Quick Update!

Poor Halle!  Ever since we got to Mississippi her teeth just haven't been the same!

Kara took this picture!  Halle's trying to fit in!  Most kids want fancy clothes to fit in, but not down here.  You need fancy teeth if you want to fit in! 

Halle got a phone call from Payten.  She's pretty good at multitasking.

Our neighbor brought us some Tuna fresh out of the Gulf!  Brent wanted me to take a picture of it!  It was really good.  The house didn't even smell fishy!  Our neighbor also told me how to cook it and brought me some Blackened Seasoning.  I guess everyone uses Blackened Seasoning down here.  We have really nice neighbors.  The neighbor said, "you can't live down here and not become a fisher!"  Hayden is dieing to get out and fish!

Lifeguard Kelton!  If you have an older brother than you've probably experienced something like this.  Kelton decides he wants to be a lifeguard and sit in the lifeguard chair.  Hayden decides it would be more fun to dress Kelton up like this and take pictures of him!

The mosquito's are horrible right now!  We went out to the pool the other day and I was thinking about just watching the kids instead of getting in.  Kara told me to wear my swim suit just in case I decided I wanted to get in (great advice from a child that can't resist the water).  I chose the pool over getting eaten alive by attack mesquiters!  So of course we all had a few bites on our heads because we couldn't hold our breath the entire time we were there.  When it was time to leave I had to make the kids stay in the pool and I jumped out and grabbed all the stuff and towels and made the maddest craziest dash to the car!  Imagine a grown women soaking wet with a hundred things in her hand, dancing around swatting at the air like a crazy person, yep that was me!  So then I get to the car and yell Kara run!  Then Kelton Run!  Then Halle Run!  We all made it to the car safely with minor Casualties.  I had escaped with only 9 bites.  And each of the kids got 2 bites (not counting the ones on their heads).  Hayden and Brent had gone skiing and wake boarding with the Youth.  Hayden arrived home with only 20 bites on his legs.  Oh how I love BUGS  (NOT)!  You know you have big  bugs when you actually think about stopping your car to let them cross the street!  I find myself actually thinking about swerving or putting on my break for a bug!  Seriously, I must be losing it!

Well a little update on the school!  I decided I could no longer stay quiet!  I know I said, "I was just going to keep quiet and try to be nice."  Unfortunately I couldn't do it.  When my kindergartner was excluded from a celebration because she did not identify the shape Hexagon correctly well I lost it!  My blood had begun boiling quite a while ago, but this was the straw that broke the camels back (of course I am the camel).  Actually I kept it together during the celebration they had asked me to help at.  Kara and Kelton were there and I didn't want them to see their mother hand cuffed and sent to jail.  I decided I would do more harm than good if I blew up right there in the courtyard.  I did address the situation after I regained some control and then set up a meeting with the principal and assistant Principal, and so begins my journey!  I'm calling myself the child advocate!  My goal to make the school a happier place to be.  I start by ruining their awful lunch time!  I'm eating lunch there every day and am on a mission to get every parent to eat lunch with their child.  Soon we will all be sitting at the visitors table.  I've talked to quite a few parents, and I think we have quite a group of parents that do not agree with the way things are being handled.  Here is the problem.  They have always done things this way in Mississippi, so they don't know that it can be different and better!  Most of the mom's I've talked to have lived in the West or North and know that this kind of discipline is not the best way to handle children or anyone for that matter!  I mean do you really want kids to only behave out of fear?  Isn't it much better to have them do it out of love and respect?  Why did I decided not to bury my head in the sand?  Well I thought to myself what am I teaching my children?  We had talked about the abuse that was occurring and they were willing to endure it and try to not let it affect them, maybe even learn something from it!  Then I began to think about any kind of change for good that has occurred in our Nation and I thought  if you want change you have to stand up for what you believe in.  I thought about all the children at the school eating lunch in silence, walking the line during their recess, being screamed at in their faces if they answer a question wrong, being told they are the worst class the teacher has ever had, having books thrown at them, and I thought can you really feel good about burying your head in the sand?  No I cannot, and I don't want my children to either.  I'd rather die trying than never try at all.  My children had stopped coming home with ugly stories. Not because there were not any ugly stories to tell, but because they decided what is the point, nothing is going to happen.  When I was allowed to sit at the table with the children they told me story after story and  I always asked did you tell your mom and what did she say?  Every mom had an excuse for the behavior, but I guarantee if they had really investigated they would not have been making excuses!  I truly believe most people are good so when I see 3 out of 4 lunch tables of 4th graders that are in trouble I really think there is a problem.  Well enough of my soap box!  I've got to get ready for lunch.  We do have a woman on our side.  Her husband is a pediatric neurologist and they already have a Lawyer, so I think there is a could chance for some positive change.  The school has a great curriculum and so if they can just learn the simple concept of treat others as you would like to be treated, it really could be a great school!

