Emma

My baby girl is 11 years old today. 11 years ago, I was due on Thanksgiving day but because she was considerate even before her birth, Emma allowed her mommy to enjoy Thanksgiving and came on Saturday, November 29, 1997.

Emma, you are growing into an amazing young woman. And even though I miss the days when you were younger, I wouldn't go back for anything in the world. I love the conversations that we have and I love seeing life through your eyes!

When you were in Kindergarten, you learned a scripture that you loved to say(sing) and now it is my prayer that you will follow this verse all the days of your life.

"Show me your ways O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are my God my Savior, and my hope is in you all the day long." Psalm 25:4-5



Happy Birthday, Emma.
I love you,
Mommy

Thursday 13, Thanksgiving Style

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

13 Things I'm thankful for

1. Jesus Christ, He's my Redeemer, my friend and I owe Him my all!

2. Steven, my wonderful husband.

3. Emma, Dougie, Caleb and baby.

4. Freedom, not just freedom given by our Constitution but the true freedom that comes from being forgiven!

5. My parents and my siblings, God has truly blessed us!

6. The godly heritage passed down from my grandparents to my parents to me and that is being passed down to my children.

7. My nieces and nephews, they just make me smile!

8. Family get-togethers, I love hanging out with my family.

9. Laughter

10. The gift of music, even though I can't sing, I love to sing!

11. chocolate (ok, I just had to throw that in there!)

12. Life itself!

13. Y*O*U!!!

"Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men." Psalm 107:8

Funny Story

While Steven, Caleb and I were sitting in the exam room waiting on my doctor to come in, Steven noticed that he had a wet spot on his pants, right near his pocket. The only thing we could figure was that he got wet when we he was washing his hands in the restroom.
Later, I went to have some bloodwork done and Steven and Caleb returned to the waiting room. While in there, Caleb was patting Steven on his legs and he felt the wet spot. Caleb said, "ohh Daddy, you wet. You need a diaper change?"

Steven was thoroughly embarassed but believes that no one in the crowded waiting room heard........right!

I went today for a check up. Everything looks great, except my weight, we won't go there since it's 2 days before Thanksgiving!
We've been busy, recovering from Emma's party, Caleb getting sick on Sunday and trying to get the house back in order...whew. I'll be glad when Thursday gets here so I can relax!
If I don't get back before Thursday...Happy Thanksgiving!

Love y'all!

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas....

Since my family will think I've lost my mind if I started decorating the house for Christmas this early, I figured I'd at least decorate my blog!
So what do you think?
Have you started decorating yet? I know you have BethAnne (are you still keeping the blinds closed?) but has anybody else started?


Here's what Caleb was doing while I changed my blog........oh my!

We have a new blogger.....

My sweet cousin, Kaylan has entered into the blog world! She is a recent graduate of Auburn University but please don't hold it against her. Our family has come to accept that fact! Kidding! ;)

Stop by her blog, "Being Transformed" for a visit and make her feel welcome!

This picture was taken in Costa Rica this past summer. I was and am so proud of Kaylan!

Back to life......

Well it's 10:22pm on Monday evening and I finally have a chance to update my blog! I just had to watch Jon and Kate renew their wedding vows in Hawaii!
Steven and I had an amazing time on our getaway to the mountains. We stayed in the most cozy bed and breakfast. The weather wasn't great but it sure made it easy to snuggle up by the fire and read! We slept in, ate some amazing food, the sweet potato blueberry pancakes were out of this world! I'm going to be making those sometime soon!! And did a lot of sight-seeing. We even went to a drive-in movie Friday night! It's amazing how you forget what it's like to be able to get in and out of a car and you are the only person that you have to make sure is buckled! (I've reread that sentence several times, I hope it makes sense!)

Here's some pictures from our weekend.

The view from our private porch......aaaahhhh!

Who says you can't be 2 places at once? One foot in Ga., the other in Tn.

We hiked, in the rain, to see this waterfall. It was worth it!

As we were driving home on Sat., we saw this rainbow. Can you see it? It was parallel with the top of the mountain. It was so amazing!

As we were driving home, I told Steven, this weekend is exactly what I envisioned. And just so you know, I didn't have any part in making the plans, my wonderful hubby did it all just for me!

I am so blessed!!

I only have a minute....

Sorry I've been m.i.a for a few days. We left Sunday afternoon to attend the Ga. Baptist Convention. We had a great time seeing lots of friends, hearing some great preaching as well as being challenged by our President to remember, "there IS a cause!"
Today will be filled with washing clothes and packing again because Steven and I are going to the mountains for a couple of days! woohoo! In between all that, I've got to get to the doctor today to see if she can give me something else to help shake this killer ear infection I've had for over a week! I've also got to return some overdue books to the library, make a stop by wal-mart and hopefully eat lunch with Emma and Dougie!
SO now you see why I only have a minute!
Happy Wednesday!

Don't hate me because I'm spoiled...

Steven and I have a running joke that whenever we go to my parents we ALWAYS come home with more than what we went with. Not that we mind it, it's just the truth! Well yesterday, Steven went to the John 3:16 Conference and he spent the night at my parents. When he came home this evening, he was bearing many gifts!!! There was some goodies for the kids but what I really wanted to show is the goodies my mom sent for ME!!!

My care package included Dark Chocolate frappuchinos, Peppermint-Dark Chocolate frappuchinos, Starbucks dark chocolate truffles, Lindt dark chocolate truffles (notice a trend here) and because I'm all about eating healthy, a bag of roasted almonds. Now you may be wondering about the almond bark and sprinkles, no it's not a strange pregnancy craving. Last week at the reunion, someone made 'oreo balls'. They were soooo good, so my mom asked for the recipe. When she was telling it to me on the phone the other day, I told her that I thought they would make great teacher's gifts. (I love giving homemade treats.) I mentioned that they would be so pretty if you sprinkled them with red and green sprinkles. So look what she did! Now all I need to get is the Oreos and cream cheese!

Thank you Mom for all the goodies and for the clothes you sent the kids!

We love you!!!!!

Here are some pictures from this past weekend.


This is how they dressed up for school on Friday. Emma the gangsta and Dougie the Spartan!
This was at our party Friday evening. Most of the kids didn't wear their costumes because it was going to be pretty chilly.

Caleb eating his favorite food, a hamburger! He absolutely refused to wear his costume. He screamed and cried when I put it on him, so I gave in. Maybe next year!

Hanging out with cousins at the family reunion.
My dad, far left, and his siblings. God has truly blessed our family.

I'm still here!

I received an email this morning from my 2nd mom checking in on me. She said it had been 5 days since I'd updated my blog, so she just wanted to make sure everything was ok! Everything is fine, we have just been extremely busy! I'm sure you can all relate. On Friday, I basically spent the whole day at the kids' school. They have a costume parade/contest in the morning and then have parties around lunch time. Because of the distance from home to the school, there was no sense in me driving back and forth. By the time we got home, it was just about time to get ready to head to our friends house for a Halloween party. We had a blast. They live out in the country, so we had a scary hayride through the pasture. Some of the dads hid out there and scared the kids when we rode by. I think the dads had more fun than the kids.
Then on Sat., the kids I headed to a family reunion. It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun getting caught up with aunts, uncles and cousins.
Of course Sundays are busy for everyone and so by the time Monday got here, I just wanted to crash. Other than taking the kids to school, we stayed home and didn't do much. I did do some laundry but we were just exhausted.
I haven't even loaded my pictures yet, although I didn't get many from Halloween. Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and hope you don't have to wait in too long of a line to vote. It's going to be a late night!