus and everything

Thank you for Mommy, Daddy, Tori and Abbi

Thank you for ???? (even I can't translate this one!)

Thank you for peanuts and everything

And Thank you for Goldfish (yes, he had peanuts AND Goldfish for snack earlier that day)

Amen

Daddy Daughter Dance

 All ready to go!!

 Little R HAD to be part of the picture...he didn't understand why we would ever dream of leaving him out!!

 Daddy and his girls!

 They really do love each other!!

 "Big man in a little hat"

 Tori is rockin' the hat!!

Our homeschool group had their annual Daddy Daughter dance last weekend.  The girls were very excited to have an evening with R.  The pictures speak for themselves...they all had a blast!!

14 years...and still going strong!!

Rai and I celebrated our 14th anniversary on March 22nd.  I can't believe it's been 14 years!!  My parents came down and watched the kids for a few days so Rai and I could spend some time in Bricktown/Downtown Oklahoma City.  We stayed right downtown, parked the truck on Sunday, and didn't get back in it until we left on Tuesday!  We walked EVERYWHERE!!  It was awesome!!  We visited several restaurants, went to the OKC Memorial Museum (which I think everyone should visit if you are ever in OKC), saw 2 movies in one day, went to a Thunder basketball game...we even fit in a workout at the hotel fitness center!! It was great to get away and spend some time together in a city that we have really come to love, before we have to leave it for good!  Edmond/OKC has been good to us these last almost 2 years...it is going to be very hard to say goodbye!!

 Cattlemen's Steakhouse...R had a Porterhouse, said it was the best steak of his life!!

 I had turkey and dressing...go figure! : )

 The Chase and Devon buildings...in process is a building that will be taller than these two stacked on top of each other!  Wish I could see that completed!!

 Oklahoma City.....THUNDER!!!

 R has been to several Thunder games, but I am usually at home with the little man!  So this was my first game since we've lived here...Thunder lost, but it was LOTS of fun!

 OKC Memorial...very touching memorial to the bombing vicitms.

 This was amazing...they built this statue of Jesus with his back to the bombing site...each nook in the bricks represents someone killed in the bombing...the statue is titled...And Jesus Wept...brought tears to my eyes!

Another view of the Memorial.  If you are ever in the OKC area, I highly recommend visiting the OKC Memorial Museum...we spent at least 2 hours there...it is an amazing tribute to the story of the bombing, the people who were killed in it, and the heroes who were involved in the rescue and treatment of the victims.

Monster Jam!!

 Walking in with cousin Tyler...R loves Tyler a little bit, too!

 Big thumbs up with Daddy!!

 The big boys aren't too excited about the picture taking, but R can't wipe the smile off his face!  He is one happy little boy!

Still smiling!!

Little R LOVES monster trucks!  He doesn't like them a lot, he isn't crazy about them...he truly LOVES them!  He has a huge collection of monster trucks and when R had a chance to take him to Monster Jam last year, he was so excited!  Little R was a little overwhelmed by the noise and "hugeness" of the monster trucks in real life, but he had fun.  This year when the Monster Jam event rolled through our area again, we decided it was a must for R and R to go.  This year he was NOT overwhelmed...I think he loved every bit of it!  It was a great evening of Daddy/son time that neither of them will forget for a long time!!

Another creative creation by the Willis girls!

We have an extra room that we use for school, but the girls also have their piano, a tv and a couch in there...they have named the room "The Lounge".  One day before A's birthday party, they were in cleaning up, and decided to add some artwork for the walls....this was the result!  They included some of their favorite things...peanut butter, Braums, Wal-Mart, and I'm not sure how GEICO made it's way on there! : )

Can you tell who this is????

A Little Late...

Since A's birthday is two days after Christmas, she never gets to have a REAL birthday party.  We are usually traveling, and her friends are usually out of town for the holidays.  This year we decided to postpone her birthday celebration until Valentine's Day.  We had a Valentine's themed party, and the girls got to decorate their own red velvet cupcakes.  It worked out well...A got a day all her own to celebrate her birthday, instead of having it mixed in with all the festivities of Christmas.  R was a bit overwhelmed with all the preteen girls in the house (it was very noisy)!!  But he did enjoy decorating the cupcakes, and he was very happy to help A blow out her birthday candle!

Rock Climbin'

 If you look closely, you can see the look of concentration on his face!



Climbing higher, all by himself!  No fear!! 

 The girls were a little more cautious than little R...



Sittin' pretty at the top!

On our park day, we ventured down to the creek at the edge of the park.  There was no water in the creek, but there were these cool rock walls to climb down to the creek bed.  The girls enjoyed climbing up and down, but little R LOVED it!!  He has found a new passion!!  We definitely have to take another trip down there when all our snow goes away!!

Park Day!!

 Little R riding the duck...I think he liked it!

 Never too big to ride the horse and the duck...the girls liked it too!

Okay, so maybe you CAN be too big for the duck!!!

We had two wonderful days of weather last week, so we went to the park for lunch one of those days.  R even came over to spend his lunch break with us.  It was wonderful to soak up the sunshine, and all 3 kids enjoyed getting out of the house!!

Bonding with the babies??

As most of you know, in the last couple of months we have acquired not one, but two new family members.  We started out with one miniature schnauzer puppy, and somehow ended up with another one a few weeks later!  R LOVES the puppies, although we are trying to teach him how to be gentle with the "babies".  Right now we are working on NOT picking them up and carrying them around by their head!  They are so small right now, and I know he would never intentionally hurt them, but it is a full time job watching him as he "plays" with them!  This picture is one of the safer games he plays with them...at least we know none of them are getting into trouble this way! : )

What did you do over the holidays? We did Algebra...UGH!!

 

We focused on getting some major Algebra lessons done over the holidays.  The girls' curriculum is great in that they can do most of it on their own...with me providing some occasional guidance...and it works out great for us.  But T's pre-algebra is a different story.  She can't simply look at these lessons on the computer screen and figure out the concepts, so we have started going over each lesson together.  This works great except that this requires me to read over the lessons and dig way down deep in my brain to that stuff that I learned over 15 years ago (and hated every minute of it) and then teach it to her.  Needless to say, we don't get a lesson done every day, so we had a bit of an algebra marathon over the holidays.  T feels the same way I do about math, so she wasn't thrilled about our little marathon.  She keeps saying "But I am NEVER gonna use this stuff in real life."  And I just tell her that's what I thought, too...but God has ways of reminding to never say never!!