Our feathered friends

The little ducks are still wandering around our house. This morning Hannah went out to get the Sunday paper and ran back into the house saying "The baby ducks are here!". Of course, we all ran out front and there they were, across the street in our neighbors yard. That mommy duck sure has her little brood under control! A few flaps of her wings and they all fall into line and head across the yard. They are probably in their pre-teen stage by now, giving her grief, I'm sure!


We give them their space so we don't frighten them but I'd sure love to hold one... especially the little yellow one. He's my favorite!

The many moods of Alexis...

Little niecey Alexis just turned 8 weeks! Look at those cheeks! She looks just like her momma!

We'll see you in 3 1/2 more months!

How Many Of Me???

I found this website on my friend, Amelia's, blog. www.howmanyofme.com You can go to this website and enter your first and last name and see how many other people in the US have your name. Now, when I was in college, there were 3-4 other Jennifer Matthews' (Matthews is my maiden name)....and 2 of them even had my same middle name! One of my dads friends lived about 30 minutes from the college and thought it would be fun to call me up and see how I was doing. He called the wrong Jennifer M and said "This is an older man from your past" and promtly got hung up on! =} I think he may have even called the other Jennifer M's before he got to me. LOL

Well, when I plugged Jennifer Churchwell into the website, I found out there are 21 other people with my name in the US. When I plugged in Jennifer Matthews, I found there are 796 others! Wow! As an FYI, there is only 1 Hannah Churchwell, 1 Haylee Churchwell and 2 Rick Churchwell's!

How many are there of you??

Our afternoon spent with a "Giant Rat"...

That is how Rick describes our time spent at Chuck E. Cheese. Today Haylee and I met her bestest bud, Jake and his mom there. The kids had a great time and Angela and I got a good almost 3 hours of visiting in! Haylee-Bear (as Jake calls her) and Jakey (as Haylee calls him) did a lot of fun things. They:

Ate pizza...


Played Mario Kart...


Rode in the horse race...


And chatted with Chatty Chuck E.


And now it's nap time.... ZZZZZZZZ....

First day of school...

Today was Hannah's first day of First Grade! I can't believe she's in 1st grade already! Here she is with her new teacher, Miss Jones.


Miss Jones seems like she is going to be a wonderful teacher. So friendly and very organized. Hannah wasn't too sure of the class pets.... 2 tarantulas! One is named "Webster" and there is no name for the other one yet. UGH! Hannah also has a reading loft in her room...kind of like a tree house that the kids can climb up into and read. They love those things!

This year Hannah will at least have spelling homework every night. And she's also going to start taking Spanish each week. This is a new thing at the school. I think it's great because Hannah is ALWAYS asking me how to say things in spanish so now she'll know!

I think the highlight for Hannah today, though, was seeing her best friend, Hana! She'd missed her all summer and they were so excited and squealing when they saw each other this morning.


Do your best and learn all you can, sweetie!

Soccer Mom!

Well, we're back into the soccer season! Hannah is back on her team after taking a break to try Girl Scouts. She had her first "mini-game" this morning and considering that none of the girls have even had a practice, it went pretty well! Even her friend, Savannah, who's never played before, did a great job! I know you'll be surprised to hear this, but the girls decided to call themselves "The Cheetah Girls"! I feel sorry for their very young coach. I'm sure he wishes he was coaching boys! =}

Here's Hannah chasing the ball down. (she's the one in the white t-shirt, chasing the girl in the red)


Here she is chatting with the coach before the game.


Here is Hannah and Savannah with their "game faces" on.


Here she is taking her turn as goalie. You can tell she was really into that position!


Of course, once we get our uniforms we'll be contacting our resident bow maker for some matching bows!

"Let's go Cheetah Girls, Let's Go!"

Could you save someone's life if you had to?

I'd have to say that I now feel that I could handle a situation involving someone needing CPR. I have taken this class for the past 3 years and I finally feel comfortable with what I have learned. Thank goodness I didn't need to perform CPR before this, right?? The preschool has us take this class every year and we always have the same great teacher. Here's our fearless leader now:

You can't tell it, but he has a screwdriver in the "babies" ear and is tightening something. Thankfully our teacher has a great sense of humor and lots of stories to share. Sitting through a 5 hour class could be a bit boring, but not with him!

We learned how to perform CPR on all ages... here is Amy working on her baby:


And here is Amelia and Yanel working on the bigger manikins:


We learned how to handle different situations... stroke, using an epi pen, using an AED (not an ADD, Julia) and how to handle flesh wounds. Here you can see a few of my co-workers trying to bandage a fake head wound I had:


Thank goodness it wasn't real otherwise you could have just pulled the sheet over me and pronounced me there! They were trying to figure out how to wrap my head without messing up my hair! LOL No worries there!

