Prince,Princess and the Queen

My handsome prince


my beautiful princess

2.26.2011

This past Saturday night we as parents got blessed to see our handsome son be part of the Sweetheart Court at Northwood High School. Sweetheart Court is like homecoming at football but only done during basketball season. Each grade votes on a girl who they want to represent their class. For the freshman class a young lady was voted in just like every other grade but there's a twist to the story. Sadly enough a few bad apples thought it would be "funny" to vote in an "unpopular" girl as a mean joke. When our kids came home and told us the story, we as parents were pretty disappointed in the cruel "joke". We told Carter right away that he should offer to escort her. Not even 10 min. later Cassie came downstairs and said this young lady had texted her and said she was going to ask Carter to be her escort. Carter being the nice guy agreed to the opportunity to be a friend.

As I had mentioned before my boys are not shoppers but this gave Carter and I a reason to shop. We had a fun time going and picking out his clothes for the night. I knew he would look so grown up and I'm not even going to lie but it made me tear up a little bit. But this blog is more than how handsome my son looked or how he was in the sweetheart court. It's all about how he was a prince the night of sweetheart court. He knew how this young lady should be treated and he did it. His heart was amazing.

Carter and Nikki

The story doesn't end here tho. Not only am I blessed with a prince for a son BUT I didn't get to the part where Cassie and her friends were also part of this story. They came along side of this young lady and helped her find the right dress. Took her to get her hair and makeup done and were her biggest fans!

Carlie, Danae and Cassie=Nikki's #1 fans!

I love the heart my kids and their friends have for others. It is such a blessing to us! It's more than being liked by everyone and it's ALL about doing the right thing! I love the fact that my kids have the heart of God's prince and princess!

Also this past weekend I was blessed to be able to go with one of my friends to help look for a wedding dress! This is the second time we have gone looking for one and I have to say I love seeing her in the dresses. She is just stunning and it's such an honor to be able to go with her! I love that she is just so laid back when we go and not stressed out at all. I'm going to call her the Queen because I can and she is the bride to be! I love ya Amanda and thanks for being a GREAT friend and allowing me to be part of this special time!

Amanda the bride to be! No! This pic is NOT the dress spoiler! :)

Carter's gun it Frank moment

Gun it Frank

2.13.11


















As I have gotten older I have started to notice that my hair is starting to get some new shades of highlights. These highlights sadly have not cost me one cent. These highlights are gray and have been given to me by my children! If you have teenagers or you're empty nesters you know what I'm talking about. The late nights staying awake wondering and really hoping that they would just get their butts home. The whole dating thing and then don't forget the driving! When Cassie got her licences I was a wreck. Don't get me wrong, it's an exciting time but the thought of her getting on the road had me very uneasy! That was 2 years ago already! Now we are moving to the stage where my "baby" will start drivers ed very soon.

With living in the Midwest and a farming community it's not unusual to let your kids drive on the back roads. To be honest Carter really didn't show any interest in driving until recently. Now he is getting to the point where if he gets a chance to a move a car out of the driveway he thinks that's pretty darn cool. Carter also has this funny saying that he says to be when he thinks I'm being a hot rod in the car. He will say "gun it Frank." Today was Carter's "gun it Frank" moment.

Upon arriving home from church we noticed Cassie had parked in our driveway instead of her parking spot. So, we told Carter to run in and ask his sister to move the car. Instead of Cassie coming out our 15 year old son came back out swinging the keys with a smile on his face. He backed the car out of the driveway like a pro. That was the easy part. Now the tricky part comes. He needed to parallel park Cassie's green Gusher between a huge maple tree and the electric pole. The mom in me pulled out my video camera to capture the moment on video. Am I ever glad I did! Not only will we be able to share this story with our friends, family and his future kids but we have the proof of what happened! What I love best about this story is Carter's good nature about the whole thing. His smile never leaves his face even tho this could be super embrassing. Just a reminder to me not to sweat the small or big stuff for that matter!

Shopping with my men

Tonight was a special occasion. I got to go on one of the FEW shopping trips that my boys will take. What prompted this trip you may wonder? Well it started earlier this week when Carter came down stairs looking like Steve Urkel. Yes my son had grown a good 4 inches since the beginning of the school year. Needless to say he was pretty ticked off about his jeans being so short. What didn't help matters was that Carter sags his pants. For those of you who don't know what sagging is I will tell you. It's when you pull your pants lower than your boxer shorts. Anyone that knows Bruce well enough knows that does NOT fly! Carter often hears "pull up your pants." Needless to say this particular morning Carter was not in the mood to hear his dads comments. Let's just say we had one grumpy, high water, raging hormone teenager on the loose and a dad raising his voice....not yelling "you better change your attitude. So that's what lead to our shopping trip. Another thing you need to understand about my boys "shopping" trip is that it is WAY different than when Cassie and I go shopping. When my boys going shopping it's very focused. You go in and get what you need and get the heck out. No looking around. No talking to strangers or even people you might now for that matter. It's like if they spend too much time in the store they will come down with some life threatening disease or something.

At 6:54pm we loaded into the car to head to JC Penny. Before we could actually get to the store we had to drop Carters friend off. There was silence most of the way. It's like they had mentally prepare for the trip. Once we got to the store I had to lead the boys to the jeans section. Of coarse I head right to the clearance sections. Seeing 70% off is liking hitting the lottery! After searching the rack I found one pair of jeans that would fit Carter. We were able to find another pair on sale. Carter and I headed over to the dressing room to check out his new jeans. Which I would like to add he started out the year in 14 boys and now is in 29x30. We have officially moved out of boys. Sniff Sniff

Bruce even surprised me tonight with getting into the shopping action. As I was waiting for Carter to come out. My handsome husband came over with a pair of jeans in his hands. When he got to the door of the fitting room he just stood there. I asked "honey, what are you waiting for?" He said "oh I can go in?" After I told him he could go in he was startled by the bell that rings when you go into a dressing room. He automatically put it reverse as if he wasn't suppose to go in. This made me crack up. I assured him that it was ok to enter the room and that it just let the sales people know he was entering.

By 7:55pm both of boys had found jeans that were a great price and looked great on them! The best part was we were on our way home! They had survived yet another "shopping" trip!

Never too late to start

For many years I have read friends and families blogs. I had always regretted not starting one and had it in the back of mind that it was too late to start. After all, my kids are in high school and lots of time has passed. This past week after my cousin Heather and a good friend posted their blog I really started to wonder if it really was too late? I actually even asked Heather if she thought it was too late and she responded " its never too late" That's all I needed to hear! Since that post my mind has been going over the things I would talk about? What I would call the blog? Do I have stuff that people would even want to read about? After that I decided that YES I do have stuff that people would want to hear about! And as far as what I would call this blog, well, that was pretty easy. We are the heart of a Hoosier family. We are not city slickers. We get excited about Elkhart County Fair. We proudly sport our clothes from JC Penny and we know everyone who lives in our neighborhood even if we rather not. We are simple and not flashy. We are proud to live in the bible belt of America. It brings us joy to take a car full of unchurched kids to church every other Wednesday. We are the heart of a Hoosier family!