Lots and lots and lots to post about!

Last weekend we were at Margaret's(Jim's mom) for the weekend. We had a great visit with her and got lots of things done around her house. The weather was VERY nice. Not quite shorts warm but near to it! We enjoyed some time outside playing. We even took Leo with us for this trip and he seemed to enjoy his brief time as a country dog! Here are some pics of the fun...
Drew and I were playing a little soccer

Beautiful Spring Flowers

Leo enjoying the outdoors

I have been off work the last two days. Yesterday we went to the zoo with some new friends. We had a wonderful time. The weather was absolutley gorgeous!! The only hiccup was that it took us over an hour to get to the zoo! Seriously, we got there in the regular 30 minutes it takes from our house but sat in a line to get into the parking lot for over 30 more minutes. Drew was with our friend's because he has spent the night with their son. They were already in the zoo. I really think that had he not already been in there we would have just left. But, I am glad we did not because it was a good visit. We got a new zoo membership so now we will be able to go as often as we would like. This is the best way to see the zoo because it makes for a really long day if you try to see everything. This was the first time that we have taken JC and he could really enjoy it. He walked quite a bit on his own and we just had to push the stroller. I was glad we had it for the LONG hike out to the van though! Here are some pics of our fun...

Here is Drew posing for a pic, oh never mind, that is a real monkey! HAHA!

After our trip to the zoo we started working on our big Spring Break project, moving the boys into one room! They are now sharing a bunk bed in one bedroom and we made the other bedroom a play room. Here are pics of all our hard work.

The Playroom...

JC took his nap on his mat on the floor of the playroom today.

The Bedroom:

And here they are as we laid them down for the night about 30 minutes ago,

All was good until after about 15 minutes of them being down Drew decided that he needed something to eat. Well now JC has been up and down and up and down. So we have now gotten the spank stick out and are going through that drama! I know that it should be expected to take several nights to break him of this. The easy thing to do would be to give up and set the baby bed back up, but we can conquer this!

The room rearranging has been an all day project. We also had to go through tubs and tubs of clothes to get their summer stuff ready and box up things that Drew no longer can wear and to clean out all the stuff that JC has outgrown. I think we probably went through 4-5 tubs worth of clothing. It was quite a chore but it is done now! We have their upcoming fall clothes in a tub in the back of the closet so we should not have to do this again until next spring really. It is not that bad when you realize it is only major work about once a year. Now we have a huge stack of yard sale stuff in the garage. I have to look at the calendar and figure out when in the next few weeks that we can have a free Friday night and Saturday to do this. It will definitely take an entire Friday afternoon/evening to get the stuff out on tables and priced to sell. We have a lot of stuff to sale now. Some furniture, some clothing, lots of baby stuff. Hopefully we can make a little bit of cash to go towards our upcoming anniversary trip. After our long day Jim grilled out. We had deer steaks wrapped in peppercorn bacon! YUMMO!! I do not know why I would ever go out and pay for someone else to cook me a steak when I have the best right here! It was awesome. After dinner we took the kids over to the parking lot at the school for Drew to practice riding his bike and for JC to play on his 4-wheeler and the Lightening McQueen car. It was just wonderful weather for this. We took the bubbles too and they played with them for a while. We were there probably about 45 minutes, right up until dark. I am glad we took them over there. Drew did great on his bike. Having open space like that really makes a difference in their riding. He is getting more comfortable on the new, bigger bike he got for Christmas. I put the training wheels back on the old bike today and lowered the seat down so that it would be ready for JC when he can ride it. Here are pics of the fun at the school parking lot...

Well friends, as you can see it has been one busy, exhausting day! So, I will bid you farewell for now! Until next time!

Well, it is officially Spring Break!! WHOOP, WHOOP!!!!!

I think I am probably just as excited about Spring Break as Jim and Drew because a week off of school means a week off from homework for the mama!! Seriously, in the first grade homework is really a job for the parent, not the kid!!

Last weekend Drew had his birthday party. He had a sleep over. It went really good, probably better than Jim and I expected. We had 6 boys total at the party and 5 of those spent the night. They stayed up until 1am! And they were up before 7am! They really were good though. We never had to really get on to them for not sharing the games and toys. Noone was rude or unkind to anyone else. It was a really good experience and I am sure we will repeat it next year!

So here is the entire gang...

doing what they did for most of the night, playing the Wii! I looked back at the user log and it was played for almost 5 hours on that day! YIKES!
They had a great time. Here are some more pics of the fun...

