Not necessarily in this order

Ryan is a stellar student at Fannin Elementary. He is a reading fiend, and has mastered all Kindergarten curriculum in language arts and mathematics by the middle of the year. Granted, he has more stories about what movies they watched that day than about what they learned, so "stellar student" is relative, but we are darn proud of him anyway. This is where our tax dollars go!

While we are on the subject of public school, you will notice that Ryan has significantly less hair in some of the following pictures than others. That is because the first day of Christmas break I found some friends in his hair and was too morning sick to feel like picking out all the nits. Buzz, buzz, buzz!

One of the parks here brought in a truckload of "snow" and dumped it in a pile on the parking lot so that these poor Texas kids could get their mittens out and play with some dirty slush. Isn't Evie's fashion choice awesome as usual?

Ryan insisted on seeing Santa at a local Christmas festivity, so we waited in line for FOREVER to see this creepy Santa. Ryan asked for a Link costume and Evie asked for long hair. Both requests were greeted with a "I hope you know what that means" glance to mom. Keegan was not so much into sitting on the lap of a creepy man in a red suit with a fake beard. Smart boy.

We thought: "Ryan has a lot of energy. Let's put him in sports." We realized: "Energy does not equate to productive team effort. Only running around a lot making a lot of noise and embarrassing his parents." He really loves his soccer cleats though. And he got a TROPHY. Big deal.

Evie figured out the toppling block tower problem. Masking tape. And you will notice her 1 1/2 inch 4 lb advantage over her younger brother. At least this time she has more hair!

We never ended up bagging the leaves. After they were piled they were just too much fun. For days. And now they have been rained on for almost two months straight. Like the drought never was.



I believe that there used to be frosting in that bowl.

This is our version of the Larrymobile. There are other cool buttons inside the cockpit and the wings used to stick out straight from the sides before three children jumped in...

Keegan's sad two year old birthday celebration cupcake. Does he care that there is no party? No.

When I last saw this pickle jar it was unopened. Now my six year old says his tummy doesn't feel so good. Really? Just in case you can't tell, that is a very large pickle jar.

Our Baby Angel

Roxie Jill McCullough February 17, 2012





Our baby girl was stillborn last night at about 20 weeks. We never really announced the pregnancy because we have known for weeks that something might go wrong, so if you didn't know we were expecting, you aren't the only one. We named her after our moms who have both also had more than their fair share of loss. Thanks everybody for all of your prayers and support.

Ketsup

So, my wonderful little boy that is almost two is, in short, a little boy, and destroys everything he touches. A few weeks ago, he tore apart our computer mouse (literally ripped it in half) and when daddy put it back together, some of the wires were no longer functioning. It still worked, MOSTLY, so we just tried to live with it's personality disorder(which was frankly not easy considering some of the issues, but a Mac mouse is $50!!!) Then a few weeks later, he shoved the keyboard off the desk and certain random keys lost their function. Also annoying, but one of them was the spacebar, so unless you wanted to see if the mouse would let you cut and paste a space from another document, typing was not possible. (BTW, keyboards for Macs are also $50) Now that we have no choice but to purchase new equipment for our old computer we come to the last part of our dilema (not counting the $100) Daddy wishes to research said purchase before making it to consider alternate types of equipment and is stuck out of town with no internet connection (unless he wants to sip lemonade at McDonald's) for four weeks. Not that anyone has been waiting for me to blog or anything (I think I have two faithful readers) but for anyone who wants an excuse from me why I haven't posted in months, there you have it. And not blogging on my lame blog was the least of my problems. I am sorry to any of you who have tried to email me in that time as well. So now, on to my random saved-up McCullough household moments.....

#1 I don't know why, but Evie has been tethering her noble steed like this a lot lately, and I just thought it was stinking cute. I wish you could see her lead him along.


This was our family bonding moment one night before bed. We called it booty-bump. Kind of Sumo wrestling meets pillow fight. Also much funnier in person.


This is our paraplegic pet squirrel. We found him one day climbing a tree in our back yard using only his arms and dragging his legs behind him. This picture is of him hiding under our van while we throw wild birdseed at him. I am still kicking myself for not getting any video because it was really crazy to see him get around. We think a dog got him or something since we haven't seen him in awhile.


Casey had some stuff sitting in boxes against the wall in our bedroom for several weeks, and when I went to move them, this is what I found. I placed the quarter so you could get a feel for the size of the thing, and the little black dots surrounding it happen to be crispy spiderlings. The cloud extended about 18 inches from mom. And I was sleeping right next to it for I don't know how long. Yummy.


These two pictures are of my daughter, if you can't tell, who now has enough hair for pigtails for the first time in her life, and she is only four! I cannot tell you how proud her daddy is that his girl has curly hair either. That IS why he married me you know.



