Anna Kathryn is Writing

This is sad and weird because I am writing and talking about me on my mom's blog!!So I fell off my bike and broke my arm."You'll be okay" she said .She took me to the er Sunday they said it was broke.So I have a hot pink cast on now.But I still ride my bike.

Love,

Anna Kathryn Jones

4 Kids Eat ALOT!!

I always knew that when my kids got older they would have more expensive toys, they would need/want more clothes, they would eat MORE! But I had no idea it was coming so soon. If you don't know me very well...I am very cheap! But I'm having to grow out of that as my kids grow up. I used to buy a week worth of groceries for $65-75, not anymore! The other morning I made Cinnamon Rolls, you know the kind that comes in a roll like biskets, there are 8 in a pack. Colson, my 6 year old, my baby, ate 5-FIVE!! Now I had made 2 packs, I guess from now on I will have to make 3 packs. Next day... I made "Shells and Cheese." It's kind of like spaghetti/lasagna. I made it like always, a whole box of shell noodles, spaghetti sauce, cheese, etc. We scrapped the bottom of the pan! I can't imagine what it is going to be like when all my kids are teenagers! I do love for my kids to eat! Anna Kathryn is very picky, so anything she will eat is good. But I think I may have to get a 2nd job just to feed them!

On another note, school is going pretty good for everyone! Homework SUCKS! I don't know who came up with it, but they obviously didn't have have 4 kids or a life! I helped Tanner with homework the other night for 45 minutes. Now 45 minutes is not that long, but when there are 3 other kids that need help, supper to cook, laundry, etc. And it's not even baseball season!

So I guess this kind of sounds like I'm complaining, I'm really not!! I love my kids, I love cooking for them, I love helping them with homework! They are the BEST!

PS-The picture right below- is Anna Kathryn cleaning off her feet in the dog bowl! We are rednecks!

We are Rednecks!

I'm not sure if anyone still reads this, and totally out of character for me, 2 post in one week. But my kids do funny things all the time and I somehow forget or run out of time at the end of the day to share. Today, however, I have to share with who ever still reads.(Hi Julie!)

My kids are kind of going through summer withdrawal. The last few weeks of summer they spent alot of time in the water, the pool-the beach. Today they really wanted to go swimming, especially Colson! But we didn't have a pool to go to, so I told them I would go get a slip-n-slide. They were happy with that! So AK and I took Avery to Rebecca's and then we went to the store. We went to Dollar General, CVS, and finally Walmart. NO SLIP-N-SLIDES! We opted for a little circle sprinkler. Now the kids on the box must have been much smaller than my kids because it wasn't near as big as it appeared on the box. It didn't shoot water out very high either. Colson played in it for about 3 minutes, alone. Then we/I tried to turn on the sprinkler system. Now we have lived in our house for about a year and I have no idea how to control that stupid thing! So I tried for about 10 minutes to get the sprinklers in the backyard to come on. (At least we were in the backyard-so the neighbors couldn't watch.) I was completely unsuccessful! So finally about 30 minutes after my kids had been waiting with bathing suits on, they played in the water hose! They had a BLAST! Why didn't I think of that sooner?? I'm sure we looked like Rednecks who can't afford a swimming pool, oh yeah maybe that's what we are.

Cost of Ocean Friends Sprinkler -- $6.88

Cost of New Water Hose -- $8.00

Throwing everything away and just playing in the water --

PRICELESS!

Summer

Summer came and left without a warning...all at once we looked and it was gone...Ok so I changed the words a little. But boy did the summer go by fast!! We played baseball for most of the month of June. And I'm not sure where July went. We did manage to go to St. Pete to watch the Warner Robins American Little League team play in the Southeast Regional finals. We spent a few days at the beach and had a blast!


The kids started back to school this week. Everyone has great teachers! We are still trying to get back in the morning routine. Nobody wants to get up in the morning. In keeping with true Jennings tradition, all my kids like to sleep! Rule #1 in Avery's World History is "No Sleeping in Class!" I really think that high school should have a designated rest period! I know I needed it! Avery says that I tell this story all the time...But when I was in 10th grade World History I fell asleep in class, and I mean I was sleeping good-drool and everything-anyway the teacher made me stand up for the rest of the class. How embarrassing!

Anyway, It's been a month since my last post. I guess that I'll shoot for once a month, we'll see.

Family Reunions!??

