Family
Wednesday, July 2, 2008, by Leigh Anne
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Both college boys are home this week - yea!! Even though my grocery bill triples I love having them home.
We are spending the week at the beach - my favorite week of the year. (In fact we are there right now, while you are reading this!)
This time Logan is bringing a friend with him, a female friend. We are excited to meet her and we hope she likes us!
We decided that we should put a Wilkes Family Survival Kit together for her - a kit to help her survive us!
Before you get the wrong idea - we are NOT the Family Stone but like every family we do have our quirks.
We put a few items into the survival kit that might help her get to know us a little bit better.
The kit includes the following:
A cute beach bag - how can you go to the beach without a cute bag!
A pair of sunglasses and a rain poncho - you never know which one you will need in Oregon in the summer.
A First-Aid kit - Logan has a bit of a history of causing injury to past girlfriends. He broke the shoulder of one and crashed a motorbike with another one. (All were accidents of course!)
Flip Flops - We hope she’ll Flip over us - and that we won’t be a Flop!
Kit Kat Bar - in case of emergency remove wrapper and eat (her favorite candy bar)
Popcorn with a package of M & M’s - the only way the Wilkes family eats popcorn!
Sand bucket and shovel - We hope she’ll have fun playing on the beach with us.
An Oregon baseball cap - She’ll fit right in!
Deck of cards - You can’t spend much time with the Wilkes if you are not a card player - if she’s not, we’ll teach her how!
A scented candle called “Beach House” - Welcome to the Beach House
Welcome to Oregon Becca!
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Categories: Connect, Family
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008, by Leigh Anne
Yes, there is another birthday at our house this week. My two sweet college boys are exactly two years and five days apart.
Clark James turns 22 today! Unfortunately, Jim and I are on our way to Marco Island, Florida (well - fortunate for us - unfortunate for Clark) and Clark will be on a plane home this evening for his break between semesters. We are sad we will miss most of Clark’s visit home but he will have a good time with his two sisters and rest assured I have stocked the house really well with all of Clark’s favorites. There are ten bottles of Gatorade in the garage refrigerator and the cupboards are overflowing!
I wanted to share one of my favorite photos of Clark - he was 18 months old.
I had this picture taken right before his father MADE ME cut those beautiful blonde curls off. Daddy just couldn’t handle having people ask if he was a boy or a girl! So off they came and they never grew back. So sad!
I love this picture too - it was taken last summer during our family reunion at the beach right after Clark had returned from his two year church mission to Chile.
You may wonder how a 5′2″ woman married to a 5′10″ man ended up with a 6′1″ son??? Well - that 5′10″ man has a brother that is 6′7″ - that’s how!
I love my big boy! Clark may look like a big, tough guy but he has such a gentle heart. If Clark is anywhere around babies or little children you can be sure that he will be rolling around on the floor with them or holding that baby.
One of my favorite memories is the night we brought Baby #3, our first sweet baby girl, home from the hospital. It was the middle of the night and she was sleeping in a cradle in our room. She woke up crying. As I got out of bed I saw that 3 year old Clark was already there, rocking the cradle, trying to soothe his new little baby sister back to sleep.
What a sweetie. Clark just completed his sophomore year of college, majoring in American History. He is planning on attending law school after completing his undergraduate degree.
Happy Birthday Clark - we love you and are so proud of you!!!
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Categories: Family
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Friday, April 18, 2008, by Leigh Anne
I just had to take a minute today and wish my sweet baby boy a Happy Birthday! O.K. - so he’s not my baby boy anymore but he sure is sweet.
Logan McKay is 24 years old today - how can I possibly have a child that old!!! I could go on and recount the story of the day he was born but I won’t bore you with it although suffice it to say I am glad my water broke when it did because fifteen minutes later and I would have been on a city bus on my way downtown to work - yuck!! But I will share a few pictures!
Isn’t he a cutie - Logan has always had the most gorgeous, brown eyes!
They are still gorgeous and he is still a cutie! He is a senior in college getting ready to graduate next Spring in Public Relations. He heads off to Australia next week for a three week tour of the country with the group he performs with - The Young Ambassadors.
So, Happy Birthday sweet boy. I wish you were here so I could fix you a dinner of all your favorite foods! That will have to wait until you are home in June. You have grown into an amazing man. I love you and am so proud of who you are and who you are becoming. I love you! Mom
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008, by Leigh Anne
“The people in our lives”
I love text messaging. As a mother of teenagers and young adults it comes in quite handy.
