Zoodles giveaway winner!

And the winner of the 3 month premium subscription to Zoodles is...

Kristin Jack!!!!

Thanks everyone for entering...even caving into my shameless begging so I wouldn't look like a loser with 2 entries. Hopefully more giveaways are in my future. It sure is fun giving away free stuff.

Update on my sister, Tonya

It was my first week at a new school and to say I needed a weekend was quite an understatement.  I needed more than a weekend, I needed a Tonya fix. The boys and I packed up and headed to the farm to see her and the girls.

Tonya mentioned that she went ahead and shaved her head. It was falling out in pieces making it hard for her to be in the kitchen around food. There's not much she can control right now, but she does control when she loses her hair, NOT cancer. 

On the way out there, I decided I better prepare Nolan for Aunt Tonya being bald. So I told him that since she's sick she is going to lose her hair, but it will grow back and she's still the same Aunt Tonya. He quietly asks, "Is her name still Tonya? Did her voice change?" So in his 4-year-old brain, he was convinced either Tonya was a man, since men are the only people he's seen bald, or that she went through some sex change operation. Yikes, not a conversation to be had with a 4 year old. I just love how he can make something that's serious and challenging us and make it funny.

So Tonya was struttin' her 'do and striking a pose. It was hard not seeing her with her hair. That same gorgeous thick hair that could probably make 5 wigs, she had so much of it. But hair doesn't define her, just like this cancer doesn't.

"Once you've had chemotherapy, there's no such thing as a bad-hair day." author unknown

Tonya had put on a roast and long story short that roast was AWFUL! I mean, you needed to get your sharpest canines out to chew up that meat. Her carrots were hard and even the mashed potatoes were lumpy. And I'm only saying that because Tonya is a really good cook, but bless her heart she just had an off day or her oven did! Don't believe me, here's Avery working up enough courage if she wants to dive in a try the mystery meat!

 

If you don't remember what Tonya's hair did look like just look at her girls. They were blessed with that gene from her and suddenly, I got an idea. These girls have enough hair they could just give their mom half of it and still look like they just got a trim. So I had the girls "loan" their mom some hair just for our pic and this one especially looks just like her hair did.

After our pic, we tried to pep talk our stomachs to try the meat but once we saw Madison "chewing" on the mashed potatoes, we erupted into laughter. Next words out of my mouth?

"Who wants pizza?"

And I've never seen five kids load up in my van that quick.

Laughter is truly the best medicine.

One last day of summer

Bittersweet.

It's the best word I can use to describe my feelings of summer's finale. I treasured those summer days with my boys. Yes, even those hair-pulling "when do I go back to work?" days. So maybe I didn't do as many things as I wanted to do or teach them as much as I wanted to. I'm cutting myself some slack because what we did fit in was "just right" for us. It was that balance of family time and not overextending ourselves. It was a perfect blend of quality vs. quantity. I love those days that began with, "What do you want to do today, boys?" There a very close second to those "Let's stay in our jammies and do a whole lot of nuthin" days.

As I grieve over my love of summer, I can't help but deny my love for fall. Not so much September, but October and November? Now, that's where it's all at. The colors, the trees, the crispness of the air, and don't even get me started on pumpkins and Halloween. And yes, we've been brainstorming costume ideas for a month now.  As much as I love those schedule free days, I swear that I thrive the best when I'm (or should I say, our family) is on one. And there's no better time than fall to get us into one.

So as a final protest to the summer ending, we packed up the fam for some good ol' pool time with the Young Families group from church.



And it ain't a party until there's a splash off!

Anytime you see a grown up having this much fun, you can bet you'll see kids flying through the air at the pool.



and lots of smiles

You should have seen my Cowboy Cam riding this horse. He says "Yee Haw!" with such conviction that you know this boy is undeniably Texan.



I'm still working through summer coming and going so quickly. Shame on you Summer, you don't call, you don't write. But don't worry, I'm moving on. My real crush in on Fall.

Picture redemption

Does anyone remember our soccer team photo incident? Look here or here if you don't remember. Or I can wrap it up in a few words for ya.

They were terrible.

I'm still a little miffed that I actually spent money on those stupid pictures. I think I might have a better camera than the photographer. I should start charging. :)

We missed Nolan's last t-ball game because it was the same day as Campbell's 2nd birthday party. I hated to skip it but wasn't sad about missing out on the heat. Since we missed the game, we just now got around to getting our trophy and team pictures. I was scared to look after the soccer pictures. But my cutie patootie was back in full force.

Now it's time for soccer again. Since Nolan finished his last game scoring three goals, I'm actually looking forward to what this season has to offer. I'll make sure that I'm not a deadbeat mom again and miss his first goal.

I just wish it was November now so that practice wouldn't have to start during the 107 degree heat.