It has been a busy week, as usual. I have been trying to do better about getting the camera out and taking just everyday shots of the boys. I had really gotten out of the habit of that. Here are some pics of the brothers being brothers...

Drew, perfecting his goofy face for the camera.

I love this one! I cannot remember what he was doing but I just love that face! This was before the big booboo to the head.

Bubba Lovin'!

This is one of their favorite things to do. They like to get on the computer and watch shows on the Disney Junior Channel online. Drew likes to play the games and stuff too. This evening they were watching Imagination Movers. They kept getting up and dancing when they would sing, it was HILARIOUS! But, I did not get the camera out and capture that, maybe another day.

And you can see from this picture that he actually ate dinner after his bath since it is all over his pj shirt! This is not our typical routine but Jim had a meeting that night so we did bathtime early. You can also see that the glue has come off the wound and it is healing nicely. It does look a little bit more like a scab now. That is mostly due to him messing with it some, I think he is going to be a picker! Also it seems that the wound spread a little after that glue came off and that is causing some of it. But it looks really good and I know that with time there will barely be a scar.

Well, we are heading to Memaw's for the weekend! I will have the camera and plan to capture some pictures of them enjoying some outdoor time in the country!

Until next time...

Busted Head

This is how our Monday started! JC fell into a toy at my sisters and busted his head open! So we had to rush to the doctor to see about getting him sewn or glued shut.

He was not even phased by it! The expression in this picture has absolutely nothing to do with pain or discomfort but simply his temper flaring because Jim and I would not allow him to run all over the doctor's office! He was great through the entire procedure of glueing the the wound shut. Jim held his arms down and I held his head while the doctor worked. He laid there perfectly still and only got antsy toward the end of it all while we were just waiting on the glue to dry. Jim and I were both very calm through it all. YES ME, I actually did not freak out! I think I have come to expect this sort of thing with JC. He is very destructive and completely fearless. I dare say this will be the last of our incidents with him!

Here are some after shots. I waited until after we had cleaned him up for the night because he looked pretty grimey and his hair was all crazy, I am sure from them cleaning the blood off of him.

7 years ago

7 years ago today at about this exact moment I was getting ready to push. For those of you that know the entire story, you know that the pushing never got me anywhere and that at 11:30 that night they delivered our 6lb 11oz baby boy by c-section. I was barely even awake to see him for the first time. But the moment I saw him I loved him. This year Drew's birthday is extra special to me because he is not just 7 years old now but he is 7 years old and has Jesus in his heart! I would like to take a few moments to just describe Drew to you now so that one day he can look back at this and read about who he was at 7.
Drew is a very sensitive young man. He likes to please people and do things well. He does not like to fail at things. He is always full of energy, from the time he gets out of bed until he goes back into it at night! I would say that one of your favorite things to do is play video games, especially the Wii since you got it. You still have a beautiful singing voice and you love to sing in the car on the way to and from school. You have one very good friend at school, Elijah. And you have a very good friend at church, Dominic. And, your cousin Ben, is still your best bud! You are a great big brother. You look out for JC and are quick to alert us if he is doing something dangerous. But you are also a typical big brother that LOVES to aggravate. You are doing excellent in school, straight A's. You are pretty good about doing your homework and do not really struggle with your classwork at all. You are a happy, healthy, fun little boy! We love you!!

Today I took lunch and cupcakes to Drew at school. It was fun and he was very excited. We had enough cupcakes leftover to have a little "party" tonight at home. We took Drew out to dinner at the Cracker Barrell. It ended up being a pretty late night, but it is his birthday and it only happens once a year. We came home and had cupcakes after the boys took a bath.

This is Drew with his birthday card from us. It said "Catch a load of fun for your bithday. Would you like flies with that?" He thought it was funny!

JC was not happy because we would not just let him have the cupcake. They had just finished their baths and he would have required a second one if we had allowed him to just have it. Jim was trying to help him eat it and he was throwing a fit. He almost went to bed without the cupcake but he finally gave up and let Jim help! The joys of an almost 2 year old!

Gorgeous weekend and family pics!!

What an awesome weekend! I will just start at the beginning...

Thursday we bought a Wii. This is something that we have been planning for a while and wanted to get it before Drew's birthday. It is basically his present from us although it is certainly something for the entire family and not just for him. Thursday night Jim and I stayed up until 11pm playing it! Drew had not even seen it yet at this point. I went to the store and purchased it after he went to bed. Needless to say, we are all enjoying it quite a bit!!

