A little bit messy!

Last night we had a good old fashioned dinner! Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls! For my meat and tater lovin boys that was a might tasty meal! We decided to just let JC have the spoon and attempt the potatoes on his own. He knows how to eat with spoons and forks, really! I just have chosen up to now to not do this at home for the obvious reason that he will make a huge mess that I then have to clean up! They often gave them foods at the daycare that they would have to use utensils to eat. They also would strip them down to their diapers! Not a bad idea I think. He really did quite well with it though and I must say that he does better with the spoon at his age now then Drew did at that age.

Check out the evidence of some good eatin!

Make sure you look closely at the mash potato on his forehead!


Of course Drew (always the ham, never the humble!) wanted to get his picture taken as well. Daddy decided to be funny and give him bunny ears. But they are crooked bunny ears, which makes him look even sillier, if that is possible!


He had potato everywhere! Even under the table!


We are looking forward to a great holiday weekend! We are having some friends over tomorrow night to bring in the New Year. Hopefully the weather won't be too stormy as they are predicting it to be. I am sure there will be more pics and stories to come after another weekend of celebrating!

Morning Worship

I often get a little testy when Jim gets to stay home from work and I have to go, like right now while he is still on Christmas break. It is a bummer to have to get up earlier than everyone else and leave before my boys even get up. But on the positive side of this I love those days of driving to work alone. I have about a 30 minute drive and when I am alone like this it most often is a time of personal worship through song. This week I bought Chris Tomlin's newest cd, And If Our God Is For Us. I have loved all of his cds and this one is no different! So, this morning as I was driving and listening to the words of the songs and singing along where I had already picked up the lyrics I found myself deeply moved by one song on the album, All To Us. The entire song is awesome but particularly the end when he sings about seeing Jesus face to face and worshipping Him forever just brought chill bumps all over me! I found myself suddenly imagining what it would be like to be in the presence of my Lord and Savior, Jesus, and to be worshipping Him through song! It was an awesome feeling and thought. I hope that you have that same hope of eternity with Christ. If you don't all you need to do is call on His name to save you.

Here is a video of the song. It is just beautiful pics and the lyrics on the screen. It is a long song but I urge you to watch it all the way through and really focus on the words of the song. I hope it blesses your day just as it did mine!

Some changes at the Mayo house!

We have been very blessed through the years to have many pieces of furniture that were given to us from other family members who no longer needed them. We even have some pieces that were once in Jim's grandparents home that his grandfather made. We also have many items that my step-dad has made. I love having all this furniture that really means something to us. Over the years we have slowly replaced the items that were no longer in really usable shape. We have bought a bed and a couch and have been talking about a dining room table for several years. We have had two tables that my sister gave us to use as they got newer ones. While we appreciate this the last table we got from her is crazy ridiculous! It was driving us nuts!! We were on the verge of going furniture shopping and trying to buy something on 6 mon same as cash and pay it off with our income tax return. We are also planning some big moves with the boys over Spring Break. We have a bunk bed in storage at my sisters that we plan to put in Drew's room and have the boys share that room to sleep in and keep there clothing in and make JC's room the play room. Up to now JC's toys have just been in the dining room and living room, which was nice for keeping an eye on him but meant that toys were scattered all over the living room ALL the time! So I have been kinda anxious to move that stuff too. We have had a day bed set up in JC's room that we had even before we were expecting him, again a hand me down. It used to be where we would put Jim's mom to sleep when she would come up but now that JC is in there that does not really work, so she just sleeps in Drew's bed and he sleeps on the couch. So in the play room we had planned to put the tv from our bedroom and buy us a new one for our room. Well Saturday night the tv in our room just died! It was somewhat frustrating but we just let it go that night since we were planning for the baptism the next day and did not want to let something so silly get our spirits down.

Well, that pretty much gives you all the back ground info, now to get down to the nitty gritty of the story! The couple my mom works for is moving into a much smaller place and as a result are getting rid of a lot of stuff. So I told my mom if they had a table they were not needing anymore I would be interested. So mom called me on Sunday afternoon to tell me that they had a table that we could have and that she was there with my dad and uncle and could load it up and bring it to us. Well I was excited! I did not really care what it looked like, I just wanted the other one out of there!! A few minutes later she calls me again to tell me that she also had a tv that we could have. Well now I was just giddy! So they roll up to our house and unload the table, which I thought looked great! And a 27inch tv! Now mind you that the tv that had died the night before was 13inch! So now we not only have a tv in our room but we can actually see it! And we now have a great table in our dining room that is perfect for us and we were able to put the old table in the kitchen and create a little work/homework space and it will still work great for Drew to eat breakfast at in the mornings. I have pictures below to share with you!