I would like to start out by saying that I love my family!! All of them!! 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins, aunts, uncles, some of them I don't even know their name...but I would like to...most of them I would love to get to know a little better. I don't know what it's like at other people's family reunions, I don't even know if other people have them.....but we went to the Keen Family Reunion today!!! That is my grandmother's family, and it gets worse every year. My grandmother was unable to attend this year, so maybe that makes my attitude a little worse. Ok for starters, the reunion is held at a church in the middle of nowhere (now I know that me or my children should not have to be entertained, that's not the complaint) however we are in this room with all of the people who are "family," most of which I do not know there name nor do they know mine, we eat lunch which is very good, and then "THE PROGRAM" (I'll get back to that in a minute), and then we leave. I'm not sure how we are supposed to get to know this family. Today there were around 90 people there; 2 of the oringinal 13 Keen children, maybe 20 of the 2nd generation, the rest were 3rd generation and beyond. I think there were at least 20 children under the age of 15, all of which were totally miserable. In Avery's words "I'm not going back there again!" Ok so I know it sound like I'm rambling about nothing, and maybe I am...So "the program"...the meeting was called to order by the president, why do we need a president? why do we need a program? We said the pledge of alligence, 2 girls sang, we recognized the families of the orginal 13 Keen's--all of which was ok---then for about 20 minutes we went back and forth about should we give money from the "treasury" to families of cousins that have passed away, "do I have a motion?" "do I have a second?" Then we tried to "elect" a president? All of this went on for about 30-45 minutes...still no time to visit or get to know people, no time for our kids to interact, and when the program was over every one packed up there stuff and left. I'm not sure why anyone really wants to come??? I'm not sure why I felt the need to vent about this. But it seems like a lot of things are like this, we get so caught up in the "program" that we lose sight of whats really important-PEOPLE. Churches, school, family reunions. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent!

Weekend Baseball/Happy Father's Day!!

We had a great weekend full of lots of baseball!! Avery had a game Wednesday, 2 on Friday, and 2 on Saturday (however the last one got rained out). Between Colson and AK, we had 8 games!! We had a tournament at our ballfield. AK's team got 2nd place and Colson's team WON!! It was busy but every one had a blast!



Today is Father's Day, I hope all the Father's out there had a great day! We got up and fixed Roman breakfast in bed, but he didn't want to eat in bed so he got up. My dad came to the games this afternoon. It was good to hang out with him, although it was like 99 degrees outside and we didn't get to talk much because the games were too exciting. But, I think I have the greatest dad ever!



On a differnt note, Tanner had a great week at enhancement. And I really like my new job! (For the record...it's only been a week since my last post)

NO PROMISES

So, I'm going to quit saying that I'm going to do better about posting, because I obviously won't. But I had a few minutes so I thought I would update on a few things...

Avery---Avery is at the beach this weekend with Rebecca. I think they are having a great time, he has called me a few times. He's playing summer baseball at PHS, they will have 5 games every week of June...that's alot of baseball, but he'll have fun.

Tanner---Tanner just finished his regular season baseball games. His team finished with the best record in B-leauge, but they had a 3 games series to determine 1st place. They lost the 1st one, won the 2nd one, then lost the 3rd; but it was a great series. I'm so proud of Tanner, he played hard every game, he never gave up, he was the dugout shrink (he was always encouraging the other players that were down), the other boys on the team loved him-they called him "The Giant Slayer." His team party was yesterday and they had it at Lake Blackshear. It was at one of the boys grandma's house. They had a pool, fishing, boats, and tubing. Tanner and AK had a blast! Next week he will go to enhancement-it's kind of like summer school for smart kids. He'll have 2 classes every day for 2 weeks. He's taking Outdoor Life and How Smart Do You Think You Are. He's excited!

Anna Kathryn---AK finished her regular season of softball with only 2 wins. Her team was not that bad, they just couldn't make the plays when they needed to. She had a great season, she is defintely improving. She made allstars!! Yeah!! They will play in a few tournaments. Next weekend we will have a tournament at our ballfield, then one or two more around here. Her allstar team is good, very good. There is one girl on her team who is taller than me and she can HIT! On a different subject, AK will be in FOCUS next year. That is like gifted classes for elementary students. She is pretty excited about that. (I'm not real sure how I ended up with all smart kids????)

Colson---Roman coached Colson's Tball team this year. They finished the season undefeated, which is bascically unheard of in Tball. So Roman gets to coach allstars and Colson made the team. Colson loves baseball. They practiced every day last week and he never complained. They even practiced yesterday so they couldn't go to the lake with us to Tanner's party. But Roman did take Colson to see Kung Fu Panda. They had a great time. They will be in the tournament next weekend too.

Roman---I'm not sure how he feels but I am looking forward to this ball season ending. This will hopefully be his last year as president. It is a time consuming thankless job. He is planning to go back to school in the fall.

ME---I will be starting a new job tomorrow. I will be working for Dr. Pool. He is an orthodonist (and Rebecca's dad). I am very excited! It was sad to leave my old job, I have good friends there. But it was something I could not refuse.

Anyway, this was kind of rambling about stuff. But just wanted to update. Maybe my next post will just be a funny a story, there is always something crazy or funny happening. Life with 4 kids!!

