Emily's 1st Skiing Adventure

We had an awesome day! It was 15 degrees this morning and the forecast said it would warm up throughout the day so we decided to wait until the afternoon to go skiing... so at 3:00 Emily and I had a private ski lesson with Mr. Reid. After a couple of times on the bunny slopes, Emily was ready for the mountain!! So we headed to the lift, much to Mommy's surprise, I thought it would take longer than 30 minutes for her to be ready for the lift! So we found Daddy and spend the rest of the night on the mountain. Emily and Steve were some of the last people down the mountain at 10 PM! At that point, Mommy's ankles were done and I was watching them come down with Hot Chocolate waiting for Em! I was so proud of her, she did great and she had a great time!

Check out the video below...



Check out the skier!!






We ended the night by building a fire at the condo & roasting marshmellows...

Christmas at our House

Here's my favorites from Christmas Eve and Morning at our house...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Fun 08

I had so many Christmas photos, I could only share a few! So here's my favorites from our Gatlinburg trip, Christmas Eve with Crosbys and Christmas Day with My Family. To see more go to my albums on Facebook...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Painting Ornaments

Aunt Debbie got the kids together at Mom's to paint ornaments for the tree... once again Emily took it very seriously and Caleb made a mess, but had lots of fun!

Decorating Granny's Tree

The kids had a ball decorating Granny's Christmas Tree...

Emily was very serious about it, and it had to be perfect. Caleb just threw the ornaments into the tree and laughed, he thought it was a fun game to watch them fall to the floor... Notice the bell attached to his overalls, that was so we could find him as he ran through the house :) Then they found the Christmas bows and it was all over!

Bad Blogger

Hey everyone, sorry I have not posted in a while... you all know life sometimes gets crazy. Some of you know that my sweet mommy has been recently diagnosed with alzheimers as well as a form of dementia. So my sisters and I have been spending lots of hours lately trying to make decisions and plans regarding her care. For those of you praying for our family, I want to say we are extremely thankful and we covet your continued prayer as we have a long hard road ahead of us! We have been trying to spend alot of time with mom lately and for now I want to share some sweet pictures of the kids with my mom over the past few weeks... I will have some fun Christmas updates soon!

Our 1st Days in New England

Just wanted to share a few pics from our 1st few days in New England...

Beautiful Leaves...




Before we left Portland, ME, we stopped at the Portland Head Lighthouse.




Our traveling buddies, Scott & Emily Butcher...



This is our home while in Jackson, NH, The Lodge in Jackson Village.



View from our patio with creek.


One of the many covered bridges, we've seen in NH.


View from Cathedral Ledge today, you could see for miles.



This is Rocky Gorge on the Kancamugus Highway.



Beautiful Silver Falls.



We took a 2 mile hike through Flume Gorge, this was amazing...



All in all, a beautiful couple of days in New Hampshire, tomorrow it's off to the Coast of Maine!

A Visit from Granny

Until lately, we have always gone to Nashville to spend time with Granny (My mom).

She is 77 & lives alone, so she is always asking us to come visit & we do several times a month, but now with Emily in school going down during the week is alot harder!

So I decided to go get her this week and let her spend a few days with us.

You have to understand, my Mom doesn't spend the night away from home... she is the ultimate homebody so the fact that she agreed to come was a big deal! I wasn't sure how it would go, but we all had a great time!

Here's some of the fun things Mom & i did this week...

1. went to a consignment sale in nashville & racked up on clothes & toys
2. had lunch with my one of my best friends in nashville
3. had fun playing outside while waiting on Emily to get off the school bus
4. met my sister for dinner at the Blackhorse and had yummy beer cheese dip
5. took Mom to see Caleb's preschool & meet his teachers
6. took Mom to the church office for her to meet all my crazy coworkers
7. went to eat lunch with Emily at school & met her teacher
8. went to dinner at New China Buffet (my mom loves chinese)
9. Mom helped me give the kids a bath
10. Mom read "Fox in Socks" to Emily before bed
11. Took Caleb to have portraits made
12. Went to have my oil changed
13. Hung around the house & played alot

i know this all sounds like normal mundane stuff, but mom kept telling me how much fun she was having and i realized for mom, these were all adventures, because she spends most of her time at home by herself.

So lesson learned, have mom for a visit more often, she just enjoys being along for the ride! Here's a few pics from her visit...

PLAYING WITH THE TOYS THAT GRANNY BROUGHT US...




EMILY SHOWING GRANNY HER NEW "DANCE"



CALEB LOVES HIS GRANNY

Thankful Part 2....

Thanks for all the prayers for Caleb... his MRI was clear which means no internal problems!!! Everything is perfectly normal, PRAISE GOD! Just wanted to let everyone know, have a great Labor Day!

Caleb's 1st Push Pop

Tonight for dessert Emily wanted a Push Pop. Aunt Debbie was over for dinner and she said, "I think Caleb wants one too..." so here it is Caleb's 1st push pop (of course the only one left was RED!!


His face was PRICELESS!



I made Aunt Debbie clean up the mess, she just put him in the sink and sprayed him down :)

A Lesson in Being Thankful...

As some of you know, Caleb had an MRI at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital today.

Before you start calling me, it was not a big deal, just a precautionary test. To make a long story short, he has a small external birth defect at the top of his bottom and the doctors want to be sure there is nothing going on internally with his spine. They really feel it's just external, but bottom line is if there is something internal, it will be an easy surgical fix and he will be fine.

All that to say, as we walked the halls and spent time in waiting rooms at Vandy today, I was continually thankful for healthy children! I think all too often we take it for granted.

But also I was thankful today that there is a place as great as Vanderbilt Children's Hospital to take care of the children who need that extra tender love and care.

We've now been there once with Emily & twice with Caleb. I pray that will be all the visits for us, but it's good to know they are there if we need them... in the midst of life's craziness, don't forget to be thankful for the "little" things!

My Little Girl's Journey to Kindergarten

Well it's been an eventful few weeks for my Emily Grace... she has officially started Kindergarten. We had Parent Orientation, Open House, Testing Days and today she had her 1st official day...

Unfortunately she was sick yesterday on her real 1st official day so we celebrated today!

I'm so proud of my sweet girl, she is loving every minute of it so far...She came off the bus one day with a sad face, I asked her what was wrong and her answer was "I didn't want to come home!" I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I'm going to take it as a good thing. Here's a few pics of our Kindergarten adventure... (look how little she looks with that backpack next to that big bus)

The Chaos of Cooking Dinner

Any of you that have ever cooked dinner with 2 children in the house will TOTALLY understand this...

While I was making dinner, Emily helped herself to a container of yogurt, half of a jar of Mrs. Dash seasoning and the leftover spaghetti sauce in the jars I was using and she made this lovely creation...



And then I turned around to find Caleb by the garbage can playing with an empty pizza box and a milk jug, check out the grin...




They also succeeded in making this lovely mess...



But I guess all the mess was worth it, we had a nice dinner :)