The two kids are doing well. Korben is working hard at reading. He still struggles here and there but I think he is beginning to realize that reading CAN be fun. He has to practice on his handwriting. Half the time he can't even read it. Teacher told him he also needs to slow down. It seems that he is trying to be the first one done in school work.
He has taken on a sport now. Matt signed him up to be in a wrestling program sponsored through the Sheriff's Department. And no its not that WWF/WWE whatever crap. Its Greco-Roman style wrestling. He really seems to enjoy it. No complaints yet from him about going to practice so that is good.
He is still in Scouts. He is a Bear this year. He is about 3 Achievements away from getting his Bear badge. Which is awesome.

Julianna is ornery as ever. She turned 3 on Sunday. LOVED to sign happy birthday to everyone and tell them happy birthday. lol Loved her presents and all the attention. She also had her 3 year old check up on Monday. She is around 3 feet tall and 28 pounds. She is right in the middle of the percentile for both. No shots this time around. It helps not being in a day care setting. Those kids have to get a few extra because they are exposed to alot of viruses.

Today we are going to a playgroup Christmas Party. It is about 2 minutes from our house. I am glad I don't have to drive 30 minutes this time.




We put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday. Julianna was all excited and was wanting to open up presents already. lol We ran into a few problems. One set of lights half of them would light up. So we went through all the nonlit up lights and changed the fuses and nothing. lol Oh well.

We Got Elfed!!

Click here to Watch the whole Spurlock Family Dance like Elves!

Here is the newest member to the Spurlock Crew!



He just needs an Xbox controller in his hand to be just like Daddy!

Ok I will have an update in a couple days. I know I said that a while back. But I wanted to post a few pictures from halloween night. We have The Bumble Bee and Rambo!

Korben wasn't too thrilled to wear a wig. But what is Rambo without the longish black hair?! The wig was actual a pirate wench wig. I had to cut it to make it look like Rambo's hair. Julianna was wanting to be a princess BUT I had to put her in the bumble bee costume. Korben was this when he was 3 years old.

Its that time again this year for Boy Scout Popcorn. Korben just got his order form on Monday night so he is eagerly wanting to sell. He already hit me up to order, along with Nana Nancy and the girls at the farm. So the ones who read this if you are interested in ordering any popcorn from Korben let me know. He has to make $200 for his DayCamp for next summer to be payed for. They don't encourage door to door selling so we have to hit up the small amount of people that we know. lol Here is a list of popcorn varieties they are selling. The prices range from $50 to $8. Most people get the 15 pack of microwave popcorn which are $13 each. If you do want to order something let me know. I'd rather do this than try to sell the junk they were trying to sell at school. Gotta love crappy school fund raisers!

Besides scouts Korben has been getting better at school. I was worried about him there for the first few weeks. It seemed that he forgot ALOT of things over the summer. He is getting SO much better on reading. Him and Matt went to a comic book store in Murfreesboro last weekend and picked out a comic book and a storage box to keep the other comics he has in them. He has to read 100 minutes in a week for reading so Matt and I have been encouraging him to read his comics, something he enjoys to do. He actually got a small history lesson yesterday while reading a Superman one. They mentioned the Oklahoma City bombing and he turned to me and asked me if that was real. I explained to him yes that really happened. So he got a small history lesson too! I think he is realizing that you can actually learn from reading. haha

Ms. Julianna is doing very well too. No diapers now for 6 days?! We went to the zoo on Saturday, our first full day out with no diapers. She did SOOO good and we made sure to do many pit stops. She has had one accident at night, but that was because we didn't wait long enough so she could fully use the potty. Using the potty she does all on her own at home. Of course she still comes out of the bathroom with her undies down around her ankles. I keep telling her she needs to pull them up BEFORE she leaves the bathroom. She is coming up with so many new words as of last. Her newest one is "Delicious!" She just said that after biting into an apple. lol This girl LOVES her apples! She will tell anyone and everyone "Bless You!" when they sneeze or cough. And if you don't say Thank You she will keep repeating "Bless You!" till you do.

