Round 2 goes to. . . .

Ashlyn!!  Yes, Ashlyn was the proud owner of 3 beautiful stitches in her head. She actually had the stitches removed tonight, she has had them for a week.  Such a brave little girl!  Although, I must say, I was quite surprised that she was the next kiddo to "earn" stitches.  I honestly thought Gabriella would get them a few more times before someone else did.  Besides stitches, we have been super busy around here.  The days are flying by as we all anxiously await summer time.  The kids can hardly wait to get their feet wet at the pool and head to the campsite.  It's hard to believe we will be sitting around the campfire in just a few short weeks!  Yay! Bring on the s'mores!  Austin is finishing up soccer, has his first baseball game tomorrow and will soon be an official first grader!  He has done awesome at school this year - and absolutely loves reading.  It's so cool to see him excited to head up to bed so he can read on his own.  It makes me smile.  Ashlyn will soon be an official kindergartener.  I can't believe she will be gone all day next school year.  It will be so strange to have her and Austin both gone all day long.  And Gabriella has grown up so much - and her hair has grown too!!  And well, then there's Lucas.  What can I say?  He's ready for preschool, but his age doesn't get him in yet so he's stuck with me.  I like it that way though.  I'm not ready to send him off!  He's too dang cute and I love when it's just me and him when everyone else is at school.  I truly cherish those times.  Shawn is working his tail off as always.  And me?  Well, I learned how to do some landscaping!  There's been some things I want done in the yard and Shawn hasn't had the time to do it so I took charge.  I had never exactly planted flowers and I started with that.  And they look good!  I also planted hostas (I had no idea what they were, but got some advice from my landscape extraordinaire friend) and they are actually growing!  Then I mulched the area, and even went and got some free rock and edged it all out.  I'm pretty sure Shawn was shocked at the outcome - as was I.  Who knew?  And I even enjoyed it.  Our garden is in full swing - all my herbs are doing great.  We've got tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, jalepenos, squash, zucchini and we even planted a blueberry bush that Shawn got me for Mother's Day (although it just looks like a stick Lucas shoved in the ground).  So excited to get some produce going!!  Bring on the homemade salsa.  Oh and I have lettuce that is coming in like crazy - yay!!  And that's about all we can fit in right now.  Only one more full week of school and then bring on the pool and sleepin' in!!

{Happy times}

I just have some cute pics to share.  I love my little big family!  

Shawn's still got it!!  He can carry 3 out of 4 of our kids to bed. . .

My sweet baby Lucas, he loves his blankie and still chews on one tassel at a time before he falls asleep. 

And my big kids - Austin and Ashlyn - best buds.

There's those crazy Turner kids!  I'm not sure what I was doing to make them laugh, but apparently it was funny.  Or, we ate too much chocolate on Easter morning! 

I love this picture.  We have been having fake snow ball fights in our living room and it makes the kids (especially Lucas) laugh hysterically - to the point that I am pretty sure at lease 50% of them pee their pants.  So, here they are throwing snow balls at the camera.

Gotta love painting Easter eggs!

Here's our future baseball team.  Yes, Austin is wearing rain boots as our pitcher.  And Lucas can hit a ball with no tee.  He can even throw a ball up on his own and hit it.  It's pretty amazing.  Lucas is such a little athlete.  And stinkin' cute in a batting helmet!

Today starts the beginning of May.  That means the excitement is rising for summer - both for the kids and for the adults!  I am definitely ready to head to the pool, sleep in, have fun, CAMP, and just spend time with friends and family.  And now I'm ready to relax before an early start tomorrow morning.  Have I mentioned I have starting getting up at 5am to workout each morning?  It's rough rolling out of bed that early, but it is such a great start to the day.  I love that I am the first one up in the morning.  For some reason it just feels like I win if I am the first one up!  Now if I could just shed some pounds while I'm at it. . .

And then it was April . . .

I love the sunshine!!  We have had some beautiful days here and it is so fun to be outside with the kids!  They are so excited about our garden that is getting planted - we now have 3 big boxes, plus lots of pots of herbs.  I can't wait to start getting some produce and making some salsa.  This school year has flown by, but it has been such a great year.  Austin has done awesome in Kindergarten - he is reading like crazy and loves that he can just lay down by himself and read a book - currently we are huge fans of Harry Potter.  Ashlyn has also had a fun year - she will be heading to Kindergarten next year!  Hard to believe I'll have two kids in school all day.  Where did the days go when I was changing 20 diapers a day??  Everybody is getting so big.  Gabriella has learned so much this year and her handwriting is getting so good.  She loves to color and draw and still loves to snuggle up with lots of books and her favorite blankie.  And then there's crazy Lucas.  Lucas is mad that he is not in school with the big kids yet.  He likes to wear his back pack whenever we drop the kids off at school.  He sits at the table with Austin every time Austin has homework to do and does it with him.  Austin and Lucas are quite a pair.  At some point I am going to have to break down and potty train Lucas.  He pitches a fit when I don't let him wear underwear and has pooped on the potty several times.  As soon as I find the energy I will potty train Turner #4. . . .hmmmm. . . diapers are so much easier though!!  I plan on just paying the other kids a few bucks and letting them train him - is that bad?   
We are pretty sure Lucas is going to be the athlete of the family.  He is so into sports and loves to dribble a basketball all over the place (yes, he's only 2 and dribbling as good as Austin).  Hopefully that means scholarships. . .we've been trying to find a cheap basketball goal, the boys are dying to have one here so hopefully we can find one by the summer. (and I think Shawn and I want one just as bad).  We have a nice long break for Easter next week, no school Wed - Mon.  I like to call it Spring Break #2.  It will be nice to sleep in (ha) and have Shawn home - I think he is even taking Friday off!! 
We are off to play in the sunshine before it starts to storm here - see ya later!

