The Johnson Times

January 4-7

2012-01-19T00:02:00.000-05:00

The year of the silly hats

On our way home!

How can you NOT take a picture in front of this?!

Got home. Unpacked. Did laundry. Unpacked more. Put away a bazillion things. Enjoyed our last days of "no school".

Went to the Zoo. With dad. What a great day. Did NOT remember my camera. But it was kind of nice not lugging around the camera. Instead I just enjoyed the day... and took pics on my phone.

My poor kids could not see

Our Orbeze lamp

The Greatest Show on Earth - at the circus!

2012-01-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

With our homeschool friends

Blake asked if his muscles were real or fake

Yep, she's catching the poop. We were all amazed by her :)

What a view for lunch. We went to Bayside, right across the street from the Arena.

Kourtney and Josie, homeschool friends

January 8-14, week in review

2012-01-18T23:25:00.002-05:00

Birthday date with Kourtney's best friend, Gracie. It was an American Girl tea party at Starbucks, dinner, and a movie.

Travis speaking at LPC. Only a few months left in the theater! We can't wait to get in our own building!

Homeschooling in the beautiful outdoors. 74 degrees, low wind and humidity.

Blake doing "Cliff Bar" math, lol.

McKenna started her first dance class at Paramount Dance studio. She was so stinkin excited. She did such a great job. I had a hard time not peaking through the window the whole time. She has 30 minutes of tap and 30 minutes of ballet. I forgot to take my camera but I snapped a few on my phone.

Kourtney had softball evaluations. She had a good time. From soccer to softball. She loves to play sports. She also loves making friends. I think she's gonna have a good time. Also forgot my camera on this night.

Went to "The Greatest Show on Earth" - Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers Circus. Very very fun. Went with a group of moms and Aunt Marcela. I loved it. The kids did too. Ask them what their favorite part was... the elephants pooping :) See more in the complete Circus post.

Beautiful sunrise on our drive to the keys to get some shots for our trip

Playing Uno at PACE with friends. So excited PACE is back in session!

Setting up the trampoline! Hurray

McKenna lost a tooth! Yes, I see her teeth were dirty. And yes, this sweet girl has gotten her mama's teeth. Permanent ones growing in behind baby ones. I see braces in our future.

Jackson and Vicksburg

2012-01-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

We left the kids with my parents for a few days and headed for a little getaway in Mississippi. I loved it there. So pretty. We stayed in Jackson and visited Vicksburg for a day. This was the Vicksburg Courthouse.

I love this! Early 1900's multi purpose baby carriage/high chair/stroller. Genius.

A coffee house in downtown Vicksburg

Place where Coke was first bottled. yummo.

Travis really liked this intersection

Vicksburg Battlefield Park

We biked amazing trails while we were there too!

Met some sweet ladies at church on Sunday

And then came home to our sweet little angry birds

Then back home to a cool front in Homestead!

Christmas Day 2011

2012-01-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

The kids were up fairly early and waiting for cousin Chase to wake up to open presents! They were very patient. Then around 9 when they decided they could not wait any longer (and neither could mom and dad) they started calling outside of Chase's room, "Chase, it's Christmas morning!"

We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 before we open presents. This year the kids acted the story out with the Little People as it was being read. That was fun. Wish I had video taped it.

One of my favorite things we did this year was give the kids each $20 to spend on each other and let them draw names. They had SO much fun. They shopped at the Disney store and Barnes and Noble. I really did feel like they were more excited about giving those then getting something. The girls even added extra money from their own allowance to get more for their siblings. Kourtney had Blake and she got him a Buzz Light Year nerf ball gun.

Wanting a kiss from brother (he is not big on kisses)

Kourtney spent her own money and got McKenna Pascale stuffed animal.

Awwww

McKenna got Kourtney a stuffed animal dog from 101 Dalmations

And then Blake bought McKenna the same thing. She was so excited.

We tried to slow things down this year and let people open one gift at a time. That lasted for a while :)

My mom's idea of a stocking :)

Getting a yearly Jump Start Membership (learning/playing website)

McKenna and her fijit friend - her number one request this year

And Britt got a Kitchen Aid

The Lego started set! Yeah!