And here is our teacher showing us what he would do to us if we weren't quiet:


I am thankful I have never had to use this knowledge and hope I never have to. I am also thankful to our teacher (a local firefighter/medic) who takes his time to teach us these skills.....

OK, I just had to jump up from the computer because evidently Haylee wanted to test my knowledge from today... her finger was bleeding pretty good and she was crying her head off. It was only a small cut but I handled it! =} Whew!

Tristen's Birthday...

I love traditions! Whether it's putting out our brass "Santa Key" on Christmas eve or setting out the girls unwanted Halloween candy for the Good Witch, I LOVE traditions! Today we celebrated Tristen's birthday with our "Tristen and Jen's birthday tradition!" It consists of lunch and a pedicure, in no particular order. Today we got a little crazy and added a trip to Sam Moon in there! We are wild gals!
We started out at Sam Moon where I picked up a fun zebra print bag and Tristen found some jewelry, etc. Here we are posing at the front doors. (I was afraid to take any pictures inside, I didn't want to be tackled by the employees who look like they are just waiting for a reason!)


We then continued on to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Where else can you get great potato casserole??? We decided to take in a game of checkers while we were there. You can see that Tristen is truly contemplating her next move and consequently, she beat me!


After that we were off to get our pedicures! There is a place right around the corner from her house that we go to each year. Today we watched clips about the Olympics while we had our toes done. Don't they look pretty??


I had promised Hannah and Haylee a surprise when I got back. Here is Haylee modeling hers...

That's the other great thing about Cracker Barrel. You can find all kinds of fun old-fashioned candy and toys there. The girls weren't as taken with the wax lips and I thought they would be!

Happy Birthday Tristen! Only 7 more months until our next pedicure! Make this one last!

Sophie is 5!

Most of you know that Rick and my immediate family live far, far away. However, we are blessed to have cousins here in Texas! And one of their little sweeties turned 5 this week so we got to go share some cake with her today.


Sophie has turned 5 just in time to start kindergarten. She is more than ready, she's such a smart girl! Haylee and Hannah love spending time with her and her little brother Bennett. Here you can see Bennett, already getting ready for his Little Tyke's drivers license. He would get in the little car and roll around going "beep beep, beep beep!"


And here is the "HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS", Stephanie.


She is Sophie and Bennett's mommy. Unfortnately, I should have been a better picture taker... I didn't get any of their daddy, Robert. They've all just recently moved back from Rhode Island and we're glad they're back!

Bill & Jen were also there with their sweet little angel, baby Emma. She is such a pretty little thing and was quiet as a mouse.


We did miss seeing Christina and Joe who were on vacation. I'm sure the weather is much better where they are!

Here the girls are laying down watching a little DVD about Sophie. They had put together little clips of her life since birth. It was really neat!

(Hannah, Sophie, Haylee and Fiona... I love that name!)

That's our excitment for the weekend!

5 Little Ducks Went Out to Play...

We are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood with a number of "lakes" (read: ponds) and our house backs right up to one. Often we see a myriad of ducks on the ponds in the front of the neighborhood but recently they've started swimming around our pond.

If you'll come a little closer, I'll tell you a secret... a year or two ago, we had 6 ducks constantly swimming on our pond. It was so fun to watch them float around and I thought they must really like the pond because they never left... but I PROMISE they were moving around! =} I told a friend of mine to bring her kids over and we'd go out back and feed the ducks. I had to call her back that afternoon because I saw a man reach in, grab a string and.... pull them out! YES, they were decoys! How silly did I feel! Anyway...


This morning Hannah and I woke up to see the SWEETEST thing in our backyard! We could see 3 little baby ducks just off of our patio, splashing in a little puddle (no, unfortunately not made from rain, but from our sprinkler system). We quietly opened the blinds to get a picture. Then Hannah ran in to wake Haylee up so she could see the cuties. By the time she was out of bed the ducks had moved behind my bedroom. I opened the blinds in there and there was a momma and actually 11-12 sweet little ducklings! (can you tell we are just enamored with these things?) They must have heard us because they headed to our back fence, which is wrought iron, and slipped through to escape!
Quack Quack little duckies!

Babe's Chicken Dinner House!