The new dining room set up...


Our hutch was in our kitchen but now in the dining room...


The items on the hutch are new additions as well. The tile with our initial on it and the verse was a gift for Christmas from my parents. The karosene lamp and the dove candle stick were items from the home of Jim's great aunt and uncle. His aunt passed away several years ago but his uncle just recently passed away. Their son sent several boxes of items from their home for us to look through and disperse between us. When were were at my mother-in-law's for Christmas we went through them and these are two of the items we brought home.


These baseball gloves were also part of the items we brought home from his aunt and uncle. Jim's grandfather actually cut the patterns for the gloves to be made. I am not really sure how we are going to display them just yet. We got 3 so there would be one for Jim and then each of our boys.


Here is the new kitchen set up. We have all the computer equipment sitting on here as well as the stuff we need for homework time. The little cabinet next to the table is where we keep all the crayons, marker, paper, and coloring books that Drew uses and eventually JC too.



We are just amazed at how God provided these things for us! They were not needs in our life, but they were a want and we are so thankful that not only does He take care of our needs but likes to bless us with things we want too!

Drew's Baptism!!

Sunday was a wonderful, happy day! Of course, we know that the most important thing for Drew was when he ask Jesus to be the Lord of his life on October 27, but, following that up with the obedience of baptism was a true blessing. I cannot really describe that feeling. It is something I have thought about often in the last several years, knowing that soon we would come to a point of Drew being ready to make this decision. It was just a moment of pure joy and peace, knowing that my sweet baby boy was now a child of the King! He was so very excited on Sunday morning when we headed to the back to prepare for the baptism. He got dressed and we had a good 15 minutes to just wait until time for the baptism. He was pacing the floor he was so excited. He kept going up and down the steps and putting his hand in the water and his foot a couple of times! We had time to take a few pictures while we waited...



This is Bro. Alan, our Children's Pastor. He baptized Drew. I actually used to be Alan's secretary when I worked at Longview Heights before Drew was born. He and I have been friends for a long time so it was very special to have him baptize Drew.

Drew was so excited when he was done. He came to the back to get dressed and told me "I cannot believe I just got baptized! I am so glad I did that!". I was so proud of him.

We had a large group of people there to see it. Many of our friends from our old church as well as family got to come and be part of this special day. I am glad that we have pictures and that I have been able to write all this about it so that one day Drew can look back and remember it all!

Christmas 2010

I had wanted to post all about our Christmas yesterday but I have been under the weather. I think the holiday probably just caught up with me, but thankfully I am now feeling better.

We had a wonderul Christmas! The boys were so excited about their gifts. Drew got a new bike, a movie, and a dragon egg (an egg that disolved in water to reveal a small dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. JC got a Little Tikes work bench and a Tonka Race Track. Drew has not really gotten to use his bike a whole lot. It has been very cold. It actually snowed all day on Christmas. Just flurries though, nothing that would stick. It was actually really nice because it was fun to see snow on Christmas and not have it actually mess up the traveling. He did go out and ride it for a very short period of time on Christmas. There will be a video on here of it. Watch closely in it and you will see the snow!

Here is a picture slideshow of our Christmas fun!

Personalize a picture slideshow

Here is the video of Drew riding the bike.


That is gonna be it for today. I wish I had time for more but that is it. Tomorrow evening I will post some more and include pictures from Drew's baptism!!

Christmas Eve

It is 8:30pm. I have just finished preparing meatballs to be cooked in the crockpot tomorrow, a breakfast casserole for Christmas breakfast, and iced a red velvet cake that looks incredible, if I do say so myself!! It has been a full and wonderful day.

Today we had Christmas with the Mayo family. We arrived in Batesville at about 10:30am, which was about an hour and a half later than I had planned on arriving! But we were still there in plenty of time for me to help my mother-in-law get things set up for lunch. We had a great lunch together. It was all lighter types of food, fruit trays, chicken nuggets, chip and dips. We all decided that we did not need everyone to spend the morning cooking. Of course, as soon as lunch was done the kids wanted to know when we would be opening gifts! We settled everyone in the living room for all the passing out. The kids distrubute the gifts and then we open them in order by age, youngest to oldest. So JC was first, since he is the baby! He has still not really been into the unwrapping thing but he did seem to get the hang of it by the end of his stack of gifts!