Starting to get crazy in here!

The boys playing legos... all three of them

Steaks on the grill for dinner

I love Chase's legs on Blake

Travis' "Tebow" pose

Our Christmas tradition... burning all the paper and boxes

The girls decided they wanted to make their own outdoor Christmas tree. So they got branches, dug holes, and decorated the trees. It was so cute. Grandpa helped out by gettitng some lights for the trees.

Christmas Eve 2011

2012-01-07T23:52:00.000-05:00

Aww... Aunt Brittany with all the cute kiddos.

The plan was to get a beautiful picture of Grammy and all her grand babies. So we got all dolled up before church and headed outside. The Johnson kids know how to pose on cue...

Then it was time to add Chase into the mix. He was tired! And wanted his mommy. These pictures are cute though. The cousins tried to keep their pose... but Chase was so cute to laugh at!

I love Kourtney looking at Chase here!

Kourtney was so proud that Chase fell asleep in her arms at church. She loved helping with Chase and babysitting him!

Christmas Eve Service at Robert Church of God

Kourtney was reading the Christmas story with Sarah.

I think McKenna was just ready to get her candy cane

Leave it to Kevin

Christmas Eve dinner at a really nice place. Can't remember the name of it. But they had triangle shaped crayons so they didn't roll off the table!

Finishing up the ginger bread house

Photo bomb!

Again with the blurry! Boo!

Chase was reading us a Christmas story

Arm wrestling Uncle Kevin

Sound asleep

What is funny about this is that we don't really do Santa, but Kourtney REALLY wants to believe in him. That is fine with me, as long as she knows who bought the presents :). We always take a picture with him, write a note, and leave cookies... even if all the presents really aren't from the fat guy.

Christmas 2011 - before Christmas

2012-01-07T23:03:00.000-05:00

So I got a camera for Christmas! A Canon Rebel to be exact. The picture of Kourtney above was the first picture. I decided to get all artsy and play with my camera so there will be a lot of those kind of pics here... and of course tons of my cutey kiddos.

This was the Christmas of the bikes! Travis' present to himself was a bike for me. I love him. Kourtney and Blake also got new bikes. And we loaded them all on our van and brought them to Louisiana.

I never see leaves anymore so the kids and I always enjoy a good leaf pile at my parent's house.

"The Wall" at my mom and dad's house

My handsome 4 year old Blake

Wednesday night service

My mom has always had these pretty houses. The kids love them. So do I :)

Battleship with Grandpa

Decorating cookies

Kourtney whooping my dad in Scrabble

My angry bird

We all loved our animal hats this year

We discovered a really cool park, Tammany Trace, about 25 minutes from my parents' house. We took our bikes there. It was very fun!

They also had a Christmas tree display there. And we discovered there were lights to look at after dark. So we decided to stay and see them!

As I was still learning my camera it took me a while to figure it out in the dark. Oh well!

And then Uncle Kevin and Aunt Brittant arrived with my sweet nephew Chase!

Blake loves to race and will take on any challenge!

2012 here I come!

2012-01-06T23:52:00.000-05:00

2011 was a rough year for my blog. In January we started our adventures in Homeschooling. Wowza, that took getting used to. No more leisure time during the day while the girls were at school, no more naps for Blake, constant activity in the house. By the end of the day I was wiped out and blogging was the last thing on my mind! I love it, it just took some getting used to for me. Then in July my computer took a crash when we had maxed out the storage from so many pictures. In the process of transferring pics something happened to my mac. By the time I got that straightened out my camera broke! I digress...

I now have an awesome new camera (Merry Christmas to me!), my computer is fixed, and I am determined to do one blog a week with pics and updates. I hate not being able to look back on my year.

So, I will start with the nearly 500 pictures I took at Christmas. Here we go............

So last summer...

2011-10-13T22:06:00.000-04:00

... I decided to drive to see my parents. Just me and the kids. 941 miles. It was an amazing trip! Our first stop was Lake City, FL. We had Steak and Shake (first time for my kids) and stayed at our favorite hotel, Country Inn and Suites.