Little unborn Spurlock is doing well. I don't go back to the doctors till October 4th. I will be 16 weeks then. I surely hope we get to see something. I haven't had an ultrasound yet which is kind of surprising. I feel kicks every now and then. Of course poking at my belly doesn't get the little one to kick. Julianna hasn't really picked up on a new baby. She keeps telling me that my belly is full. lol Korben wants a baby brother. Of course they will be so far apart in age that I don't think by the time this one is old enough to play he will be really interested. But I may be wrong. Of course Julianna wants a sister. lol

All is well here. Nothing really new to report. Julianna is still in potty training mode. She wears her clothdiapers at night and anytime we go anywhere. 99.5% of the time when we get back home she is dry. So the whole controlling to not go is working so far. Of course we do have accidents at home. Yesterday she was upstairs playing. She started walking downstairs and said she had to potty. Made it half way down and peed her pants. oops! At least she knew she had to go and was attempting to get to the bathroom in time.
Korben is doing well. School wise he needs to write neater and focus during class. In spelling he hasn't gotten any higher than a 70% on his tests but is getting 100% on his homework. He is trying his best. He has low self esteem and thinks he can't do anything if it wasn't right the first time. So we are working hard on that. His writing is improving. I was looking over his homework last night and I can actually read it. I like how their spelling homework is set up. Its all based on point system. Like writing words out 6 times each equals 30 points. Doing a word search with those spelling words is 40 points. So however many points you do is your homework grade for the week. I make sure he does 100 points or more.
For reading they have to read 100 minutes from Monday till Sunday so he gets the weekend to read which is good. He is a slow reader and gets soooo mad and frustrated over words. He would rather guess at the words then pronounce them out correctly. But I am seeing and improvement little by little. He just has to slow down and concentrate.
I am doing good. Haven't had much energy all week. SO not much has been done household wise. Its starting to become a mess. I will be 13 weeks on Monday. I've been feeling kicks for a while now. I thought I was further along because I felt movement but nope my doctor did a fundal (?) test and confirmed everything is growing on track for 12 weeks. My due date is still March 21st. If this one is like his/her brother and sister then he/she will arrive around the 16th of March. Julianna and Korben both arrived 5 days before my due date. We have no names picked out. Probably won't do that till I am further along. I am clothdiaper searching/buying. We are going to be doing the prefolds/covers for a while. I don't have the funds for pockets 100% right now. Thinking of making some wool covers form a pattern using old wool sweaters. Figure that would be cheaper than buying the $25 woolies from a WAHM. I did pick up to dyed prefolds that a fellow internet friend made. She has the ApplePieBaby store online. She is awesome at tie dye.
Alright time to go check on Ms. Julianna. Her new favorite show on PBS is Super Why! She loves letters and calls them out anytime they are on TV.

We are still on the road to Potty Training. Julianna has been dry every morning for 4 days straight! And she only has one accident a day on most days. She knows when she has to go and runs in the bathroom and uses her Elmo potty. She tries to empty the little pail but most ends up on the floor. She also loves toilet paper. I found a full roll unraveled on the bathroom floor. That was a fun thing to do, put it all back on a roll.
We are not doing anything for Labor Day today. Just the normal stuff, but Matt and Korben are home from work and school. We may cookout for dinner. Hope everyone has/had a great Labor Day!

Korben lost another tooth yesterday. I didn't even know it was that loose but he said he took 3 bites out of an apple and it loosened up pretty quick. The tooth fairy left him 50 cents and she let him keep the tooth. I told him that his 4 front teeth were worth more and that is why she took them last time.
We had registration for Korben today at his school. He will be going into 3rd grade this year! Can you believe that...3rd grade! I remember my 3rd grade year. That is when Mrs. Doutt got really sick and we had a sub for most of the year. I think she had some type of cancer because she wore wigs off and on in the beginning of the year. Anyways Korben has Mrs. Nichols this year. Same teacher his friend Marissa had last year. Mrs. Nichols is due with a baby on November 5th. So she will be gone that month and in December. She said once they return from Christmas break that she will return. Korben isn't too excited about school starting up. I tried to get him excited by taking only him to the store to get a few things for school, pick out supplies and a couple tshirts but nothing.