As you can see he had help! His brother was close at hand to help him along. I don't think it was as much about helping him as the fact that he would be the next to open and the sooner he could get his brother done then he could rip into his own!


This bear was JC's favorite thing he opened! Memaw gave this to him. He immediately starting hugging the bear and laying down on the ground with it like he was ready to go to sleep!


Next it was Drew's turn...

Drew had fun getting some new things, what kid doesn't!

After all the unwrapping was over we had to get the kids by the tree for the traditional photo of the grandkids! My batteries started dying at this point so they are not the best pics...

Jim and I realized when we were looking at these on the computer that they sat in sibling groups! We thought that was interesting. Of course our kids, JC and Drew are together. Jim's sister's daughter, Samantha, is in the middle and on the right are his brother's children, Will and Mary Allison.


Drew was trying to be a good big brother and keep JC straight during the pic taking, but JC was slipping away and Drew decided to try to pick him back up, by the head!! They are quite a pair!

Here they were drumming on the box of Lego that Drew got from Memaw. They both have drummer in the blood!

Oh, what a wonderful, lazy, morning!

As I type this I am still in my pjs, smelling the sausage for our Christmas morning breakfast casserole simmering in the pan as well as the traditional Red Velvet Cake birthday cake baking in my oven! Oh what a wonderful morning!

We had an awesome day yesterday! Some very good and sweet friends watched the boys for Jim and I to have a little date. We went to lunch at one of our most favorite places, The Olive Garden, and went to a movie, The Little Fockers. Lunch was wonderful and the movie was HILARIOUS!!!! We had such a good time. We got a little bit of shopping squeezed in there too. We went to Lifeway to purchase Drew a personal devotional book to give him Sunday as a happy for his baptism day. We also went in H.H. Greg to get some batteries for my camera. I know that was probably not the most sensible place to go, but even if I paid $5 more than they would have been at Wal-Mart it was well worth it to avoid being in that place!!! I am glad we went in that store though. We had fun looking at all the TVs and making plans for what we would like to have when we have to replace ours. We are planning to purchase a new one for our bedroom in the late spring so we were able to get some ideas about what size and all from this little shopping trip. The boys had a great time over at our friend's house. It was just all around a wonderful afternoon!

We came home and prepared a quick dinner so that we could get ready to go see Christmas lights! We loaded up in the car, in our pjs, to cruise all over the Olive Branch area looking at lights!


You just cannot beat some good cheap fun like that! JC only made it about half way through our outing before he was snoring. And I do mean snoring!! He had not had a nap at all yesterday so he was really tired!


This morning we are being extra lazy! I got up and fixed us some breakfast. A lady from the church I work at brought us in homemade biscuits and sausage for us to take home and cook for our families. It was so sweet of her to do that and we greatly enjoyed them! Jim said the biscuits were almost as good as his grandmothers. It was great to have a breakfast that was basically already cooked. I am going to get cleaned up as soon as I finish this blog so that we can get ready to go to my sisters. My mom is taking she and I out for our birthday outing to dinner and a movie. Jim has graciously agreed to keep all 6 boys!! But he says I owe him big time and has not told me how I have to repay him yet. But it will be worth it! We will be heading south to see Jim's mom and do Christmas with his family tomorrow. I should have more pics to share soon!

Christmas with the Hanks

Tonight has been a wonderful night! We celebrated Christmas with our good friends the Hanks tonight! I will write more about that but first lets recap the week thus far...

I only had to work through today this week! Yeah!! That means I am off for 5 days. I am so very excited about that. I do really love my job and going to work is by now means something I do not look forward to. But, it is just nice to have some time off. Especially when Jim and the boys are getting to stay home without me when I do have to work! I worked pretty late yesterday and today but I think it will be well worth it to have these days off.

Last night we went to a fellowship with our new Sunday school class. We had such a great time and I felt like we really got to know some of the people better. You just don't become friends with people by sitting in a classroom together once a week. We had some great food and the kids, and adults, baked and decorated Christmas cookies. After we left there we drove around some neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights. We plan to do this again tomorrow night. It was rather late last night and JC was getting pretty tired but tomorrow we plan to go out and do it after dinner. Drew had a good time looking at all the lights.

Tonight, as I said before, we had Christmas with the Hanks.


We ordered pizza and my friend made my favorite, eclair cake!! After we had eaten we let the kids open up their gifts.
Drew got Toy Story 3 and a Hotwheel car.


JC got 4 little trucks that are just the right size for him to push them around on the floor with his hand.

He had a little help opening his! He is still not really into tearing the paper off of the gifts.

