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!

Friends move on

Friends move on! One of the sad realities of life and a hard thing to help your kids handle is when friends move away. We had some WONDERFUL neighbors with whom we'd been friends with before our children were even born move last year, it was my first experience with helping my kids deal with losing a friend so to speak because when they move so far away it's so hard to keep in touch. Well it happened again this week, we had WONDERFUL friends again move, this time all the way to Utah. Their son and Chubbs were only a week apart, they moved in while we were still pregnant with them. We had so many fun memories at the pool, a combined birthday celebration when the boys were 1, she was a stellar primary music chorister, they helped tremendously make KP's past Christmas one to remember (Cinderella Vanity--thanks Molls!) and, well....we're just really going to miss them but wish them well.

A BIG Birthday

A birthday is a big deal when you're 4, KP has been thinking about and anticipating this day for MONTHS!! What a day it was. Her actual birthday was spent going to pre-school. She and Mom made special blueberry muffins for the snack at school. They stuck a candle in one and sang to her. We brought BL for "show and tell" to her class because they were doing a unit on spring and how babies are born in the spring and are just miniature big things. It was great! Then when she got home, she was just so excited about her presents and all the energy was a bit much for the rest of the household and their napping (what a day!). One of our favorite neighbors brought a special gift of a bubble wand that makes great big bubbles, and then she stayed for a bit to help KP & Chubbs play with it. It was GREAT!!

For dinner the menu was pizza, red jello with fruit cocktail, and for dessert white cupcakes with pink frosting! YUM. We did go to Dad's softball game that night and then we came home to open presents.

Grandpa Artist came over for the festivities, dinner, softball game (park time) and dessert and presents!

Even BL got in on the celebratory action!!

Birthday Playdate!


Then the next day KP didn't have a party so to speak, I let her have a special play date with 2 friends of her choosing, so SL & BF came over. We made and decorated party hats, then we got out our instruments and went on a parade down the street to see our favorite neighbor who has 2 big dogs!

Then we came home and played with Elefun and went outside and played with bubbles and ran around. Then they were just content to play on their own. Thankfully BL slept through all of it so I could focus on the group activities. Lunch was Macaroni and Cheese, string cheese, grapes and of course cupcakes! It was a great day!! Birthday parties can be such a stressful thing, and this was absolutely perfect!