Going Private

Well, it's been a crazy day and a half. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, yesterday, UAB fired our head coach and the rest of the staff...Tyson included.

I really don't want to get into it too much on here, but just know that we are okay.

Before every game, I prayed for a win, and when we didn't win, I would still thank God for the loss because I knew it was all apart of His plan for us. Tyson and I both firmly believe He has something fantastic planned for us, and that when one door closes, another one opens. I'm just ready to see what's behind that other door. :)

With all that being said, we obviously will have a lot of change going on in our lives these next few months, and I would like to keep all that as semi-private as I can. Thus, I am going to make this blog private within the next week or so. I hate to do this, but I think this is the best thing for our family at this time. If you still want to follow this blog, just send me an email at bethksummers@hotmail.com with the email address with which you would use to log-in. Sorry for the inconvenience, everyone; I hope we won't lose any followers because of this.

Thanks again for understanding, and we would definitely appreciate any prayers y'all could send this way at this time.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving lunch!!

Our new Thanksgiving tradition...a wienie roast!!

I'm pretty sure Walker consumed over half the bags of marshmellows.

Jake LOVED roasting the marshmellows, but he didn't like to eat them. Thus, Mama and Daddy had to consume a lot of marshmellows last night. :)

Jake feeding his little brother. :)

Check out Jake's new cowboy boots. I made the mistake of letting him try some on and he refused to take them off. I wasn't a big of the boots, but there was no convincing him otherwise!

Me and my big boy

The Grants

The Maddens (sans their oldest children)

Jake and "the other Katelyn"

Yet again, it was another Thanksgiving without our family. Such is the life of a college football coach and his family. :( We had an awesome Thanksgiving anyways here in Birmingham with our friends and one of Tyson's players, Calvin Jones (remember my new BFF?) The Maddens joined us for lunch and then again later that night along with our other neighbors for a little wienie roast (big city style) in our driveway. Ha! The backyard was a wet mess from recent storms, so we put the fire pit in the front yard and had a blast. We may have started a new Thanksgiving tradition! So so so much fun! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Turkey Day at School

My little Indian

Look who came? Daddy! Straight off the practice field with the whistle around his neck and all!

Jake and his friends were being super silly at lunch. :)

Walker got to participate in the Turkey Day festivities, too!

Pin the feather on the turkey!

Walker wanted to pin the feather on the turkey, too.

Daddy and the boys.

And Mommy and the boys. I'm not quite sure why we didn't get a family photo; I guess that would have made too much sense! Ha! Happy Thanksgiving!

To the Zoo with the Madden Crew

Taking pictures of 4 children is almost impossible!

Last week, I took Ryan and Kaitlyn with us to the Zoo to give Ashley a little bit of break. Everyone thought I had lost my mind for attempting the Zoo with all four of the kids, but it actually wasn't bad at all. Well, it wasn't bad...except for the fact that I hit a fire hydrant (twice)on the way to the zoo. ;) Apparently, 4 kids under 4 squeezed into my Honda Pilot plus a Radio Flyer wagon wedged in the passenger seat can be a wee bit distracting. Ha! Seriously, we were fine, the fire hydrant was fine, and my car will be fine once it gets fixed.

After our minor little accident, the zoo was a cinch. I just made sure that Walker and Kaitlyn were buckled in the wagon at all times and had plenty of snacks and that Jake and Ryan were in reach. I even managed to work in lunch, too, which I hadn't planned on. Lunch definitely gave me a run for my money- Jake and Ryan wouldn't sit down and kept running around the people in line and Kaitlyn and Walker kept trying to escape from the highchairs. It definitely tested my patience, but we survived.

So other than the whole fire hydrant thing, it was a pretty successful day, if I do say so myself!

Cousins!

Jake was so serious about taking just "one more picture" that he was not about to let the younger ones get away. :)
Pre-burp

Post burp.

Jake: Was that you, Jace?

Jace: Yep, that was all me...wasn't that awesome?

Jace: Want to see me do it again?

Jake: Whatever, cuz...my lil' brother lets out better burps than that!

Jace: Are we done yet, Aunt Beth?

Somehow I managed to take a trip to Thomaston and Tifton and not take a single picture of either set of grandparents and the boys. :( Sorry y'all! I did get some pretty funny ones, though, of Jake and Walker and their first cousins.

I can't tell you how many pictures I took trying to get a decent picture of the 3 boys with Gracie. The boys were miserable having to be taken away from some hard-core train playing to be photographed over and over again. And then finally, Jace let out a huge burp and, in typical guy-fashion, the boys thought it was hilarious. They kept trying to out-do each other in the burp contest and other bodily-function-noises contest. So yes, the cute pictures above are all thanks to my gaseous nephew. :)

My New Niece!

My beautiful sister and her baby girl!

Jake kept wanting to "pet" her. :) He really wanted to hold Gracie, but she's having lots of reflux issues, so we just kept her still as much as we could.

My sister, Amy, and her husband, Courtney, welcomed Gracie Elizabeth Howell into this world Nov. 7. She weighed 7 lbs 6 oz and has a head full of black hair. She is absolutely precious!!

Since Tyson had an away game this past weekend, the boys and I loaded up and made a quick trip to Tifton to meet Gracie and see the Howells. We actually got to see my parents and Tyson's mom, too, so it was a very successful trip. I wish we could have spent more time in Tifton, though. The boys had so much fun with Jace (pictures from that later) and getting to see our families; sure makes me wish we lived closer. :(

I have some more pictures from our trip that I'll post later. I just figured Miss Gracie deserved her own post. :) I can't believe I have a niece!! She is going to be spoiled rotten with all these boys in our family! Congrats, Amy, Courtney, and Jace! We love y'all!

I Can't Hear You!

Silly silly boys!

A couple of weeks ago, Walker started doing this thing where he puts his fingers in his ears like "I can't hear you!" I don't know where he picked it up from, but I think it's hilarious. And he always seems to do it at the appropriate times, like when his brother is fussing at him or giving him a hard time. It drives Jake nuts! Love it!