We gave each of the girls a purse with their initial on it. Inside the purse they each had an accessory for their American Girl dolls. Mackenzie got a pair of purple eye glasses. Erin got a pair of roller skates. Rebecca got a purple headband. I think they were all very excited about their gifts.

After the unwrapping was done they all sat down to watch Toy Story 3.

They are a crazy bunch but I love them all so much! God did not give me daughters of my own but I love these 3 girls like they are mine.

Well, I am tired! It was a long couple of days at work and now all the fun tonight has just worn me out. We have lots planned for the next 5 days. Tomorrow Jim and I are going out for a lunch date and a matinee movie. Thursday I am going out for some girl time with my mom and sister to celebrate our birthdays. Friday we will be in Batesville and of course Saturday is Christmas and that will be a busy and full day! So I am excited not to be working but we will be staying quite busy during my time off.

I will try to keep the pics and stories of our fun coming!

Another busy week in the book!

Well it has been another busy week of Christmas gatherings and work and finishing up a semester of school. It was a good week. Drew had another great week at school and got to have a party on Friday. I think he brought home more candy from the party than he did at Halloween or the Christmas parade combined! I really do not know what we are going to do with all the candy we have here now! JC had a good week at daycare. It was his last week there. It was a bittersweet day. We are excited about him staying with Elizabeth's but we will miss all the people there that have been so wonderful to him. He had a party on Friday also. They did a book swap and he got a great Christmas book from his friend, Harris.

Thursday night we had a party at a friend's house. It was several families from our old church. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them and get caught up on things. The kids all had a great time. Jim and I both miss so many of our friends from there but we are also thankful that God has given us a great peace in our decision to join another church.

Friday night I had choir practice at church to prepare to sing our Christmas program this morning at church. I was so tired that night! I had to go to Walmart after the practice so that made for a very late night!

Yesterday we did get to sleep in a little bit. Elizabeth had a birthday party for two of her boys yesterday. Nathan will be turning 10 on December 23! I can hardly believe that he is already turning 10. He is such a grown up little boy. He loves to hunt and play in the dirt. He actually shot his first deer not too long ago. I am so proud of the great young man that he is becoming! Also, Ben will be turning 6 on December 29! Ben is Drew's best bud! They had a great party. The kids had a great time.

After the party we headed to mom's to celebrate Christmas with my two step-sisters and their families. We had a great evening of food and fellowship. We have a traditional ornament swap that we do Dirty Santa style.

So it was an incredibly exhausting day, but a good one!

Jim's mom actually came to the party at mom's last night and then came home to spend the night with us and go to church this morning. The choir performed the Christmas program during the morning service and the children's choir sang one of the songs so she got to see Drew perform as well. After church we went out for lunch and then she headed home. We came home and all took a pretty quick nap before we headed to New Prospect to see their children's choir perform. All of Stephanie's girls were in it and they did such an awesome job!! All the kids really. I got to see many of my kids that I had taught in Sunday School and in Awana, that was great!

Well, I am tired now and kinda rambling! So, I guess I will just close for now. I have not taken any pictures lately, I know that is just terrible, I will try to do better this week.

It's Saturday morning and I am blogging from home!!!

I am so excited that we now have the internet at home again! This is a big help to my blogging, obviously! And it is a big help to Jim. He can now post grades and lesson plans from home rather than having to go to the school in the evenings. He has not planning time during the day so he is unable to do those things at school, like most teachers do.

Well, of course, I have some catching up to do!
Last Saturday we had a VERY busy day! We had the annual OB Christmas parade. My friend Stephanie went to the parade with the boys and I. We had a great time! The weather that day was PERFECT! Not too cold, not too hot. The boys had a really good time. Here are the pictures...
Getting ready to leave

Steph and the boys waiting on the parade to begin

Steph's girls are on the top of the firetruck. Scott, her hubby, is standing on the side. He is not the one waving in this pic.

And the highlight of the parade, in my humble but accurate opinion, the OBHS Marching Band!!! Jim actually saw us this year, maybe the first time ever, and actually talked to us!


After the parade Jim and I had to leave to go to my staff Christmas party. The boys stayed home with a babysitter. We had a great time at the party. There was incredibly awesome food and good fellowship with friends. We got home about 8 that night and got everyone ready for bed. Sunday was a pretty low keyed day. We did not have anything special going on and that was nice because the week ahead was going to be a busy one!

