Fathers and Sons

The time has come!! "Sambo" is old enough to go off with Dad!

The annual Fathers and Sons outing was last weekend and "Chubbs" who just turned 2 got to go along with Dad. This was big exciting stuff at our house. I didn't start telling him too early but about Friday morning I started explaining that he was going to sleep in a tent in a sleeping bag with dad that night. He was excited to say the least. We got right up and packed is "Pack-pack" with his jammies and clothing for the morning. He was ready to go right then....Easy Turbo!

When Hubby got home he got the rest of the gear together and the two of them loaded up and headed out. He did GREAT! Obviously the youngest kid there, he was a hit!

That morning I get a call on my cell phone at about 7:00 with his little learning to talk voice, "Mom, I'm having fun!", I asked him if he slept in a tent. His response: " Daddy pillow, Dammy pillow, Dammy pillow, Daddy pillow..." I asked, are you sleeping next to each other? "Yeah".

He LOVED IT!

Hit by Lightning

What is the wierdest or most amazing natural disaster you've ever experienced?

Almost a month ago there was this CRAZY thunder and lightning storm--I mean crazy! We get some pretty incredible storms in TEXAS but even this one was spectacular. We had just turned out the lights to go to sleep when I heard this little panting at the side of my bed, "little chubbs" had woken up from the storm and was totally freaked out. He was looking all around at the windows that were just flashing and kept burrying his head into my chest. I could feel his heart just racing and he was panting. We kept trying to soothe him and assure him he was safe but he wouldn't move his little head and he plastered the rest of his little body to me too.

In the middle of all this soothing a HUGE FLASH and BOOM just rattled us, I jumped and declared that it must have been a close one. We didn't lose power but our alarm system freaked out and started beeping, a few of the zones had gone red. But other than that we seemed unaffected.....

In the morning our phone line wasn't working. I assumed that it was damaged on a larger scale from the storm and had caused the problems with our security system. I called a service tech and waited....and waited....consequently our internet wasn't working that day (phone line right?) and our satellite seemed to be having problems responding when I commanded it with the remote control. So we slowly discovered that the security system was only the beginning of our problems.

A lighting bolt or surge of somekind must have hit between our home and our neighbor (because they were affected to) and it damaged the following: our security system, our sprinkler system timer box, our DVD player, our VCR, our satellite reciever box. This reciever box had a slingbox attached to it for our "Apple Joey" who lives in Zurich but can't live without his American sports, the sling box was toast and because it uses the internet it fried our network card on our computer and our router. Oh, and one of our sensors to our garage door went out too.

All in all, we probably are out about $500, can we say economic stimulus $$? Sure we have homeowners insurance but our deductable is too high to file a claim--just one of the joys of home ownership!

What exciting natural disasters have caused a story in your life?

Dad's silly shots

Hubby man LOVES funny camera ops. We seem to have a couple with each kid. So thought I'd let you enjoy some of the fun ones with our newest victim, ahem, subject.

Dad took all the kids outside to work in the garage, I questioned how he was going to manage that with a baby in his arms, I quickly learned his plan. I don't know how the helmet came to be but it was pretty funny!

What are we feeding this kid?!?! This is actually a baby doll stroller that we thought would be funny to put her in just to see how it looked. It's an optical illusion kind of.

TRAINS, TRAINS, TRAINS Galore

So we've been planning a train themed birthday for our chubster we were so pleasantly suprised to find a FREE electric train exhibit in our community on his birthday. Both he and KP were all over it! They could have stood there all day to watch. What was really nice is that one gentleman put his exhibit down low at their level so they could see everything so easily.

Here we are outside the old Allen railway station, it was a beautiful day!

So little did our little guy know, but we had the ULTIMATE train set for him for his birthday present. He's really into construction trucks right now and can totally identify and name most of them. We found a great wooden train set that had a cement truck, a bulldozer and backhoe as part of the set. He's in cloud nin! And we were wise enough to get a set with 2 trains and enough track for 2 separate tracks so that WWIII doesn't breakout spontaneously between him and his older sister!

It was such a special day, I can't believe my little guy is 2!

A Big Birthday Celebration

April is Birthday time for the McKneely's, 3 days to celebrate in a 2 week period! So we had one huge FIESTA to celebrate the specialness with our extended family. Here are a few of our favorite shots! Try decorating a cake for a 2 year old boy, a 4 year old girl and a 30 something dad--we settled on Balloons!

KP like most 4 year old girls LOVES princesses, these dress up dolls with magnetic outfits were a hit, and so was the bag! (Note: we had to call this party just a big celebration because having another "birthday party" would mean that KP was turning 5 and it wasn't time yet)

Senor Chubbs got a bat, a t-ball stand, a ball and a hat (with a soccer ball on it, it sends KP into fits when we call it a baseball hat because it's not, it's obviously a soccer ball hat! Sigh, try explaining that one!) These were a HIT (no pun intended!)

While we weren't really celebrating anything for BL, she's about to turn 6 months and this was a cute shot with her Aunt Ray-ray! She's getting so big I can't believe it!

HAT MAN

Our lil chubbs is into a hat phase! Seriously HAD to wear a hat most of the time, we did get him to give it up for church but when we got home it went right back on. The unfortunate thing is that he'd outgrown his old hat (BIG HEAD) and the only other hats in the house were adult size. So his ears would have to keep the hat from falling into his eyes! He would run from most cameras while wearing his hat but after a few times we finally captured it. He loves is baseball hat! It makes him feel all grown up like dad when he plays softball!