The Tomlinsons: Hair Chopping

Day 145 (Friday 8-16):

SAM'S CLUB! Yes, we got to go to Sam's club. We don't have a membership, we used to, but Doug's sister (and her hubby) took us with them. Doug was a little disappointed there weren't more samples. My niece Madeline had a birthday earlier in the week, so they got a giant cookie to celebrate. We accidentally dropped it in the parking lot, face down. At least it was IN a carrier. I didn't look quite as nice, but it tasted delicious. We left Sam's and they dropped their daughter, Claire off at school. We made lunch plans to get gyros at a Mediterranean place. I love gyros, like boarder line obsessed with them.

I bought this purple top with black leggings and this skirt for Kora. My child will never wear this monstrosity. It's a fuzzy black mini skirt. The kids have enjoyed putting on their heads. I can put up with it's hideousness for dress up, but not in real life.

Oklahoma! On the way to Sam's (back road between Moore and Norman)

Hay bales.

The crew at Sam's.

I want this wagon. But if something costs more than $1, I have to think about it for about a month.

Tim right after he dropped the cookie, then picked it up. I love the way Shevaun is holding Kora...she is such a stinkin' handful. :)

Kora was cranky, I figured hungry, so Aunt Shevaun shared a chocolate rice krispie treat with us...it was a smidge on the messy side.

She was asleep about 10 seconds later.

Since we figured they'd take a little longer than us I ran into Walgreens to get a couple things. It's on the corner, and a lot of stuff near it was still in pretty bad shape from the May 20th tornado. We couldn't figure out if the tornado missed the place or if they just cleaned everything up already. I ended up asking the cashier. It's funny, I used to not strike up conversations with too many people when I was out and about, but that's how I was able to get Thai practice, so now I'm kind of like a super friendly old lady. It is was it is, and I'm not sorry. And I found out the tornado did hit them, but they had a fairly quick turn around on getting the place back up and running. I took a picture of a collage they had made to show what it had looked like before.

Okay, so according to their sign, they were closed from May 20th till July 10th, so that's a pretty quick turn around.

Back to the gyros! Uh-mazing! We also got hummus and pita bread and some type of yummy drink. I think it was a cherry italian soda or some such.

Pita and paprika hummus...mmm..I love America...or whatever country "Mediterranean" food comes from. I feel the need to google it now....okay, so "Mediterranean" applies to all the cultures adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea...so pick one. And quit making fun of me, I'm blonde, I'm terrible at geography and history in general, what are you gonna do...educate yourself with google searches.

Doug and I split this food. They only gave us 3 tiny triangles of the bread that goes with it. Doug was appalled.

We also had an eerie view out the back window: it overlooked where one of the elementary schools had been that got hit by the tornado. It's bizarre how you hear about these "tragedies" and then you move on, unless you lived it and then it's still right in front of you for quite some time. Keep praying for the families affected, many lost homes, jobs, and even family members, for them it's not over. Pray that God would bless their families and make himself known to each and every one of them in a special way. Pray that God's people will continue to offer comfort, safe haven, and God's amazing unshakeable LOVE. It's amazing to see how God make good come out of something terrible, he is so faithful.

It's crazy to see whole streets where there used to be houses and now everything is flattened and there are piles of rubble.

Friday night family night!!! A couple times a month, Doug's siblings and mom get together for family night. This was Strandee's (combination of Stephen and Randee..they're kind of like celebrities) week to host, the food was epic. Cavatini and my favorite strawberry dessert, plus Madeline's giant smoosherated birthday cookie. We were staying at Doug's mom's place and she invited Madeline to stay the night and we had a girl's day planned for Saturday.

Kora playing in Tim and Shevaun's back yard. I feel like they should get a special combo now, so here it is: Tivaun's place.

Kees loves to drive!

Cousins!

Tim had a load of fence pieces that needed carried into the backyard. Doug helped!

This dessert's name is unoriginal and not befitting of it's fabulousness, so I am hereby renaming it "The Epic Strawberry Trifle Serenade" And if you'd like to make this at home, and I suggest you do, especially if you're planning to invite me over. Here is the recipe. I'll also give you a general Cavatini recipe, we usually make it with Italian sausage, not just pepperoni and I don't add the mushrooms or bell pepper, but wouldn't be opposed to having them. We've also been known to add black olives, because why wouldn't you?!? Okay, here is the recipe for that.

This was right after we caught her eating cat food.

Grandma with a couple of babies.

Chatting around the table.

Watching Oomi Zoomi...or whatever it's called.

They might be a little close to the TV.

These boys LOVE Uncle Doug! They wanted to sit right by him.

Madeline is way, way to big! 15 years old, crazy, and more crazy.

Little T loves collecting bottles. He has a trillion and don't you dare try and get rid of any.

Jacob snuggling Kees, so sweet.

Playing on the ipad at Grandma's (after we left family night).

This is why I'm tired at the end of the day, okay, middle of the day, you got me, it's really more like mid-morning.

Before you say it, my children look nothing alike!

Look what Kora found!

Day 146 (Saturday 8-17):

GIRL'S DAY!!!

Starting my day with snuggles...I'm not really sleeping...I took this one myself.

I kind of invited myself along because I love girl's days. Madeline got her hair done and her first ever eye brow wax! We had Subway for lunch and while we were busy with all our girlie goings-on, Doug took my little kidlets to play with their cousins. So I have a few pictures I snagged from him.

Playing on the swing with Claire, at Tivaun's place.

She found dress up clothes!

Madeline's new hair do!!!

I also got my hair cut. I'm still getting used to it...it's been a couple weeks in real life.

Yeah, it hasn't looked that good since, apparently I have neither the patience or the skill set to make it look like that, but it looks okay most of the time...I think. I think anything was going to be better than my standard messy wet bun from before. I'm so lazy, er, I mean busy, yeah, I'm really busy, so I don't fix my hair.

All of Madeline's siblings stayed the night with Grandma since she was have a slumber party. We ate pizza, went swimming, and watched a movie. It was so much fun. I am enjoying and appreciating time with family so much!

Claire, on our way to swim. Love that little lady.

Grandma and Claire.

In the hot tub

The pool was too cold for this Momma, Daddy humored them, but he's half fish.

Miss Clairey Bear.

Alex was trying to avoid getting his picture taken.

More swimming.

It's a Doug sandwich with kidlet bread.

Walking back to Grandma's apartment, Kees was a baby burrito. (The other day he asked if we remembered when his friend Pi Tone would wrap him up like this to make him a baby burrito. We definitely remember, so glad he does too!)

Day 147 (Sunday 8-18):

Can't remember too much from this day. We went to church in the morning, Kees went to my Sunday school class and we got to share for about 5 minutes in the morning service for the missions update. We went to eat at the Catfish Roundup, but for some reason I didn't get any pictures. I'm thinking it was because Kora was quite a handful and I barely got to eat. Why do we take her out? Someone remind me. Everyone took a nice Sunday nap, I didn't think Kees would take one, so I was just gonna relax on the couch while he played cars, but he ended up joining me. So funny. My dad took this picture of us. :)