Tuesday night Jim had the Middle School Christmas Concerts. They do two of them now, one for 6th grade and another for 7th and 8th. They do them on the same night, they just do not have a large enough auditoriam to have one concert, so they just do them an hour apart. We went to the 6th grade concert at 6pm. We ended up having to just stand on the side because there were no more seats. The boys did great though and seemed to really enjoy the music. It's kinda scary to think that in just 5 more years that will be Drew up there!! We tried to hang out until time for the 2nd concert but it was just too long and too hard so we gave up! It worked out well though because I brought them on home and got them in bed on time.

On Thursday evening I went to the Ladies Christmas Dinner at New Prospect with Stephanie. It was really nice to see everyone from our "old church". I really enjoyed the evening and got to eat some really great food again and enjoy some beautiful entertainment by a gourp of 4 sisters that call themselves All Four Glory.

Yesterday was Drew's Christmas Program at school. It was a western this year. Drew did not have any special parts this year. He did get to sit on the front row though. Here are some pics from the program...

Drew is on the very front row...


This morning Jim is at the Men's Prayer Breakfast at church. This is the first time he has been able to attend. The last one was during band competition season. He was excited about going and was actually picking up a friend from Sunday School so that way he was with someone he knew. The rest of the day is going to be pretty boring. It is raining out today and the temps are a little warmer but there is a massive cold front coming through tonight. The temps over the few days will barely get above freezing and the over night temps will be in the teens!!!!! I am really not feeling well. I have taken a pretty bad cold, which I think I got from JC. He and I shared a spoon one day last week and he has had a running nose going on. I really think that is what started it in me. I am hoping that my body will fight it off without a trip to the doctor. We have our Christmas Program next Sunday morning and while I am not singing a solo or anything I would sure like to be able to sing without being worried about my voice cracking.

I really need to stop typing. JC is getting pretty wild and it trying to get to the computer! I have neglected them for blogging long enough for today. I am snapping some pics this morning so I will try to upload them later today or tomorrow.

I have mentioned that I am excited to have internet at home again!!

Soon to have home internet again!!

And hopefully that will mean more up to date blogging!

There is so much to blog about today I hardly no where to begin! I guess I will just give a weekly run down of what has been going on and hit all the big stuff along the way.

So lets start with Monday. It had been a good day for all the Mayos. We were doing our thing at home, homework was done, laundry was going, dinner was cooking. Jim was on the phone with his mom and I was busy with something, I cannot really remember for sure what it was now. But, I remember knowing that JC had run into our room and that I needed to go get him. Usually him running into our room just means he is trying to find Leo! So, I finished what I was doing and went to get him. Well I discovered that the bathroom door was shut, not big deal, he loves to shut doors. Then I tried to open the bathroom door, it was locked! I panic! I am running to the laundry room, screaming at Jim that he has locked himself in the bathroom. I pull all the towels and rags from the cabinet digging for the emergency key to the doors. This was where we had kept it before. As I am digging I remember that we had to use the key before to get in Drew's room because the door had been mistakenly locked. After that incident we had put it in the drawer in the boy's bathroom. I tell Jim to look there and he gets the key and runs back to the bathroom to release the bad child before I could even get down from the step stool in the laundry room! I just could not do anything but laugh at this point. He was not even phased by it! Jim was on the verge of breaking the door down! He is amazing sometimes!

Tuesday morning as we were getting ready to leave for the day I noticed that JC's right eye looked really red. We looked at it, cleaned it out really good and put some pink eye drops that we had in the medicine cabinet in it as a precaution. I really did not think that it was pink eye but most likely just allergies. Well, he did not make it at daycare but about an hour before they called me about it. Jim went and got him and took him to the doctor. They said it was mild pink eye and gave us a prescription for drops. He was not going to be able to go back to day care until Thursday. We were not really sure what we were going to do on Wednesday. Neither one of us really could miss an entire day of work. We ended up getting Elizabeth to keep him on Wednesday. This is the first time she has really ever kept JC. He had a wonderful day over there. Elizabeth has been trying to convince me to let her keep JC for some time now. We talked about it a little bit more that afternoon and I told her that we would talk about it more. Jim and I looked at the numbers and it will save us $55 per week! Not to mention that with Elizabeth we only have to pay her for days that she actually keeps him. So if he is sick or if we are on vacation or if Jim is out of school for a day or what have you we will not owe her money. So we will save atleast 2500.00 per year just because of the cut in the weekly amount and having to pay at the day care regardless of whether or not he attends. Of course there will be some extra gas expense by going to her house everyday, but that is a minimal expense and still means a massive savings each week. We are excited about it and she is too. She does not keep very many kids each day now that all but one of her own are in school. He will begin going to her house the week after Christmas. She is going to keep JC and Drew two days that week to allow Jim to get some work done to prepare for the semester ahead.