Friday Drew was just crazy, excited about getting home to play it. After school he had to run an errand with mom though. We went out to a specialty running store in Memphis for me to have them look at my feet and determine what type of running shoe I need. It was a great experience and I got just what I needed at a reasonable price. Drew was very well behaved while we were there. I was really impressed with him. After the trip to the shoe store we picked up JC and headed home. Jim was home when we got there preparing to grill out some deer steaks wrapped in peppercorn bacon! YUMMO! I love it when he grills these for us. So we had a great supper and played Wii until late that night.

Saturday morning we had an appointment to get pictures made at a new studio in Southaven. I had received an Pre-Grand Opening Invitation. On the invite it said that we would have the photo session and receive 3 sheets each of 6 different poses plus 2 10 x 13 portraits with specialty touches, and a cd of all the photos taken all for FREE! Yes, you read that right, FREE! In addition we would actually get our portraits there at the time of the session because they print them in house. I really thought it was too good to be true when I read the flyer but I figured I would give it a shot and see if we could get an appointment. So our appointment was at 10:10 Saturday morning. We were running a little late, but when we arrived I immediately saw that it did not matter because they were absolutely mobbed with people! I was prepared for the whole thing to go bad from here because of the huge crowd. But, I am happy to say it was really a wonderful experience. We were only there slightly more than an hour. We picked out our portraits and they said it would take about 15 minutes to print, so we took the kids for some lunch and came back. They had our portraits waiting when I returned and they are so great! I am including a slide show of all the pics taken. I did include all of them because some of the kids expressions are hilarious! As I made the slide show I just laughed remembering how silly they were through the entire process. Taking pictures of a nearly 2 year old is interesting at best! The photographer was excellent though and she had someone helping her the entire time working to make them laugh, smile, and be still!

Saturday evening Jim and I got to have a date night! We had actually been planning to do this the week prior when Drew ended up getting the stomach bug too. My sister actually kept the boys over night. We got to go out to dinner at the Chophouse. It was wonderful, as always! I got Duck Breast and Jim had Quail. The service there is impeccable! We have never had a bad experience at this restaurant. After our dinner we went shopping for Jim. His clothes had started looking pretty bad! We went to Kohls because I had a 20% off coupon that had come in the mail. So we did all our shopping and got him lots of new clothes, a new wallet, and even some new frames for all our new pictures. We got to the register and the lady in front of us was buying several houseware items. The bag they had just put her stuff in had a big rip down the side that Jim saw. He stopped her and told her about the rip and they rebagged the items. She then turned and ask us if we had a 30% off coupon. I told her the one I had gotten in the mail was for 20%. She said that we could use her coupon and she would wait for us to check out so they could scan her ad. WOW! That was so super nice and it ended up knocking $115 off our total bill! We were both very thankful for this little blessing that God passed our way! Jim looked very nice leaving for work today in his new duds!

Well here is the slide show of the portraits. I have them all cut and ready to go out to family, so the next time I see you we will have your pics with us!

Picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

Just a quick little update!

I had a few pics to share and a quick JC story!

As you can see from the picture, Drew lost one of his front teeth last night! That tooth has been lose for some time now. We got it out yesterday afternoon. It was still hanging on good from one side but he worked on it, twisting it around and all, and we got it out. He is so brave when it comes to tooth pulling. I really doubt that JC is going to be as good since he was such a pitiful mess last week while he was sick! Which leads me to my next pic...

This was JC on one of the nights that he made me rock him to sleep while he was sick. I really did enjoy getting to do this and love this pic!

Here is a pic of the snow we got last week. As I mentioned in a previous post, we did not go out and play in it this time. This suited me just fine since playing in the snow means a mountain of laundry to clean up afterward! Instead I got my entire house cleaned that day and a bunch of cooking done! This picture was taken actually before it had even stopped snowing, so it is not even the finished product!

JC got up early this morning. Like 5am early! Not really sure what his deal was but he was in a good mood so whatever! He normally is barely awake as we get ready to leave. So while we were waiting on Drew to join us as we were heading out the door, JC starting messing with Drew's backpack. He was trying to pick it up and put it on his back and kept jabbering saying something like back pack. Well, we Drew finally got in there and tried to take it him JC started screaming! So I quickly rushed back to Drew's room and pulled out the old Nemo backpack that Drew had when he was about 2. JC was so excited. We shoved his Mickey Mouse down in it and off we went! He marched right into Aunt Elizabeth's house with it showing it off. He wants to be so grown up like his bubba! So when we get home today I am going to transfer all the diaper bag stuff to the backpack and we will start carrying it to church and all. I guess my baby is getting big on me, quicker than I am ready for I think!

Colds, snow, stomach viruses, and other what not that keeps me from posting!