Tonight we took some friends from our ward to Babe's in Roanoke. They had not yet had the priviledge of eating at this fine establishment. We thought we would break them in! Babe's only has 2 menu options... friend chicken and chicken fried steak. They serve family-style mashed potatoes and gravy, cream corn, biscuits, and salad. The building itself was built in 1908 and has been a number of other things before it became Babe's. None of the tables or chairs match and you are almost guaranteed to see the waitresses doing the Hokey Pokey with the kids at least once during your visit. It's a lot of fun! But go a little early... it's NOT fun standing out in 100 degrees waiting for a table to open up. Sometimes you can wait over an hour! In my humble opinion, it's worth the wait! Justin was brave and tried the chicken fried stake, which, by the way, took up most of his plate! The one thing we didn't do was ask to see the "baby rattlers"... maybe next time!
Here is Jennifer, Justin and Rick in front of the restaurant. If you look closely, you can see Rick holding up our doggy bag containing the coveted friend chicken! If you walk into work with this doggy bag, you're likely to hear co-workers murmur in a trance-like voice..."babes fried chicken". (imagine it sound like Homer Simpson when he says "donuts" and drools all over himself!)


Babe's is definitely a place to take out of town guests! They're sure to get a kick out of it!

One Word Tag...

1. Where is your cell phone? counter

2. Signifigant other? Rick!

3. Worst bad habit? hmmmm?

4. Hair? short

5. Favorite food? chicken

6. Your favorite thing? laughter

7. Your dream last night? nuttin'

8. Favorite drink? D.P.

9. Dream/goal? teach

10. Room you are in? office

11. Your ex? history!

12. Your fear? saddness

13. Where do you want to be in six years? same =}

14. Where were you last night? bed

15. What you're not? last minute

16. Muffins? ok

17. Wish list item? $$$

18. Where did you grow up? Renton

19. Last thing you did? meeting

20. What are you wearing? clothes

21. Your TV? sony

22. Your pets? nada

23. Your computer? Mac

24. Your life? wonderful

25. Your mood? happy

26. Missing someone? yes

27. Your car? odyssey

28. Something you are not wearing? shoes

29. Favorite store? kohl's

30. Your summer? HOT!!!

31. Love someone? LOTS!!!

32. Last time you laughed? today

33. Last time you cried? Tuesday

If you're reading this consider yourself tagged! Answer these ?'s with one word on your blog. If your not blogging yet...get started!!!...this can be your first post!

Not your mama's WalMart...

This morning we were up at the crack of dawn to head to Hannah's school to get her registered for 1st grade. We went with our friend Amy and her girls, Savannah and Madison. Once that was done, we decided to do a little "back to school" schopping at mommy's favorite one-stop shop! We went to Walmart in search fun back-packs for the girls.
Let me tell you, this isn't your normal WalMart. They have energy-saving motion-activated light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in refrigerator and freezer cases. The girls love to walk down the isle in this section to see the light go on and off. They sell bikes and have the only bike repair shop in the country. They have a sushi bar, tons of organic foods, etc. In the front of the store you see this:

a HUGE pecan tree that they built the store around. With this store completed last November, we now have 4 WalMart's within 20 minutes of our house. They're taking over the world! =}

So, back to why we were there. Here is Hannah with her brand new backpack:


And here is Haylee with hers. (I apologize that the pics are a bit blurry).


Here are the 4 girls playing in the "leather lounge".


And here is Hannah and Savannah playing Rock Band while Maddie is patiently waiting her turn! No trip to WalMart is complete with out a little Rock Band!


Haylee even got in on the fun!


It's always fun when we go to WalMart! =}

Breaking Dawn...

Last night found me at 11pm in Grapevine with Tristen & Tara, eating fries at the local IHOP. I know, I know... french fries at IHOP? I tried desperately to get Tristen to order the Rooty Tooty Fresh-N-Fruity but no such luck! We were biding our time there, waiting until midnight and the much anticipated release of the book Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. Tristen and Tara are HUGE fans of the book and I was just looking for a fun night out. After we paid our bill at IHOP we headed over to WalMart to wait in the crushing line... that wasn't there! Apparently, and Tristen may club me for putting this out into cyberspace, not a lot of people think about WalMart when it comes to book releases. They'd rather go wait in the long lines at Barnes and Noble with a bunch of other pre-teens. Tristen and Tara didn't want to do that, although they thought about it! It was more fun to try on sunglasses while we waited for the clock to strike 12. I decided to buy my own copy... I have read the other 3 and since I love to read, I knew I'd enjoy this one.


I got home around 1am and was up until 2 reading. I have read quite a bit more this morning. Rick's parting comment to me as he left today to go help an Eagle Scout with a project..."I hope you don't read too much and forget the girls are here!"

Never, honey! Hey girls, here's some Froot Loops. Keep the TV down, mommy's trying to read.