We will be going tonight to my mom's Christmas program! I am excited about that. We are planning to get some dessert somewhere afterward and visit a little. Tomorrow is the OB Christmas Parade. That is always a fun event! We love to watch the parade. We especially like to watch the OB band and look for Jim. My best friend, Stephanie, will be going with me and the boys. We always have a lot of fun. Tomorrow night is my staff Christmas party. We got a sitter for the boys so they will be able to have their normal routine that evening and be ready for bed when we get home. I am looking forward to an evening with good friends and some awesome food!

Now I am going to post a lot of pictures.

This is sick JC from a couple of weeks ago. He was loving all the attention that he was getting this morning. I had propped him up on his boppy pillow in the recliner with his milk. Such a typical man!!


This is JC on any typical afternoon. He thinks that if there is food in the oven it should be done immediately so he can eat it. So he will stand there and talk to the oven. We think he is telling it to hurry up and get done!


This afternoon he decided to play Peek-A-Boo with me and the camera!



Since the oven was not responding to his demands he decided to sit down and learn some letters!


Our decorated tree! Simple, but beautiful I think!


JC watching the Christmas parade. He is sitting in the storage box for the train track, what better place to sit and watch the parade!


Christmas Card Photos; Take 1


Take 2, probably the keeper. JC would not wear his Santa hat!


The Christmas Ham who wanted me to keep taking pictures of just him!

Sunday

I wrote this blog on Sunday. I just now have had a chance to upload it! I am about to do another blog with more info from the last week and pics.

Sunday, November 28, 2010:
Well, the Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone and now as I sit on Sunday afternoon typing this blog post I am wondering how the last 4 days have passed by so quickly! We really did have a wonderful holiday though. It all started off on Tuesday evening. We went to Southaven that evening to go grocery shopping at Aldi and Kroger and we went by my sister’s house to get her old Christmas tree. She decided to buy a new one so we got her old one, which is a 7 ft tree that is very skinny. It is a bit taller than our old one but the thing I really love about it is that it is so much less tree around. So, after we picked up the tree and went to the grocery store we decided to have dinner out at the IHOP. This has been one our favorite family dinner locations. The kids eat free there and they eat well there, so it is great! We came home from there and actually put the tree together. I did go ahead and put the angel on top and the ribbons running down it, but we were not going to decorate it until the next day. Wednesday I did have to work but Jim stayed home with the boys. I got to come home a little bit early and we began the decorating when I got here. We really did not put much out this year. JC is in such an active stage and he has a tendency to get into things, so we decided that it would be safer to decorate very minimally this year. It looks very nice though and it will be fairly easy to clean it all up after Christmas is over. Usually we have all decorated together but this year is was mainly just me doing it! This was mostly because JC was so busy trying to get into all the boxes of decorations that Jim pretty much just had to corral him away from the living room! Drew was just busy doing his own thing so I did not have a whole lot of help. That night, after the decorating was done, Drew, Jim and I sat down to watch a movie. I had gotten A Christmas Carol from the Redbox. It was about 7:30pm when we sat down to watch it. We got to the part just before the ghost of Marley was to appear and the dvd messed up! It was quite frustrating! Jim called the number on the back of the case and the person at Redbox was most hopeful. They gave us 2 codes for free rentals. Jim was able to go and get us the same movie at another location. However, by the time he got home it was after 9pm! It was nearly 11pm when it was over and we went to bed. It was fun though. It was a really good movie and Drew enjoyed it. We all slept in on Thursday morning. We had prepared a breakfast casserole the night before so I got up and cooked that and perked some coffee and we have a wonderful breakfast and then just sat around and watched the parade. It was nice to relax and spend some great time together as a family. We headed to my mom’s around noon and had a dinner there with all my family.

Well that night the real fun began! My mom, sister, aunt, and I headed out to begin our Black Friday shopping at 11pm on Thanksgiving night. We went to Wal-Mart to be there for the sale beginning at 12:01am. We got back to my mom’s around 12:45am and headed back out for Kohls at 2:30am! Yes, you read that correctly, 2:30am. We were there at 3am when they opened the doors. We were in Kohls for quite some time since it took about an hour and a half to check out. After leaving Kohls we headed to Target and after that it was nearly 6am so we headed to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. By then we were in serious need of some nourishment and coffee for fuel! We headed on to the mall in Southaven after that and then on out to the mall in Collierville. I got home just before noon. So that was over 12 hours of shopping! Oh my, I just realized that as I typed it, I am pretty nuts!! It was fun though. I did get some awesome deals but mostly I really enjoyed the time of fellowship with the ladies of my family!