Avery's Mexico Trip

Avery got on a bus this morning at 7:00am on the way to Atlanta. He and 13 other youth and 4 adults will fly from Atlanta to San Diego. From San Diego they will take a bus to Ensenada, Mexico. Monday thru Thursday they will be building a house for a family there. Avery said it's more like a glorified tree house, but the family will live in it. So we will be praying for them this week. He was pretty excited this morning. He said it's the first time in his life that he's been excited about work! On Friday they will have a free day and then come home on Saturday. They will also have a chance in the evening to minister to the people in the community. I am really so proud of him. He is growing up to be such a great young man!! I will give an update if I get one. He can call on his cell phone but it will be $1 a minute, so I'm not sure if he'll call.

New Color, New Post!

Ok, so I am approaching 3 months since my last post. So I'm going to try to change things up a little, maybe that will help. I am sure no one even looks here anymore, not even Julie and Allison. I really have no good excuse for not posting, I guess it just hasn't been very high on the priority list. Also seems like nothing exciting happens, we're just busy all the time. It's baseball season now, and with 4 kids, 4 teams, 4 different directions; I feel more like a taxi cab than a mom. Just to let you know about yesterday....

Avery had to be at Perry High School at 6:00am to cook Boston Butts that his team had sold, I dropped him off and came back home and laid down until around 7:45. Then Tanner had a game at 12:00, but he had to be there at 10:45. Anna Kathryn had a birthday party to go to from 11:00 to 1:00 at the skating rink that is way across town from everything. So I had it all planned out; I was going to drop Tanner off at the ball field (Roman was already there), stop by Walgreens and get a card for the party and put money in it, then take AK to the party, and get back to Tanner's game by the time it started. Except just to throw everything off, Avery calls around 9:45 (I wanted to leave the house at 10:15) and says that he is ready to go, and wants me to come get him. So being the great taxi driver that I am, I went and got Avery, took him home, then took Tanner the field, took AK to the party (we used a card from the house), came back home and got Avery, then went to Tanner's game. Anna Kathryn did get a ride back to the field after the party. After the game I went to the grocery store and then we colored eggs.

So that's how most of my days are. I have come to love rainy days! When it rains the games or practices or whatever get cancelled. So then maybe I could get the pile of laundry folded instead of having to dig through it for something to wear or for socks! I HATE socks!!! But that's life and we love it! We don't know anything different.

So today is Easter! We've had a great day! We weren't late for church (we have a record going, like 6 weeks in a row on time). Then Mom and Dad came for lunch, we had Boston Butt, Emily's Crock Pot mac and cheese, potato salad, and beans. After that we went to the Pool's house (that's Avery's girlfriend) for an Easter egg hunt. It's sounds busy, but it has really been nice. I've been trying to keep my mind focused on the significance of this day! What an awesome God we serve, and how unworthy I am of his mercy. I really deserved every bit of the punishment that He took for me on that cross, yet He did it so willingly, for ME! In the midst of my every day chaos, which seems so hectic and crazy, I'm learning to look to that cross, not just today but every day. It is because of that cross that I have hope. It is because of that cross that I have the promise of life everlasting. Thank you Jesus!!!!

Anyway, life is hard, but God is good!!! I'll try to post more often!

Update

Ok, so just to update on a few things...
1st-Tanner's birthday present, the video game thing that wouldn't work because the batteries wouldn't fit. So come to find out you didn't even have to put batteries in the stupid thing. All I was supposed to do was to plug it in, so why did the directions say put batteries in??? Anyway, Tanner likes it and it works.
2nd-Colson and Anna Kathryn had their first Upward Basketball games today. It was a blast!!! Colson is very good, one of the best ones on his team. Anna Kathryn is one of the smallest girls on her team. They (supposedly)match you up with someone who is equal in ability to you, well AK's match up was a girl that was a head taller than her and probably 30 pounds heavier. But she did a good job and hustled the whole game.
3rd-About a month ago or less Roman bought us a new video camera. It was a nice one, we've used it several times through Christmas and Tanner's birthday. Well we took it this morning to Colson's basketball game. At the beginning of the game they announce the players on the loud speaker just like pro ball. Roman videoed Colson coming out, then handed me the camera while he answered his phone. I videoed Colson during the pregame prayer, then handed the camera back to Roman. When he got the camera back, it was blank, no picture, no power, nothing. We had just charged the battery, so that wasn't it. Long story short...Roman was MAD. REAL MAD!!! He said"Why can't we ever have anything work right???!!!" $%^%^#@ We couldn't find the receipt, but we did buy it at circut city, with a circut city credit card, so I had the statement. Happy ending...Circuit City gave Roman a brand new camera!! I hope it works for next weeks game.

PS--Thanks Emily for reading my blog too--didn't mean to leave you out!!!