The next morning we stopped on the way to see my friend Jessica. Friends since like forever. Love her.

Kourtney fell asleep licking her lolly pop. So cute.

Made it!

My parents church

The youth room - lots of fun had here!

Slip n slide

We can never visit my parents without having smores

Some kind of bites on feet and arms :(

Grandpa and Blake watching baseball

Chuck E Cheese

A new discovery... the Children's Discovery Center in Hammond. So much fun.

Mani time for all the girls.

Secrets during church

Louisiana cousins

Horses across the street from the church.

Old legos Kevin and I used to play with

Celebrated McKenna's birthday a little early

Stopped on the way home for a visit with Erin and her adorable boys

Junky food on the way home. Stopped at Country Inn and Suites again

Got to swim at night in the pool. The kids loved swimming indoors and were happy to not have to put on sunscreen!

On the way home we stopped at Downtown Disney. Again, just me and the 3 kids... in a crazy crowd. But they did great and we had a blast. Even got to dance around on the splash pad.

Oh, and they all made a lego person

4th of July (yes I know it is October)

2011-10-13T21:13:00.000-04:00

I'm just a little behind with my posts so here is our 4th of July 2011! We had a great day. Shopping at Prime Outlets, food at Papa and Nana's house, then fireworks with friends at the Racetrack. Only a little disappointing that they left the lights on at the Racetrack and the fireworks were only 15 minutes :/ But other than that a great day!

Critter visit

2011-10-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

We have friends who have animals and they came to our house for a little show this summer. Some friends and neighbors brought their kiddos by and we had a blast. They had a pig, a snake, a skunk, guinea pigs, bearded dragons, a squirrel, bunnies, and a raccoon. I think that was it :). There are 97 pictures in this post because all the kids were so cute and I was too lazy to weed through them.

And here is Blake laying in the middle of the floor. He owns the place.

He thought the pig was stinky

The start of our homeschool year

2011-09-27T00:09:00.000-04:00

We were very excited to get back from our summer trip and jump into school! The night before first day of school the AC went out in our house. So we stayed the night at JT and Anne's house. But the technician saved the day Monday morning and we were able to have the first day of school at home. Travis and Blake were on a road trip so it was just the 3 girls. My plans for a nice breakfast together were thrown off by the AC so we treated ourselves to a movie when school was over.

This was so cute. McKenna colored on her "Completed" folder. She drew a picture of Kassie running in circles being happy that McKenna was done with her work for the day!

We went with Sonlight curriculum this year. The above picture was our "Box Day" and it was fun :).

PE Class at Jump a Roos!

Painting!

A little field trip with some other homeschoolers. We went to Robert is Here for milkshakes and animal watching!

Dress up day!

Bunnies and chicks at the Mexican Market

Making a poster for our sponsored child and writing him letters

Math and Handwriting at Starbucks. This was the first day Pumpkin Spice Latte was out so Mommy treated herself.

The splash pad in Homestead

Playdough!

So far so good! We are enjoying our year and new curriculum. Also we start PACE this week. It was delayed while we found a new building to meet in. The kids are very excited to get back.

I'm a soccer mom

2011-09-19T23:19:00.001-04:00

I am a soccer mom. Got the swagger wagon to prove it. I was so excited that the girls got to be on the same team. So much easier for this first time soccer mom. They have practice on Tuesday/Thursday with games on Friday. That's a lot of days! But we are all loving it. The girls have made some sweet friends on the team.

Last Friday we had our first game as the "Hurricanes." A name chosen with the help of my girls. There was a girl who suggested the Lady Gators. No way. Kourtney wanted it to be spelled "Her-icanes." She's so smart.

All the girls wanted to be goalie first! After Kourtney's quarter as goalie she announced it wasn't as exciting as she thought it was going to be. Mostly because we were so good! The final score was 5-0 against the Blue Angels.

McKenna got the wind knocked out of her and took a breather on the side lines. But she was ready to go back in quickly!

And then there was the time when McKenna played on defense and looked more like she belonged at Donna Lee (the dance studio). She was performing dance moves for us.

Blake has made a few friends too.

And a few cute videos...