The BUS!

I've been wanting to take these pictures for a long time!  Every day I watch my kids jump off the bus and run as fast as they can across the street to me!  

 It's my favorite time of the day so I never want to forget their little faces as they run across the street to me.

 Kelton said it's the best part of the day (the worst part is when I take him to school he said).  He is very  into worst and best right now.

 I had one of those kind of down days as I thought about their good friends in Idaho and all of the people we were missing!  I was wishing my kids were growing up with all their sweet little friends.  I got a couple calls from Halle's little friends and I couldn't help shedding a few tears.

 I have to admit I miss all the play dates.  I loved watching Halle and her little friends play.  Obviously I'm having a hard time with full day kindergarten!

I sure hope it gets easier!

Kelton Gets Baptized! Bradshaws and Tropical Storm Lee hit the Hucks' home!

Tropical Storm Lee started hitting us on Thursday.  On Friday they let the kids out of school about 10 minutes early because of the storm.  The kids ran home from the bus stop because I wasn't there to pick them up.  I wasn't expecting them for 10 more minutes.  Halle said she was scared, but Kelton said he knew the way and brought them all home safely!  Kara said, "In Idaho you get snow days and here you get flood days.  I like snow days better!"  It is categorized a hurricane if winds hit 75 miles an hour and a tropical storm for anything less.  Lee's winds were expected to hit 65 miles per hour.  There were a few Tornado watches around the coast too.

So as the rain fell, we watched the weather channel, and cleaned everything up under our house preparing for a flood.

We had some serious down pours and our yard was pretty swampy!  I was hoping it would kill the red ants(no luck)!

I was a little afraid an alligator might decide to live in our yard with all the water.  The funny thing is I had been watering the yard really good starting on Monday!  I told Brent, "No one else is watering there yards.  Are you sure we need to be watering(no one seems to have sprinkler systems so it is kind of a pain to water your yard especially when it is quite large)?  He kept saying, "we can't kill her grass or were going to be spending a lot of money fixing her house back up."  So I watered and watered and then Lee came.  Good thing I watered so much.

The water is usually about 5 feet or more lower!

Normally you have quite a jump from the dock!  I'd say this is at least 5 feet above what it usually is.

Our neighborhood roads flooded a bit.

The down poor.  It is hard to catch the rain coming down!  At times the rain was so hard it was as if someone was spraying our window with the hose.  A couple of trees fell over, but I think it was because they had termites.  The wind never really got that bad where we are.

My little Keltonator was so excited to be baptized!  

It had been such a crazy weekend I was afraid everything was not going to turn out so good!  Thankfully our amazing ward and Jenny and Charles and Family showed up to save the day!  It made it a beautiful baptism!

The ward typed up my program and printed the music we were singing and then all showed up to see Kelton baptized!  He was baptized on Sunday right after church.  Cousin Cal played all the music for us like a pro!  Charles gave the talk on Baptism and Jenny gave the talk on The Holy Ghost.  Kelton payed really close attention and never took his eyes off of them.  I think he heard every word.  He also fasted that day!  I was so proud of him.  Kara, Halle and Salle sang "I like to look for Rainbows (the baptism song, that is not the name, but that is how I always remember it).  They did a great job.  Then Hayden and Mac gave the opening and closing prayers.  They gave the most heart felt prayers I have ever heard.  Anyways for all the craziness I was feeling it all went very smoothly.  I don't think it could have been a better day!  While we were baptizing Kelton Tropical Storm Lee was dumping loads of water!  The one side of the parking lot was up to my ankles.  I don't think Kelton will ever forget his baptism!  The only thing that could have made it better is if all of our extended family could have come( :  !

I can't believe how old he is getting!  I just watched a little video of him when he was 2 and it made me a little sad, because he is growing up so fast.  Where does the time go?

The kids were so excited for their cousins to come!  We were so glad that the Bradshaw's did not get scared and turn around!  They drove right into the storm!

Little Miss Tye Dye!  Sally reminds me of Little Miss Muffet, but I think Little Miss Tye Dye describes her best!

Kelton got some new scriptures from Mom and Dad and a really cool scripture case from Grandma and Grandpa!

He thought it was really cool!

The girls had lots of fun playing together!

Mac!

Cal, Kelton, Mac, and Hayden!  We had lots of fun hanging out together.

Mac and Hayden are the same age. 