Well lets see. What have the rug rats been up to.
Memorial Day weekend we went up to Ohio to visit my parents. The kids had fun at their new house on the farm. I think Korben could live there and not be bored. The day after memorial day the kids, Matt and I headed up to Niagara Falls, Canada. We spent the whole day there. Met up with Matt's friend James. Went to his family owned campground and stayed in a cabin. Spent a day in Toronto riding every transit there was, ferry, subway, street car and bus. Didn't ride in a taxi though. haha. Kids had a total blast. Went to Center Island in Toronto and walked around. They have a amusement park there but we were a day early and they were not open for season yet. The video of Julianna below was at Center Island. She LOVED the birds/ducks.
On my birthday we stayed at the campground. I wasn't up for more car traveling. The traffic near Toronto was crazy. So the kids played in the near by creek. Korben hunted for frogs and Matt swam in the campground pool. Well tested it out. It was clear COLD spring water. He froze. Left on Saturday to head back to Ohio. Stayed at the farm and left Sunday morning to TN.
June 16th we met my parents in KY. The kids and I headed back to Ohio while Matt went on home to TN. We went to Aaron's wedding in VA. We stayed there from June 20-23rd. Beautiful wedding. Julianna threw a few fits but nothing I wasn't use to. I think I was exhausted by nights end. That girl could go on for hours! Dad and Nancy then surprised Korben with a train excursion at Cass, WV. he had a blast and so did Julianna. It was a 3 1/2 hour up the mountain and 30 minutes down. I think Korben's favorite part was the switch tracks. We did that on a Sunday 24th. After the ride we headed back to Ohio for a week stay at the farm. More four wheeler rides, waiting for rain to come so we can all take a bath AND do a load of laundry. haha Korben visited Uncle Dave and Aunt Dea and also Aunt Marlene, Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Paul. It was nice since it was just a walk down the lane to visit people.
Kids and I came back home on Saturday June 30th. Watched the fireworks from Chik-Fil-A. Kids played in the play area and Matt and I ate a late dinner.
This month has been trying to get back in the groove. Doing housework and the kids getting into a routine again. Matt had his wisdom teeth removed on Friday the 20th. He went back to work today. He was having problems with them and wasn't feeling good enough to head to work.
Korben starts school on August 13th. He goes on the 9th to see who his teacher is and get a correct supply list. He is not excited to go back but I am! haha Definitely excited! Its just been one long summer.
Today I have started Julianna on potty training. We are using the cloth Gerber pants and going from there. I won't be using the pull-ups because I just don't like them. Plus I am use to using cloth anyways since Julianna's diapers are cloth. SO far we have had 2 pee accidents and 1 poop accident. I have been taking her to the bathroom about every 45 minutes to an hour depending on if she drank or ate anything before hand. She gives me a high five every time she pees and she gets a sticker to put in her little notebook. She might be getting the hang of it. Might. We will see how well it goes tomorrow. She still needs to tell me when she has to go. I guess as long as I get her into a routine of going it will get her use to going in the potty on a regular basis.

Bella Loving the Bubble Machine!


Julianna chasing the ducks at Center Island in Toronto, Canada.

Korben had an eventful Birthday Party. At around 11am on April 28th he told me his stomach was hurting a bit. I brushed it off and thought it was butterflie over being excited for his friends to get here. Four of his best buddies came over for pizza, cake and ice cream. Well Korben asked me if he could open his presents I told him ok that we would do it out back. We get the presents outside. He gets through half of them and tells me he has to go to the bathroom. I said ok go ahead. Well he comes back out. Looks at me wide eyed, holding his mouth and turns around and pukes in the yard. Poor kid was shaking and all of his friends atarts to hover around him. Matt told them all to go play, Korben will be alright. Korben goes back and finishes up unwrapping presents. After that he goes inside and lays on the couch.
I felt soooo bad for him. At least he got to enjoy a nice evening on his birthday when we went to Chuck E Cheese on that Friday. Korben ended up being sick on Sunday and Monday morning. He is fine now. I ended up getting a 24 hour bug yesterday. I had the weekend stomach bug about 2 or 3 weeks ago. You'd figure I wouldn't get it again. blah.
Julianna went in for her first Dentist Appointment yesterday. She did SO good. Layed there and let the dentist brush her teeth and look in her mouth. I have a picture that they take for 1st vists. I'll have to take a picture of it since we don't have a scanner. But they were all so amazed that she just layed there. It probably helps that Korben, Matt and I help her brush her teeth and always tell her to say "Awww" and to put her teeth together.

Its Korben's 8th Birthday today!! I made him blueberry muffins for breakfast and put a candle in it for him to blow out. He asked me to make them special today. =o)

I sent in Korben's picture to Fox 17 Tennessee Morning Show. His picture was put up and they announced his borthday. The video shows it on TV. Its hard to hear the audio with Julianna in the background though. They were laughing about his picture and said "I feel safe now." haha He was wearing his Uncle Josh's Army helmet.

Korben's brithday party is tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. So far we have 4 of his friends coming. I put a limit of 6 kids because seriously I couldn't handle a whole bunch at my house, especially if it storms like they say. I figure they can play a little bit of Nintendo Wii if it does rain.