Zoodles of fun

CONTEST IS CLOSED

I was recently contacted by Zoodles to review their educational website and tell them what I think. Hmmm, an educator mom who wants engaging EDUCATIONAL activities for her children during the summer? Sign me up!

Zoodles basically scours the web to find the best educational content out there (games, puzzles, and videos) and puts it all in one place, presenting it to kids in a safe, simple web browser that adapts to your child's age and skill level.  What this means is that a 3 year old would get games teaching shapes and numbers, letter recognition, attention and listening, and much more.  A 5 year old would get games teaching early reading, addition, creativity and exploration, etc.  All this learning is wrapped in engaging play that features some of their favorite characters.

We'd been to Starfall, PBS kids, and Nick Jr. websites before, but once you were on there, you were stuck. It was really hard for my 4 year old to navigate from one website to another. The Zoodles browser has all of those same great websites and many more that I've never even heard of! I love how you can set up profiles for each of your children based on their age and ability level.

The Zoodles browser is always free for kids to play, but for parents who want more control over their child's experience, Zoodles also offers a paid Premium Membership.  With premium membership, parents can set play time limits, block ads, promote certain subjects to their child, and block unwanted sites and shows.  You can also get great information about what your child has been playing – from the skills he or she has been building, to the sites he’s been visiting, to how much time he or she’s spent playing specific games.

Every week I get a recap of what Nolan worked on. Last week, for example, his main focus was reading. With the premium membership, you can set up which subjects you want your child to focus on or perhaps they just need more practice in a certain subject area. And I love that you can even put a time limit on it.

I really love how easy it is for Nolan to use and he can do all subjects in ONE place. It's so exciting for me that he's learning! Rule 101 in education, you get a child learning when they're reading something THEY are interested in. Where was this when I was a kid?

Everyone that signs up for Zoodles gets a 14 day trial Premium Membership.

But I get to have my first giveaway!!!  

Zoodles is offering one of my readers a FREE 3 month Premium Membership. 

How to enter:

1. "Follow" me through Google under my Follwers heading on my sidebar and leave me a comment letting me know.

2. "Like" me on Facebook at TexasMacks, and leave me a separate comment letting me know.

That's it! It's my first giveaway, so please humor me and make me feel like people actually read this thing by entering.

Make sure to leave an email address where I can reach you in case you win!
I will pick a random winner using Random.org and the winner will be notified via email. The winner will have 48 hours to respond before I pick another winner.  

The giveaway will end Sunday Sept. 5th at 9:00 p.m.  CST

Wishing for fishin'

My poor son has been asking me to go fishing since Memorial Day weekend. Tonya, my sister, lives on over 25 acres just south of town and I told him that we'd go soon. Well, then life happened. Swim lessons, t-ball, 100 degree heat,  and most importantly Tonya was diagnosed with breast cancer. We packed up the family and I cooked dinner for her and her family after her first round of chemo. And so the boys finally got to go fishing.



I think Nolan thought it was going to be more exciting. He doesn't know yet that fishing is a whole lot of waiting. Just as they were about to give in, Justin caught the biggest fish he's ever caught. His Daddy Mack would have been so proud. Nolan kept talking about how dirty that fish was. There was lightning all around so they threw the fish back and headed back. 

Of course the camera battery died and so I barely have any shots of them but my niece Madison did catch this one. He's like a little kid, so proud of his catch!

Duck Duck Goose

It was one of those weeks. You know when you put your head down on your pillow and you think about your day and feel like all you did was yell at your children. Please tell me I'm not alone. I felt awful. It all boiled down to one thing. Weather. This insanely ridiculously hot weather. It's too hot to even go check the mail. The boys were running crazy in the house driving me nuts and just had huge case of cabin fever.

I knew that I had to get them out but didn't know how I was going to make it without melting. So after I cleaned up dinner, we went to get some ice cream at Sweet Sammie's. Wow, you pick out your own cookies and ice cream and get to make your own ice cream sandwich. Although, Nolan doesn't like ice cream (I know, it almost makes me think he's not mine).  It definitely helped cool me down.


Even at 7:30 at night, our car said the temperature outside was 107. I know it wasn't that hot but the heat index definitely made it feel like that. We couldn't handle another day of the heat keeping us from having some fun, so we headed to the park at 8:00 at night to feed the ducks at Trinity Park. I would have gone at midnight but figured that probably wasn't conducive to duck feeding.

Those boys were launching that bread like they were Nolan Ryan on the mound.

Then we heard some loud quacking and we caught a glimpse of a herd of geese in the distance.



In the cutest fashion, we observe a little duck parade doing their march and waddling just as fast as their little webbed feet would let them.



I'll admit that since some of them were the size of Campbell, I was a little very nervous about what they would do to my little Campbelloni holding a loaf of bread. So we played it safe and stayed up high.

My boys needed this. I needed this.  It was the perfect thing for us to do to get out of the house, get outside, and make me feel like a good mom again. For the first time that week, my head hit the pillow without guilt.