The whole clan.  I meant to get a picture of us all dressed up on Sunday and than forgot, so we got this one of us looking quite sloppy( : !  I don't think we even combed our hair.  We were pretty much stuck at home all weekend!

Singing, dancing, and jumping!

Risk

After the storm the weather was beautiful!  It cooled it down to 80 degrees with virtually no humidity!

We went to the beach to play a little football, Lacrose, baseball, fishing, and sand castle building.  We really only had about 45 minutes so I'd say we were a little optomistic about how much we could do!

The water had cooled down quite a bit!

What is this?  Jelly Fish washed up on the beach from the storm!

 More Jelly Fish!  

The boys decided they wanted to sign up for the Lacross team here.

Topics of the Week!

I wanted to add a few happenings this week before we get busy with the weekend.  I'm heading into gulfport again this morning.  This time to get supplies for the tropical storms brewing in the gulf.  We had quite a bit of rain today and yesterday.  I guess there is a tropical depression heading our way.  So we may be able to baptize Kelton right under the house!

Kelton says, "I hate yelling teachers!  I'm just sitting there thinking don't get into trouble, don't get into trouble, because I don't want to get yelled at like that!"  I said, "really it's that bad, can you show me how it sounds, just yell at me like they are yelling so I know how it sounds."  Kelton tries, but never seems to be able to do it.  He just can't yell at me( : .
Kara chimes in with "well it's kind of like this my teacher says, "Hey ya all better not miss number 3 or I'm gonna beat ya all  with my stanky shoe!  Ya all here me, ya all better not be missing number three!"  Hayden then offers some logic like only he can do and says, "I don't think they are yelling because they don't like you it just because they are used to yelling and so that is what they do!"  Kelton says, "I still don't like it!  I then asked Kara "Did you miss number 3?"  She says, "Yes it's the only one I missed!"  I then asked her if she got the stanky shoe thrown at her.  She didn't!  I'm going to have to tape her mimicking her teachers some time because it is hilarious.  Kelton is not seeing the humor in it.  He just keeps comparing the teachers here to the ones in Idaho.  He also told me a new little girl moved in from New York.  He told me he doesn't really like her, so I asked why and he said, "she pulls her princess under ware up really high so everyone can see them and when Kaitlyn (his really cute little friend)  says pull your pants up she just pulls her under ware up even more."  I said is there another reason why you don't like her, because just showing your under ware doesn't seem like a really good reason to not like someone.  Kelton says, " well she is always getting into trouble."  I then said, "well sometimes people from New York are kind of rude (my personal experience, I know everyone from New York)."  He then says, "yes and people from Idaho are never rude, because Mrs. A (his first grade teacher) is never rude!"  The funny thing is people out here think everyone from the West (and the West seems to be Utah) is rude.

 O.K so here is a kind of funny story.  I went to lunch with a girl from church.  She has a really strong accent and is originally from South Carolina so her accent is real cute and nice to listen to.  So her mother in law is Elaine Ladner.  It's a huge name out here.  I think she had like 16 kids so she was filling me in on the family drama.  Anyways she kept saying MissyLane.  So I finally stopped her and said, "I thought her last name was Ladner."  She said, "Oh I always just call her MissElaine."    I said, "Oh so people call her Missy Lane?"   She says, "Oh ya I just call her MissElaine."  I then say, "So was her maiden name Lane?"  She is looking at me like I'm a little crazy and I'm just wondering where she got the nickname Missy Lane.  She told me again that she just calls her MissElaine.  I finally just say "oh."  not really getting it.  Well about 8 hours later a light bulb went off and I realized she was saying Miss Elaine not Missy Lane.  I'm still working on the language.

So a little update on Hayden.  Now that he is 12 it's hard to get him to open up unless it's time for bed and then he's a little happy chatter box, but until then he usually is full of "I don't knows."  He also likes to argue.  We call it his pain body.  Whenever things seem to be good he likes to have something to argue about  so the other day we were telling our stories about the day with a southern accent (it's just  more fun).  Hayden says, "No one at my school has an accent!" Then when I picked him up from the bus on time.  He gets in the car and says, "the bus was late today" (it wasn't because I have satellite time so I know exactly when the bus comes)  Anyways he'll just keep arguing the issue even when we give him really good proof.  Drives me crazy!  I'll even say "I'm not going to argue with you, we can just have different opinions about this subject."  But he just keeps arguing.  He knows he is doing it, but he just keeps doing it!  

I wish I had some good pictures.  I'm going to take some good pictures this weekend.  Jenny and Charles and the Family are coming from Tennessee for Kelton's baptism.  We are very excited to have our first visitors!!