Yesterday we went to my mother-in-law’s for Thanksgiving with Jim’s family. It was a really great visit with them. Jim’s brother cooked the turkey and dressing and they were both incredibly good! It was a really good afternoon. Jim and the other guys helped get her Christmas decorations out so that she can begin her decorating. Drew played with his cousins and seemed to have a really good time. He is a several years younger than them so he is just getting to an age where they really can play all together. It ended up being quite pleasant outside yesterday afternoon so they were able to play outdoors some too. It is always good for them to be able to get outside and burn off some energy.

Today has been a mostly usual Sunday. We went to church this morning. I went and met some friend’s for lunch. It was so nice to visit with them. We have not gotten together for some time. We sat and visited for hours at the restaurant.

Well, it was a busy but wonderful holiday! I know that before we know it we will be celebrating Christmas. The weeks ahead are so very busy with parties and activities. I will do my best to blog as often as I can. I am trying to type out my thoughts at home and upload them when I am in the office. So until next time that is all!

Trying Something New

So I decided to just type out what I would have blogged on Friday night on my laptop. I saved the file to my phone and then put the file on my work computer and am now going to copy and paste it! Pretty ingenious I think!

I just watched the most delightful movie, Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. I got it from the library today. On Fridays I try to take Drew by there to get some movies for the weekend. They are free there and we get to keep them for the entire weekend. This movie was the story of Beatrix Potter, the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It made me laugh, made me smile, and made me cry! I highly recommend it!

Well tonight Jim had the last football game for this year. We managed to make it to the second round of playoffs and played South Panola tonight. Of course we lost, but from the reports I have heard thus far it sounds as though we put up quite a fight. The boys and I stayed home. It is just too cold now to be out at the ball field with the boys. We had a good evening here at home. JC actually took a late afternoon nap because he did not nap good at day care and I really did not want to put him to bed early on a Friday night only to have him wake up early on Saturday morning! So after his nap I fed them dinner and then we did some big cleaning out in Drew’s room. We cleaned out all the toys and put things in there proper place. We filled up a box full of toys and books to give away. Drew was really very good about it. I had prepared him ahead of time that we were going to do this but I still expected the whining and begging to keep some of the silly happy meal toys and stuff! He was so good about it all though, not once did he complain about something I wanted to get rid of. I was very proud of him. I hope this is a result of some spiritual growth in his life.

Well that is it for tonight. I got another movie for Jim and I to watch tomorrow, His, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. We will see if Jim can stay awake for it after a full day of house cleaning!