When Casey's rotation was over in Corpus, his mom had come to visit me a few days earlier, and we decided to go down and spend the weekend with him before he came home since we always talk ourselves out of vacations. It was really fun for the most part. We toured the USS Lexington, which is a retired battleship they have in the bay, and we went to the TX state aquarium and the beach. And yes, that is Ryan in his bathing suit. They all ended up SWIMMING by the end of the beach tour, despite the chilly windy weather. The adults were not as brave, although daddy almost had to jump in and save Ryan from drowning a couple of times. grandma actually stayed in the van due to sand phobia.




And now for our Halloween adventures, which are really the only pictures of interest to anyone but me. If you can't tell, we had the How to Train Your Dragon crew this year, featuring Hiccup, Toothless, and Astrid. Mom was a viking "extra" the details on the costumes actually turned our pretty great. I am a little sad we didn't get better pictures.





So, I know I am missing some crucial moments (like everybody's birthdays) but I didn't really get pictures of those (doh!) but Ryan and Evie had great birthday parties and Casey got s'mores brownies (SOOO yummy) and I am a bad picture mom, so there. I now have a working keyboard and mouse (and knockoffs are so worth the price cut, just so you know) so I promise to at least be better at emails....

nekid trio

I don't have a real reason for posting this picture. I just like it.


These are from our 4th of July festivities. The drought has been so bad here that they banned fireworks and did a really lame laser show instead. But they had free bounce houses for the kids, a balloon glow, an Elvis impersonator, an orchestra concert and really cheap concessions, so we had a fun time anyway. The blue and green lights in front of the lady in the purple hat are the really lame laser show. It was a bunch of random images projected on a wall, but there wasn't anywhere to sit that you could see because of all the trees and tents. We left before it was over...

Goodbye Megan

It's done. When we put a clippie in his hair one morning and he looked really pretty, we decided it was finally time. That cute girl next to Evie is my son.

This is my "before" with his curls wet and scrunched. They dry really pretty too, but I wasn't going to wait for that.

I think we probably cut off about three inches (sniff!). that's a lot of hair!!

Don't cry buddy! It was for the best!

Luckily I think he makes a pretty handsome little boy too. And now he doesn't have to hide under all that hot hair in this nasty Texas summer.

Things I have learned recently:

People do not like little boys to have beautiful hair. Especially curly hair. My grandfather commented that he didn't know whether to call him Megan or Keegan, and I am afraid he has been called princess more than once. It wouldn't be so bad except I have a soon to be four year old who wants to be Rapunzel and has a pixie cut. No one notices the pink clothes and earrings, or the shirt and tie??? Why wasn't it my girl with the sausage curls?!!! Anyway, I am still getting up enough guts to chop them off, but I will make sure to post a before and after.

My kids are HILARIOUS. I am pretty sure at least 90% of the people in our ward have commented about Evie's interperative dance at the primary talent show, and several have asked her for an encore. I wish I had a good video, but I was on stage and Casey was trying to film with Keegan-the-holy-terror in tow. Ryan was the only impersonation of the night, and I may say that Stitch was never cooler.


I don't ever want to see myself from that angle ever again. BUT I CAN climb a rock wall. 30 years and I never knew.

Chickens DO play (See "Little Kidnappers" for that quote). Our friends in Panguitch have chickens that will actually let you hold them without trying to peck your eyes out. Yes, even in a princess dress.

My poor daughter inherited my fashion sense.I remember one day in HS in particular that I wore a horrible dress as a result of getting asked to a dance and no one thought it was weird. They just thought I was being myself. And that is chocolate milk in the spoon BTW. It tastes better that way apparently

Not only does my husband look smashing in my grandma apron, but he CAN cook if properly motivated. Tacos anyway. He figured that since he was in Africa for mothers day he would make me Sunday dinner upon our return. I just really like him.

I am too old to ride roller coasters. Yes it is true. I am now too old for angry punk music and rides that make me spin, lurch, and/or turn upside down.Never thought I'd see the day.

My boys do like them some watermelon. My favorite thing to watch Ryan eat is watermelon. anything that isn't green is fair game, whereas his father leaves a 1/4 inch of color on the rind.


For those of you who are wondering, we all had a great time on our trips (Casey to Nigeria for a surgical medical mission and us to UT to do another whirlwind family tour) and we think that Casey probably hasn't contracted malaria. Probably.He has a couple of videos I will try to get from him for later. Other than that just remember that I, and we, all love you, even if we are flaky and you don't hear from us often. Later!

Getting Old

This is what "old" looks like, just so you know. Thanks to my budding photographer of a five year old, I actually have a picture of my "aged" self. (Funny how the mom is always the one on the other end of the camera) My sister called on my birthday to inform me that I was officially "OLD" in case I didn't know. I happen to have a few friends with more birthdays than me who may disagree with her. Since I boycotted making my own birthday cake and my husband is no where to be found these days (nor does he bake) I put a candle in an ice cream cone after my RS meeting that evening and let the kids sing happy birthday to me. Luckily, I have some AWESOME friends who took pity on me, and I got a cake anyway (Thanks Rachel!). I got chocolate chip cookie dough brownies the day before, but they didn't last long enough to get their picture taken.




On the subject of aging, I took pictures of my kids today for their grandma, and I can't help wondering how they grow up so fast...