Happy Turkey Day!!

I thought I would go ahead and post a few pictures from our "Family Feast" at my mom's house today...I wish I had taken a picture of all the food (there was tons of it!) but I was too excited to dig in, and I forgot. Anyway, here are a few pics:

This is our table before everyone got there: one of my favorite traditions in my family is that every year, we use permanent markers to write down what we are thankful for on the table cloths. You write your name and the date beside it, and we use these same table cloths every year, so it's fun to look back at previous years and remember what you were thankful for that year. We've been doing this since 2001 I think. Also the leaves in the middle of the table have everyone's names written on them. These are traditions that I would like to continue with my own family.

Some of the "feasting" going on:

My brother Don, and his grandson, Cayden, getting passed across the table to my sister: he is almost 6 months old now and doing great!

Isabelle showing Cayden her tongue.

My little turkey with her Nanee: (not sure why the bow is in the middle of her head.)

Cayden with his Great Aunt April:

Donny with his two boys: (the baby was asleep)

Also here's a little video we took tonight showing how smart my baby is: she knows all her animal sounds! (she got a little tired of this game at the end I guess.)

We hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving!!

"Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations." ~Psalm 100:4,5

Extreme Home Makeover: Ben's Edition

Everytime I talked to my husband on the phone while I was gone last week, he would tell me about a "secret project" he was working on, and how shocked I was going to be when I got back. So needless to say, I was very anxious to get home and see this "surprise" he had been working on. I was a little scared, but mostly just very excited...He had told me he was working on something in the living room/dining room. I knew that he had already bought crown moulding to put up, so I thought that maybe this was going to be my surprise.

If you read my previous post, then you know that I was completely exhausted and sick by the time I got home from my trip. I was in serious need of a vacation from my vacation! Well, let me tell you, I came home to a real treat!! My husband had COMPLETELY redone the living room and dining room!

This is what our living room looked like when we first moved in: Just imagine it exactly like it is with a green couch in front of the window, and a matching green chair on the wall, and a rug. That is pretty much what it looked like when I left last week. No paint on the walls or anything.

When I got home, Ben put his hands over my eyes and led me up the stairs to reveal THIS:
Isn't it beautiful?!? I cried when I saw everything he had done. I had been eyeing this furniture at Grand for awhile, but decided against buying it because I didn't want to spend the money. My sneaky husband went out and bought it for me while I was gone! The only thing that was already there was the rug, curtains, and corner cabinet. He did the rest! He painted the walls, put up the chair rail, and arranged all the furniture. The curtains are still hanging on the old metal curtain rod, so the only thing we need to do now is replace that!


We had our computer desk downstairs on a desk that I had had since high school, with all the wires hanging down in the back, and Isabelle was constantly getting into them, and it was hard to stay organized. There were always papers and stuff piled all over the desk. So he also bought this computer armoire and moved the computer upstairs. Now we have lots of storage!

This is what our dining room looked like when we first moved in:

And this is after Ben put in the new french door: (This is pretty much what it looked like when I left last week, except without all the tools everywhere, and the corner cabinet was already in the living room.)

This is what I came home to on Monday night:

He had put up the chair rail, crown moulding, light fixture, and he painted the walls! He also had the table all set to make it look pretty.

Isn't my husband a good decorator? I think he did a great job picking the colors and everything! I think he should be in charge of decorating from now on!!

He also left a little sticky note downstairs that said, "You deserve to love your home!" Isn't that sweet? I don't know what I did to deserve all this. I keep looking around thinking, "I can't believe this is mine!" Thank you to my sweet sweet hubby for doing this for me! I love you more than words can say, and not just because you bought me new furniture. :)

A very eventful week...

Well, last week was a week full of adventures! Wednesday morning, Isabelle and I left and headed down to Georgia. My friends Sarah, Stacia and I were planning to go down to Florida to visit some friends who had just had a baby. Isabelle and I were planning to stay at Sarah's house for a couple days before going to Florida, but she got sick with a bad sinus infection and pink eye, so we ended up staying at Stacia's house. (Thanks Jack for letting us have your room!) We got to Georgia about 30 or 40 minutes after church had started, so we just snuck in the side door and went straight to cradle roll. It was great to see everyone that night.

Thursday morning, Stacia, Isabelle and I went to visit Ms. Dawn in her new library! Isabelle really enjoyed "reading" all the books and sitting in the circle time chair.

Here are some pictures of her with Ms. Dawn:

After that, we went to Jack and Ralston's preschool for a family feast! The kids were so cute in the their little pilgrim hats singing turkey songs. But, you can see that Isabelle especially enjoyed the "feasting" part:

That evening at Stacia's house, me and the kids went outside to play while Stacia was making dinner.