After a few lessons from my teenage daughter I have actually become quite good at it! I am a two finger texter!! My husband is a different story, he actually sent his very first text message not too along ago. We were all very proud.
But the thing I really love about text messaging is the connection it creates between my children and me.
They send me the normal text messages….
“I’m on my way home”
or a quick message to let me know where they are.
Then there are messages like the one I got the other day…
“I think I’m getting pink eye.” (high school daughter who was scheduled to have her picture taken that day!)
or
“I need 20 bucks for a test - can I put it on the credit card?” (sweet college boy)
I love messages like this….
“When you get home, come tuck me in” (this from my sweet 14 year old who still likes me to tuck her in each night!)
And that camera phone comes in handy too. One of my sweet college boys sent me a picture of his pantry in his apartment at school when I gave him a “mommy lecture” on eating healthy. Wanted to show me that he had bought some fresh fruit.
Then there was the picture of two ties and the accompanying text message asking me which tie matched his suit!
I love it when one of my sweet college boys texts me and asks me for a recipe.
But the other night I received one of those text messages that makes me know that it is all worth it - one that warms my mommy heart.
As any mother of teenagers knows - moments of appreciation and gratitude can be few and far between and I will take them when I can get them. Sometimes they come in the form of a text message.
The following text message arrived the other evening while I was cleaning up the kitchen….
“Thanks for being such a great mom.”
Usually those type of text messages are then followed by another one asking to put something on the credit card but this time it wasn’t…
“We threw a birthday part for my roommate today. I had no idea how stressful it is.”
Of course I picked up the phone and called sweet college boy. He then told me how much he appreciated me and had never realized how much work went into putting on a party. He had spent the day cleaning, shopping, preparing and then cleaning up again afterwards while the rest of his roommates sat around!
Finally - he gets it! I guess waiting 22 years was worth it!
Do you have a funny or favorite text message one of your children have sent to you?
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Categories: Connect, Family, Motherhood
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Thursday, April 3, 2008, by Leigh Anne
First, thanks to all of you who made a guess! But before I tell you the answer I thought I’d share a picture of what that cute little baby looks like today!
Isn’t he handsome!
Seventeen of you guessed the right baby….
Yes, my sweet almost 24 year old college boy is the third from the right, the one in dark socks with his mouth wide open. I can’t tell you how many photos we have of that boy with his mouth open like that!
At the photo shoot they were actually blowing bubbles at him (they just digitized the bubbles out) and he was trying to blow them - thus the wide open mouth!
Thanks for playing with me! And now the winner is…..
Tina! Tina has her own blog at www.multiplemomt.blogspot.com. Tina, I will be in contact to get you your Amazon gift certificate - have fun shopping!
Thanks to everyone for making a comment and entering the contest and thanks to sweet college boy for being a good sport about it!
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Tuesday, April 1, 2008, by Leigh Anne
I have added a fun contest to go with the “Fun surprise in the mail” post below - so if you didn’t leave a guess on which baby is mine please do so! All those with the correct answer will be entered into a drawing for $20.00 Amazon gift card.
If you are reading this through an email update or a rss reader you will need to click through to the blog to leave your guess in the comment section. Happy guessing!
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Categories: Family, Humor
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Tuesday, April 1, 2008, by Leigh Anne
Keep reading to see how you can win a $20.00 Amazon Gift Card!!
So I just had to share this cute card I got in the mail today.
My childhood friend LuAnne (we met in the Junior High and were inseparable until I moved away after high school graduation :( received this card in the mail from her mortgage broker. When she emailed to tell me about it, I asked her if she would send it to me….
The inside of the card reads as follows:
“Don’t make any “rash” decisions in today’s market. Call me for expert mortgage advice. I can help.”
Isn’t that cute - do you get it? Rash - diaper rash - picture of babies in diapers…
O.K. -but that is not the really cute part - this is! The front of the card.
Isn’t it cute? Well - it is especially cute because one of those darling babies is MINE! Yes, this picture was taken over 22 years ago as part of a Nike ad when my oldest sweet college boy was 18 months old.