Easter Egg Hunt Party April 6, 2007

I taped this back in Feb. 2007. She LOVES doing her ABC's and books. The book she is looking at is the Curious George ABC book. She loves George too.

Just messing around with Photoshop today. Figured I would share what I made.Oh and I am still learning the program, Matt is way better than me though.

It is so nice that Korben actually has all of his homework done before 4pm. Since its so nice out today (75 degrees and partly sunny) we headed out to the back deck and sat on the porch swing to do homework. He read his AR book, worked on some Matt problems (coins/change stuff) and wrote out 10 spelling sentances. He seemed to really enjoy the nice weather and said he will have to do this tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow Korben has his Blue and Gold Banquet for Scouts. He will recieve his Wolf Badge and 2 silver arrow points, map/compass pin and 2 beads for completing stuf fin his handbook. There will be a Hawiian theme so the boys in the den and I made Leis and little Tikis out of paperrolls. They will be having a catered dinner and entertainment. I will bring my camera with me and hopefully catch some stuff in action. Its going to be hard though with me dealing with Julianna. I should have asked one of my friends to watch her.
Julianna's favorite things to do now is to wear pants that have pockets, she digs her little hands in there and walks around like her daddy, dig into my purse and find all of my lip balm/glosses and put every single one on, I have about 3. Dig all of my coins out and drop them on the table, making clinking sounds. She also LOVES lotion and will sneak into my bedroom and apply some to her hands. She does pretty well with it because she never puts too much on. haha I will have to upload her ABC video on YouTube sometime. She has a Curious George ABC book and points to every letter and says them. Its quite crazy since Korben only knew the letters in his name when he was 5.

Winter Snow Storm 2007

2nd Snow Storm

CLICK the pictures to go to the Albums

I swear Julianna was one sensitive sniffer on her. She smells something that doesn't agree with her and she will go full blown with the gag reflex. Twice it has led to me cleaning up the floor. I haven't known a kid that gets so weak in the stomach like that. I just hope she grows out of it.
Saturday morning we had snow again when we woke up. It was coming down so hard, big flakes and all. It last about 2 hours and we got about an inch. Took the kids outside to play in it before Matt came home with breakfast. They got to build (me really) a snowman. Forgot to take pictures of it but I did get the crazy snow falling. I have to upload those pictures and share them along with our other snow fall we had back in January?!? I can't even remember when we had that.
Julianna has a fever today plus a runny nose. Its clear so there is no infections but she is SUPER whiney and just not feeling good. She took TWO long naps today which is really rare for her.
Amber, I have clothes for Chloe for you. I am going through Julianna's clothes today and I have next Fall/Winter clothing. I am going to go through a summer bag and see if I can find any 9-12 months summer clothing. Some are good for outside/daycare extra clothing. So expect a bag in June when we come up or meet in VA for Aaron's wedding.

Click on the car to see more!

Pinewood Derby 2007

The above is from Korben's Pinewood Derby on Sunday. He got 3rd place in his den. But there were only 2 other boys he raced. He was a bit disappointed but I told him we will have to try hard next year and work on it a week or two before the race.

Later on in the week or today I will have an album posted from our little winter snow storm from last week. The kids had fun but it was too cold for Julianna to go out in it. There is still a bit left on the ground. When we go out to the car she likes to step in the snow and hear it crunch.

Report Card!

Korben received his report card today and I am thoroughly impressed. He got all E's and S's in all his subjects (this is the equivalent of A's and B's) and had no checks by any "needs improvement" areas.

I promised Korben when Lego Star Wars II came out for the 360 that I would buy it for him as soon as he made all E's and S's with no checks. I also said he had to read two books and write about them in a journal each week (to improve his reading and handwriting skills) but that kind of tapered off and I'm really not going to hold that over a seven year old. Especially since he's had some great improvement in his report card. I meant to pick up the game, but hit overtime at work and couldn't make the store before they closed. I will see if he'll agree to do one a week, or at least continue his AR reading and write on that.

On to the other child...

Julianna is doing good. We've seen Spiderman 1 and 2 at least 20 times a piece. Thank God they are good movies. Otherwise I would have hid them by now. She's obsessed with Superman and Spiderman (more Spiderman than Superman). Besides getting into everything and having me wrapped around her finger she's doing alright. Except for her schedule. She is basically on my schedule which means she doesn't go to bed until midnight or later and sleeps in until about 9am. Not good. We're trying to get her back on a normal human schedule but it's hard because she's so...Julianna.

Wish us luck.

(PS: Amber, make me an admin so I can fix a few inequities on this here blog. =)