Here's Jack showing Isabelle his "sweet ride":

And showing her some love...how sweet!

All three of the munchkins:

Friday around lunch time, we left to head down the the Sunshine State! Sarah didn't get to go with us since she was still sick, but we tried our best to have fun without her. :(

When we hit the Florida border, we stopped for a break and took a couple pictures.

My little "sunshine"

Izzy and Mommy

We went straight to Amber and Aric's house to meet little Kirkley.

Here she is with Stacia:

and me:

Here is Isabelle getting to meet her:

Sage and Isabelle reading stories:

Well here is where the really "eventful" part of our trip begins. (To those of you who read Stacia's blog, this is pretty much a repeat of what she said, so don't feel obligated to read it all.)

We left Aric and Amber's house that night to head over to the Weed's house. (They are a family we went to church with in GA, who now go to church with Aric and Amber in FL, and they graciously offered to let us stay in their house while they were out of town.) Well, my GPS didn't recognize their street name, so I had printed out directions on Google maps just in case. We thought this would be a reliable method of getting there, right? Wrong. We're driving around in the dark, and we think we're following our directions. Well, after the first couple of turns, we can't find the next street we are supposed to turn on. We find ourselves way out in the woods on a massive red dirt road, and then we notice that we are almost out of gas. GREAT. We called Amber to try to get us out of there, but we keep losing our signal on the cell phone. My GPS doesn't even know where we are. She is finally able to get us back out onto the main road, so we stop and fill up on gas, then she gives us the REAL directions to Suzy and Carmel's house. (No thanks to Google maps.) So we finally got there, and as we're unloading our stuff from the car, my cell phone battery dies! I'm glad it held out just long enough! (Doesn't this sound like the beginning of a bad horror movie?) Isabelle had fallen asleep in the car, and I was able to get in her into bed without waking her up.

At around 2:30 in the morning, Isabelle woke up and starting throwing up. I ended up having to sleep on their couch with her, and she woke up again at 4:30, and then at 5:45. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep! The next morning we tried to wash the soiled clothes, towels, etc, but couldn't figure out how to use their hi-tech washing machine! It was spinning, but there was no water in it! (No, it wasn't the dryer, I promise.) Isabelle seemed to be doing a lot better, so we decided to go on and take the laundry over to Amber and Aric's house. Well, on the way there Isabelle got sick again, but we had to do the laundry, so we went over there anyway, and kept Isabelle away from all the other kids (especially Kirkley), and I TRIED to stay away from Kirkley. (It was really difficult, because she's so cute, but I did it!)

Anyway, Isabelle didn't get sick anymore for the rest of the day, so we attempted to go to a Mexican restaraunt for dinner that night. Well, she still wasn't feeling good and did NOT want to be there, so I ended up having to go out to the car with her before dinner was over.

This picture was snapped at the restaurant right before the screaming-fest began:

We went back to Amber and Aric's for just a few minutes and watched Kirkley get a bath:

We had planned on going to church with them the next morning, but I woke up with pink-eye, and Isabelle still wasn't feeling good, so we skipped church and headed back to GA after we stopped to say good-bye.

Sunday night, Isabelle and I stayed at Sarah and Larry's house. I figured that since they had already been sick, their immunity would be up, and it would be better to stay at their house than to get Stacia and her family sick. Plus, I didn't get much quality time with Sarah the week before. Larry went out and picked up some pizza for dinner, then we gave the kids a bath before bed.



Won't this be a good picture to embarras Riley and Isabelle when they're teenagers??

After the babies were in bed, we watched Wall-E. It was a cute movie. I think Ralston enjoyed getting to stay up late, too.

The next morning, I woke up not feeling very good, but I knew I had to get on the road again. We let the kids play out in the yard for a few minutes before we left.





Isn't Riley such a ham??

Isabelle thought Ralston's front-loader was too cool. He also has a toy vacuum that she really liked. So I guess she's either going to be a construction worker or a maid.

There was room for two on this cool toy.

This was our futile attempt to get a picture of all three kids together:

I had to get a picture of Sarah and I together before I left:

Well, we finally made it home safe and sound, at around 9:30 monday night. I was so sick by the time I got home, but my husband had a wonderful surprise waiting for me! (More about that in the next post.)

I went to the dr. last night, and found out that I have a pretty bad sinus infection. He gave me some antibiotics to take, and I can feel them starting to kick-in already. Hopefully, I'll be feeling well enough tomorrow to be able to eat lots of turkey and mashed potatoes!

Hope you all have a happy Turkey Day!

Next post: Extreme Home Makeover: Ben's Edition.