A friend called one day and said she was taking her 18 month old baby to a “call” for babies to do a Nike ad and wondered if I wanted to go along. I said sure - well - my cute little baby was picked and hers wasn’t. Bet she wished she hadn’t called me!
Logan was paid a whopping $25.00 for this photo shoot. He was actually the only baby there at the time - the magic of computers.
So - here’s the contest question - which of those cute babies is mine? Can you guess? Just leave your guess in the comment section below and I’ll unveil the answer on Thursday. All those with the correct guess will be entered into the drawing for a $20.00 Amazon Gift Card.
If you are reading through an email update or an RSS reader you will need to click through the actual blog to leave your guess.
Happy guessing!
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Categories: Family, Humor
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Thursday, March 27, 2008, by Leigh Anne
This week is Spring Break and the girls and I have been hanging out with sweet husband in Seattle, Washington where he had business. We have had fun at the Space Needle, a Blazer-Sonics game (o.k. that was sweet husband’s idea), shopping and pretending to be a rock band at the Experience Music Project.
We stayed at a lovely hotel right on the Pier overlooking the Puget Sound. Our room was very Northwest-ish - complete with a fireplace.
The problem was - the bathroom! Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful bathroom but I am sure that this particular hotel had to have been designed by a man because NO WOMAN would have ever made the mistakes that were made with this hotel bathroom.
Mistake #1 - A clear glass shower door.
When you are traveling with teenage girls - there is no way they are going to allow anyone else to be in the bathroom when they are showering when there is a clear glass shower door.
Now this wouldn’t be as big of a problem if Mistake #2 hadn’t been made …
…the ONLY MIRROR AND SINK was in the same room as the glass shower door!
So only one teenage girl could be in the bathroom at a time and when one of those teenage girls is a Makeup Maven and only has one speed - SLOW - it takes a LONG time to get everyone ready in the morning.
What were those hotel designers thinking!
So the moral of this blog post….when traveling with two teenage girls always check the configuration of the bathroom first!
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Categories: Family, Humor
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008, by Leigh Anne
After sharing with you my Easter Outfit Issue I thought I would share with you a few pictures of my girls in their “coordinating” Easter outfits. I posted these on my family blog this week but thought you might like to see them too.
When the kids were little I would get them all dressed in their matching/coordinating outfits and take their picture. I remember what a frustrating and sometimes exhausting ordeal it was as we would try to get them all to sit still, look at the camera and smile - all at the same time. With no digital photography you never knew until they came back from the developer if you got a good one or not!
I use to think - “When they are older this will be so much easier!” Well - I was wrong.
It’s a lie - it doesn’t get easier - it only gets different!
Here’s the proof!
Even mom got in on the act…
Thank goodness for digital photography and the ability you have to waste dozens of photos trying to get a good one.
Finally…….
Aren’t they cute!
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Categories: Family, Humor, Motherhood
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Friday, March 21, 2008, by Leigh Anne
I have issues, in fact I have shared one of those issues before.
According to my children though, I have a lot of issues. One particular issue that I have only manifests itself three times of year - Easter, Christmas and the Week of the Family Photo.
This issue is - the need to have my children’s Easter/Christmas/Family Photo outfits match or coordinate. Now you would think that with children ages 14, 18, 22 and 24 I would be way beyond that - but I’m not. In fact I spent a fair amount of time at the mall today trying to find “coordinating” Easter outfits for my girls.
We are going with a yellow, black and white color scheme if you’re interested.
Several years ago they put their foot down and refused to wear matching outfits - go figure!
My excuse for this issue though is that it is in the genes. Look at this picture of my sister and I from 1970….
And then there was this one from Easter of the same year…
You see my mother had the same problem - the “Matching/Coordinating Outfit” gene. So of course it was only natural that when I got married and started a family that the gene would kick into gear….
Yes, I made these cute little linen suits for my sweet boys. Then baby #3 arrived and it was a girl so we branched out into coordinating outfits…
And Baby #4 arrived….
Aren’t they cute!
As soon as Baby #4 got a little older and I could find matching dresses for the girls - guess what?
Soon the boys got older and their standard Easter outfit became a white shirt and tie but I still had the girls….
I guess eventually, one day when the children are all grown up and gone from home, I will have to overcome my “Matching/Coordinating Outfit” issue but until then I’ll keep making those trips to the mall.
And then - someday- there will be grandkids!
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Categories: Family, Humor, Traditions
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