March, what??

How can it possibly be March already?  It seems like just a couple days ago it was Christmas, and now it's going to be St. Patricks Day.  We have been plugging along here at the Turner house.  Everyone is getting excited for spring break, although we have no plans.  I am looking forward to not rushing out of the house in the morning and doing some fun stuff with my kiddos (and some extras that will be here too).  Austin finished up his basketball season.  He was really into it, so it was sad to have the season end.  He loved playing and can be found dribbling a basketball all over the house now at any given moment.  Shawn has recently introduced card games to the kids.  Austin loves playing solitaire now.  Tonight we were playing Kings in the corner, and he loves to play a little "war".  Good times.  We played a lot of cards over the weekend. Even Lucas sits up at the table and plays cards - he loves to point out the "jacks".  I just love my family.  Shawn and I played cards for an hour Saturday morning. . . probably should have been working on that kitchen remodel we are suppose to be doing, but cards is way more fun. Gabriella turned 4!!  She was so excited to have her own b-day party with just her girlfriends.  We had a great time.  Shawn and I surprised the kids with a trip to ChuckECheese the night of Gabriella's b-day.  When we go to the parking lot Austin screams, "This is the best day of my life!"  So you can imagine how the night went over.  What fun!!  Shawn is plugging away at work - pray for lots of construction in Kansas City!!  As for me, I have taken on some day care.  I am blessed with awesome kids, but it is definitely some extra work.  I have also started tutoring some kids in math and am hoping the word gets out that I am awesome so I can get some more work.  Unfortunately, I am really struggling with some sinus issues.  We thought we had things on the right track, but I am headed back to the doc tomorrow to see what's gone wrong.  I am hoping things can get figured out with the least amount of meds as possible.  We'll see. . .
That's all I know for now, I plan on laying on this nice couch for a bit.
Have a great week!

{Why I love my job.}

My job is to take care of our family.  To keep the kids safe, healthy, happy and well entertained (and be a counselor, a nurse, a clown, a party planner, a baker, a carpool driver, a coach, a disciplinarian, a friend - you get the point).  I love my job.  I love my family and I love that my girls are playing in the mud in their dresses....
What a beautiful day today - we have been waiting for sunshine and warm weather for so long now.  We have been outside all day and have no plans to come back in any time soon! 
Happy Sunshine!

How about just some pics??

I thought we could use some pics. . .here's my cute girls.  I love those smiles and I love knowing they will always take care of each other!!

 And here's some serious wii playing.  Lucas "thinks" he is really good at the wii.  The kids love playing Super Mario Brothers together - it's awesome that they can all play at the same time.  Gabriella is surprisingly quite talented at it, Ashlyn just likes to mess with everyone else that is playing and Lucas thinks he is the master of all games (obviously). 

 I couldn't think of anything better to do than some finger painting while we had 3 snow days in a row!!  We actually thoroughly enjoyed our days off together.  Lots of snugglin' going on!!  (after they were cleaned up, of course)

 That's definitely the kids' table. . . where's all the adults??  No worries, Lucas and Sam got it covered.

And there's my cute fam - everyone is getting so big and growing up.  Hard to believe. . . 

 

Where does the time go??

 That's Lucas down there, all bundled up.  Poor kid kept falling over since the snow was past his knees!  He wasn't real fond of it. . .but definitely liked throwing snow balls at Austin.

Amidst all these snow days one would think I could get some blogging done. Not so. What with all the hot chocolate, marshmallows, movies, popcorn, playing in the snow, and serious wii-overload, I just haven't found much time to do anything else.  I probably need to go buy us all new pjs as we have stayed in our pjs for several days in a row lately!  I tend to agree with the kids - if you're not going anywhere, why get dressed??  I have such smart kids.  Although, I must admit I feel a bit guilty when Shawn comes home from work and we are all in our pjs and I haven't even gotten out of my robe yet.  The kids finally got to go to school on Friday, and I must admit, it was nice to get up and get dressed!  We have had our fair share of snow here - 13 inches last week and rumor has it we could get a few more tomorrow.  It's hard to imagine all of this snow melting some day! I can't believe how fast time is slipping by.  I don't think I even posted anything about Lucas turning 2!  Yes, we did have a party in between illnesses over here.  And let me tell you - he definitely knew it was his birthday.  He was all about holding up those two fingers quite proudly and ripping into any presents that came his way.  His latest saying is, "Oh Brother."  Hilarious.  I mean, really, what does a 2 year old boy have to say "oh brother" about?  I love it. 

Austin is having such a good time playing basketball and has improved more than I can even believe since the season started.  He still has 3 more games.  In his last two games he scored 3 baskets!  The look on his face after he scores is priceless.  And of course I scream obnoxiously like he just won the super bowl.  He's starting to understand the game a lot better which makes it a lot more fun.  Although we did enjoy when he thought you were suppose to play defense the whole time - even when you were on offense.  It provided for much entertainment on the sideline.  The one thing he is having trouble with is not doing a full court press - but if you ask me, if you are going to do something wrong, then it might as well be playing too much defense. 
Ok, so that gets you a bit caught up on where we are here.  I'll try and throw some pics together soon and post, maybe say, twice this month?  No promises. . . .
Happy Snow!!