There are no words...

I got news last night that someone very precious that we went to church with in GA passed away yesterday. She was very young, and had 5 teenage sons. The oldest is around 15 I think, and she had quadrulpets who were 13 years old. They have not gotten the autopsy back that says how she died, but it was very sudden and unexpected. It just doesn't seem fair. They are such a sweet and loving family, and do so much for the church. I have been thinking about it ever since I found out. These boys will have to face so much without their momma now. They are a strong family though, and I know that God will continue to use them for His glory. Please keep this wonderful family in your prayers, and today, go out and tell those that you love how much you love them. You never know what day could be your last. Or theirs.


James 4:14~ "whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."

It's the CHEESIEST!!

No, I'm not talking about Ben's sense of humor, I'm talking about what a 15 month old looks like after eating Kraft macaroni and cheese:

Enough said.

I love Kroger!

Kroger is having an awesome sale this week!! Buy any 10 participating items, and get $5 off automatically at the register. You're allowed up to three $5 rewards per transaction. All the items listed were things the we actually use, and they were on sale for GOOD prices, plus I had coupons for ALMOST everything that I bought, and Kroger doubles coupons that have a face value up to .50 cents. I bought 30 of the participating items (plus a couple other things we needed), so I got $15 off the already good sale prices. The cashier rang up all my stuff, and before any discounts, my total was $108.45. When he scanned my Kroger Plus card, it took it down to $80.48. THEN, after scanning all of my coupons, it came to a grand total of $50.08!! That's less than half price! This is a great sale that runs through Saturday. My store was already sold out of a lot of the items, so I urge you to go take advantage of it now!! Click HERE to take a look at the ad. Also, take a look at this post on Mommy Snacks for some ideas of a few of the deals.

Halloween and Hayride

I am starting out with pictures I took at my next door neighbors' house. She watches three kids during the day. All three are boys, one a baby, and two of them are just a few months older than Isabelle. Jake turned 2 last week, so Miss Jennifer invited Isabelle and I over to have cupcakes on Thursday.

Here is a picture of the birthday boy:

Isabelle awaiting her cupcake:

Chocolate mustaches:

Sugar coma:

Then we went outside to try and get a picture of Jake and Isabelle in front of the pumpkin, but she wasn't cooperating:

Then we played in the backyard for a little while. It was a fun afternoon.

Friday night, we went over to my sister's house so Isabelle could go trick-or-treating with her cousins. We actually borrowed this flower costume from them.

The mermaid, fairy, and sunflower standing around the pumpkin.

I put brown dots on her face so she would look like a sunflower.

Here she is inspecting her first piece of candy:

She got to ride in the wagon with Sienna. I think she would've been happy to just ride in the wagon the whole time.

We saw this "hot dog" walking down the street, and I just had to snap a picture: I mean, how often do you see a hot dog walking down the street? :)

The sunflower with her Nanee:

I'm trying to get Isabelle to look at the camera in this one, but she's more interested in the candy. I look like I'm doing some kind of funky chicken dance or something:

She wasn't quite so sure about the whole "trick-or-treating" thing. She's not really big on strangers, so she kind of kept her distance most of the time.

Daddy took her up to a couple houses too:

Again, not even interested in looking at the camera:

Saturday, we went to my mom's house for a cookout/hayride/bonfire. It was a beautiful day for it. Up until the sun went down, it was even warm enough for short sleeves.

Ben was our grill man:

Some of the kids playing on the new playhouse and slide:

Isabelle trying to sneak a sip of Aunt Tootums' diet soda:

The kids got to decorate their own little pumpkins:

Here is a picture of all the kids with their pumpkins:

Hanging out around the fire pit:

Here's Susy's "baby". His name is Journey. He was such a cutie in his "parkranger" outfit.





Here we are getting ready to go on the hayride! Another first for Izzy this year.

She loved it.

It was so much fun: we sang songs while Isabelle enjoyed eating the hay. :)

Then the kids got to whack the pinata that looked like a monster:

Enjoying some hot apple cider:

I'm not sure who let this crazy person in: ;) (Love you Bubber.)

But I do know Izzy didn't like wearing his hat:

Izzy and her Daddy:

Lastly, I want to congratulate our friends Aric and Amber! Little Kirkley Grace was born Saturday night weighing in at 6lbs. 14 oz.!! We are so glad she's here! Check out their blog to see her pictures!

Also want to say congratulations to my stepsister, Amanda, who is expecting her third child, and my brother-in-law's sister (does that make her my sis-in-law?), Michelle and her husband Ben, who are expecting their first! There's also a family at church who's pregnant with their second! Lots of babies!!