Long time no blog :-(

Things have been pretty crazy lately! I keep thinking that things will slow down soon but I am afraid I am just kidding myself. My blogging is hurting a great deal because we do not have the internet at home right now. We cut it off when the school year started due to Jim getting a pay cut. We do hope to turn it back on after the first of the year. Jim has work that he can do from home if we have it and right now he is having to go to the school all the time in order to do it. So I hope that I will be more current on my blogging then. For the time being though I will just continue to do the best I can! We started off this week pretty rough. Last weekend I went to the Flea Market in Tupelo with my mom and sister. We had a great time. It had been a while since we had gotten to do this. I actually bought the very first of my Christmas presents while there so that was great. I got home that afternoon about 3:30 and just as I arrived home my best friend, Stephanie, was dropping off her girls for the night! I was really excited to have "my girls" to spend the night and to go with us to church on Sunday. I had thought about all the great things we could do together, like paint our nails and all watch a movie! Well it just did not all go like that! Jim was not feeling good at all. He had already been sick for most of that week and was putting off going to the doctor. It ended up just being a non-stop afternoon and evening of just getting dinner ready and getting them all to bed. By the time Jim and I got back to our room for the night we were pretty wiped out. And, by then they had gotten a bit too loud and woke up JC so he was in our room, wide awake! He ended up going back down for us pretty easily about 10pm. I then went into the bathroom to do my normal routine of taking out contacts, washing my face, and brushing my teeth. Apparently as I took my contact out of my right eye I scraped the surface of my eye with the tip of my finger. It hurt soooo bad! It made it very difficult to go to sleep that night. Sunday morning it was still really bad and I of course could not get my contacts back in. We manage to get everyone ready and get to church though. It was not my best Sunday! It was hard to see and my eye just constantly watered. We ended up eating lunch with our friends in order to get the girls back to them. We went home and put everyone down for a nap. We went back to church that evening for our Operation Christmas Child box collection service. Drew sang with the children's choir and did so well. He did not act scared or upset at all. It was a very sweet service as we listened to a woman share about her experience of actually taking the shoeboxes to a country in South America for the distribution. She showed pictures of children living in a dump, an actual dump. It just made my heart ache for the poverty all around our world. We just do not realize how blessed we really are. This year we are not doing nearly as much for Christmas as we have in the past, and Drew knows this. With pay cuts and unexpected repairs to our home we are just not able to do much. Even the little we are doing though is so much more than the kids that will be getting the shoeboxes. I cannot thank God enough for how He provides over and above our needs. Sunday night Jim and I had made the decision that it was going to be a doctor visit on Monday for both of us, as well as JC. JC was all congested and following his typical pattern of getting an ear infection. So Monday morning started off at the doctor's office. It was determined that all of us had sinus infections, Jim had an ear infection, and JC was close to an ear infection. My eye was okay, just scratched. Jim and I both got sinus shots, I got a flu shot, and we all got prescriptions for antibiotics. I am happy to report that we are all feeling much better now. Jim is still having some issues with his ear being closed up but it is improving. It was extremely bad infection in his left ear. He has a football game tonight and I have instructed him that he must wear some cotton in both ears to keep the infection from returning. It has made for a really long week and extra busy at work due to missing a day. Thankfully we have no plans for this Saturday other than cleaning our filthy house!! The house must get cleaned this weekend so that we can begin decorating for Christmas next week. I really don't even care to decorate! I know that is aweful but I am having a really off year when it comes to Christmas. I seem to go through cycles like this. I am either really excited and ready for it or I am dreading it. This year I am dreading it. I can say that I have now just about gotten my shopping done so that has helped a bit with my attitude about it. Also, I think that it is going to be a hard year for decorations with JC. He is quite the mischevious little boy! I think it is going to be a lot of fun for the actual Christmas activities with him this year.
Well, that is all for now. I am finishing up this post on my phone, which is much more complicated than on computer!

Big Things Going On!!

The most exciting news ever!!!

A week ago today Drew ask Jesus into his heart to be his personal Lord and Savior!! This is something that Jim and I have been praying about for a long time, really since he was born. We are so excited that he made this decision. He will begin attending a class for new Christians this Sunday. This is for about 7 weeks and then after that we should be planning a time for him to be baptized. Of course we will let everyone know and hope that many of you can be there with us for this very special time!

The last week has been very busy with activities! Last week we made the big move into the new office! I am so excited to have a real office of my own! The new space is really beautiful. The guys that worked so hard can not possibly know how much their hard work is appreciated. The move was very successful and without great incident.

On Friday I had promised Drew to take him to see my new office. He was very excited to see it. I also took he and JC out on the playground at the church for a little play time. Here are some pics from our time playing!








They had a great time, as you can see!!

Saturday morning we got up and had a very leisurely morning at home. This was Jim’s first Saturday off from band competitions. After getting a little extra sleep and a great home cooked breakfast we got ready and went to Cedar Hill Farms for some great fall fun! See the pics from our fun below…










After all our fun at the farm we went and had lunch together and then did some Walmart shopping. It was a very good day but by the time we got home we were all worn out. I made a nice hot pot of bean soup. The weather was perfect for a relaxing evening in the house with a good fall meal like soup!

Sunday was Halloween. We had our Fall Festival at church so the kids got to dress up and have fun and stay safe. JC was a lion and Drew was Luke Skywalker. Check out all the fun below...










We were really glad that our friends, the Hanks, could join us for the fun. This was our first Fall Festival at our new church home. It was a great time. We are starting to make connections with people and build some friendships. We are so thankful that God has brought us to LHBC.

Yesterday afternoon we took JC for his first haircut! He was so good, really better than I had anticipated he would be. Here are some pics of this momentous occasion!









Well, as usual our days are busy! I was told yesterday that we are only 7 weeks from Christmas. I am now in panic mode! I cannot believe that it is almost that time of year. I am looking forward to the holidays and the time spent with family, but I am not looking forward to the shopping. I seems I go through cycles where some years I am on fire and have everything done before Thanksgiving and then I have a year, like this one, where I seem to be dragging my feet and dreading it all. I think the most important thing I can do in all of it is remember why I am celebratin. It is the time for us to remember the birth of our Lord Jesus! This year will be especially wonderful since Drew will be able to celebrate it as a new believer!

Well, that is all for now!