Tornado

My family and I have been very fortunate that the storms that have torn through most of Arkansas lately have missed us....although they got so close we spent many evenings hiding in our closets. However, my dad's farm was not so lucky. My dad farms in what we call the "Bottoms". It is the farm land that surrounds the Arkansas river bottom...hence the name. Around 1 am Tuesday morning a huge tornado touched down in the bottoms and wiped out most of my dad's corn and wheat.....both were just weeks away from being harvested. Dad tells the story that him and my uncle Mike were really "babying" their wheat this year and it looked like they were set to break records this year....a record they set not too long ago. Well, that is unfortunately not going to happen this year.

Here is a picture of the corn that is actually still standing. It was shoulder high but is now only about to your hips and the leaves are shredded....but this is actually the good stuff left behind. Dad thinks this corn still has a chance.

As we drive deeper into the Bottoms, I can see the path the tornado took. The tree line in the distance says it all....a huge chunk of trees in the middle are ripped up or completely twisted without any leaves left. Looks like the tornado was about a mile or two wide.

Here are the bad pictures. This field was full of beautiful corn and now it is COMPLETELY bare. Not a sign of corn anywhere. In all of my grandfather's 90 years of farming, he says he has never seen the bottoms this bare during the spring.

Here is Dad's wheat field. Certain parts of the field look like they just got finished cutting.

Lyle was hoping to find some kind of life out there but even if you did find a head all the wheat grain had been sucked out. If you dig down under the leftover stalks you can see all the grain scattered in the dirt. Heartbreaking.

My dad has taken all of this in stride. Luckily, he has been so successful at farming that they are going to be just fine and have actually already gotten a game plan together for how they can best salvage the rest of this farming season. One field they have already disced under and replanted in soybeans. My dad and uncle Mike are amazing farmers....amazing men. Oh, and in case you are wondering...no the government will not bail them out.

Field Day

Ella had her first Field Day and I volunteered to help with the fun so I got some cute shots of her....but not many....I was very busy helping with the climbing wall.

The first thing was the chicken race. All the Pre-K kids lined up for the relay race where they passed a rubber chicken to each other. Lots of excitement!

Her class then got to climb the big rock wall which was a big deal because only the "big" kids got to do that. Ella didn't get to far and she was done! She got to fly through the air on the rope at the end and that seemed to be the best part...it did look fun.

Then they played with boppers and the big tent which I didn't get to see much of but heard lots of laughing going on so it must have been fun! I think they were all wiped afterwards....Mrs. Bright (Ella's teacher) says it is always the best nap day of the year!

Bumps, bruises and more bumps

Poor Luke. I have never seen a child hit his head and get as many giant bumps as he has since turning two. Here is a picture of the latest. To start the morning off right....we were walking into church and he fell down scratching up his cheek, nose and chin. Then later that afternoon, we were walking over the big River Bridge and he fell again this time giving himself a huge bump on his forehead.

I have to hand to the kid, though. He takes it all in stride and gets over it pretty quick. He is showing you how tough he is in this picture.....if it was a video you would be hearing him roaring like a tiger!

A Special Birthday Post for our Special Belle!

We hope you have a fantastic birthday! We can't believe you are 7! We love you!

Ella's PreK program

The school year is winding down so for a big finale, Ella's preschool put on a show for us yesterday. It was quite the performance and Lyle and I laughed the whole way through it. I wish we had a video to post but we were lucky to get it on the video camera and a few pics....Luke was not really that into the show!

Here is the program.

Notice anything special???

Ella was a speaker!! Her line: "We LOVE to sing silly songs!" She said it LOUD and clear!

She sees her brother waving to her. I hate the pic is so bad but you get the idea.

We were so proud of you, Ella. You did a fantastic job! We look forward to many, many more great programs!

Mother's Day Weekend

I had a fantastic Mother's Day this year. We actually got to celebrate it all weekend with special guests from Dallas.

Mims and Pa!

We had a very busy weekend starting with Ella's soccer game Saturday morning.

We then took Mims and Pa to one of our favorite hang outs...Wildwood Park...its made it into the blog several times and most likely will again in the future. We love it there.

Then it was time for a very special treat. For a Mother's Day present, I reserved for Mims and Ella some girl time at the spa together...just the two of them. They were going to get a pedicure and Ella could not have been more excited. She said, "You know, Mom, I am really tired but that is OK because I am about to get really relaxed at the spa." I laughed. Here are a few pics from girls' day. Mims said Ella smiled the whole time. Looking at the pics I think she might have enjoyed it a bit too much...have I created a monster? Well, I know Ella had a good time, but I hope you did too, Mims.

Unfortunately, Lyle wasn't able to share the weekend with us because he had to work, but we did get to spend a little time with him. We took some dinner up to him at the hospital. Mims and Pa got to see the hospital a little closer and we got to see Daddy for a few minutes. It was nice.

Then on Sunday Mims and Pa took the kids to the park. It was such a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed playing in the water and of course Luke's favorite the swings.

I had to throw in this random picture Mims got of Luke just because it is so cute and shows how big he has grown.

Mims and Pa also got to celebrate Grandparents' Day with Ella at school...pics soon to follow. She was so excited to have them at her school. I was so happy they could make it.

Thanks so much for making our weekend so special. We had a great time and hope to do it again soon! We love you guys!

Easter

Easter went so fast this year that I can barely remember what we did. Lyle had to work so that kind of put a damper on the party but the kids and I had fun none the less.

First and most importantly....the Easter Bunny loot!

This is what the kids woke up to Easter morning.

The kids ended up in bed with me after Lyle left for work about 4 am. At about 6:30 I heard Ella wake up and literally shoot out of bed. I heard the door to our bedroom open and a gasp. Ella found this candy trail the Easter Bunny had left for the kids. Notice the carrot the Easter Bunny dropped as he was leaving the candy. That bunny is so messy! Ella got a huge kick out of that!

Then a couple seconds after the gasp I heard the highest pitched squeals ever coming from the dining room. It made me smile and I jumped out of bed to join her. She was thrilled. We dug through the baskets and soon Luke came into the room very upset that he was left behind. He got over it soon when I handed him some M&Ms. Amazing the mess that boy can make with two blue M&Ms!

We spent the next couple of minutes going through the cool stuff left behind by the bunny. He even thought of mommy this year and got her some special tulips...aren't they beautiful!

Then it was time for the big Easter Egg hunt. Because we are very organized in this family we made sure we knew exactly how many eggs to find by getting the Easter bunny to tell us how many he left for us. Ella loves this part!

They had a blast looking for the eggs. Luke ran wherever Ella went claiming he saw all of them first even the one the Easter bunny hid in the mailbox. There has to be one in the mailbox at least that it what the Easter bunny claims:)

They found some pretty eggs. See the one with the Chinese writing? Ella is taking Chinese lessons this year so the Easter Bunny wrote Happy Easter in Chinese on her name egg...Daddy looked it up for us when we got home:) The name eggs are always fun. Easter Bunny leaves a special egg in everybody's basket that has their name on it and a special message. This year each egg said : Luke - Wear your big boy underwear, Ella - Happy Easter (Chinese), Mom - Nice paint (we just got the living room painted) and Dad - Dr. Daddy.

Then is was off to church. I wanted to get a picture of the kids nicely dressed before we left but I came up short. This was the best I got.

This is the "I'm annoyed with you, Mom" pic I got from Ella after I begged her to smile at the camera about 50 times. Fun! Fun!

Hope you all had a nice Easter!!