Oh my goodness! I just cannot understand how it has been nearly 3 weeks since I posted on here. I have absolutely no pictures to show for the time that has passed! But, I have lots to say about what has been going on.

We have really had a winter around here this year. They have missed 5 days of school now and have dismissed early atleast twice. I love a good snow and playing in it a bit but we are really tired of it now. The weather men are saying that we may have it all behind us now. I really hope that is right. If we do not miss any more school days we will not have to go to school on any Saturdays or lose part of spring break.

I have been fighting with an upper respiratory infection for about 2 weeks now. I have had a hard time shaking it which I think is mostly caused by the weather. While we have had a lot of snow and cold weather we have also had some unseasonably warm day mixed up in there. The back and forth temps always seem to send my sinuses and allergies into a whirl. After I got sick with the cold Jim picked up a stomach bug somewhere. It only lasted about 24 hours in him. But, it moved on to the boys. JC got sick last Sunday morning with a fever and just not wanting to eat at all. With JC we know that if he is not eating then something is definitely wrong! So we went to the minor med clinic that morning. They diagnosed him with tonsilitis. We thought that was it until later that afternoon when he started vomiting. It was the most sick he has ever been. He would not eat or drink anything. I was really concerned about him dehydrating. Monday he was still pretty sick and not eating much but we were getting him to drink more. It was not until Thursday that he finally began to act like himself again and eat and drink like normal. Well, by then we thought Drew was coming down with it. He got sick once on Wednesday morning. He ended up going to school with Jim that day because the snow and ice were on it's way and we knew they would most likely only be at school half the day. He never got sick again that day but only ate a very little. He was fine all day on Thursday and ate like normal. Then on Friday morning again he randomly got sick. By that afternoon he had a full blow stomach bug going on. He has been fine all day today and seems to be starting to get a full apetite back. I have cleaned the house from top to bottom! I just hope that it is gone. I am the only one that did not get the stomach bug but feel like surely since I had the cold that should disqualify me from getting a stomach bug too!

So aside from dealing with sickness we have just been trucking along like normal. Life stays busy, as always! We are looking forward to celebrating Drew's 7th birthday! It is so hard to realize that he is about to be 7. He is becoming such a little man. We are trying to teach him more about responsibilty and chores. He has gotten to a point that he can help around the house with many things. He is also a really big help with JC. Although JC does not always appreciate his helpfulness! This year Drew is having a spend the night party. We decided to just let him have a few friends over and let them play and have pizza and sleep over. We are buying a Wii for his birthday. We have talked about getting one at Christmas for the past couple years and just have not done it because the boys have gotten other things. We are all excited about getting it. Drew loves playing the Wii games and I like that it is not so much of just staring at a tiny screen like the ds is. Atleast with the games on the Wii it is a bit more interactive and makes them get up and more around. Drew has been growing a lot spiritually too. We got him a devotional book when he got baptized. He is so good about insisting every night that he do it before going to bed. He is able to read it all himself, which is what we wanted. We wanted him to see the need for developing this habit for himself. He is thinking a lot more about other people and even wants to pray for things when he sees a need in someone's life. It is exciting to see this growth in him. He has a very sensitive heart and cares about others.

JC has reached that terrible 2's stage! Right now as I am typing this Jim has been putting him in time out, over and over again! He has started throwing little temper tantrums. He also is getting to a point that he is very vocal about his dislike of Drew's big brother bossing around. He will frequently come and tattle on Drew. We still cannot really understand what he is trying to tell on him about but it is obvious that is the reason behind it. He has started trying to "talk" a lot more. Most things are still now discernable but he has started saying "I do" when we ask him questions. We can ask him if he wants his milk and he will say, "I do". So he is starting to communicate with us better. You can tell he is at that point where he gets a little frustrated that we do not understand him. I know he will soon be talking understandable more and more. He was so pitiful this week while he was sick. He actually would not go to bed as he usually does. He has never been a rock to sleep kind of baby. Even when he was a newborn he wanted us just to put him down. He liked to stretch out and did not like being bound up in a blanket or held up against you. Well, when he is sick that is just what he wants! I had to rock him asleep for every nap and bedtime the entire time he was sick! And we had to be incredibly careful putting him in the bed because if he woke up you had to start all over. I really enjoyed this! I am so much more of a push over with JC then I have ever been with Drew! I guess knowing that he is my last baby makes me cherish it all a little more. He is doing great staying at my sisters house. We are really happy with the transition. As an added bonus I get to see my sister and her kids everyday! She and I both stay so busy with our families and church that it is hard to find time to visit. This allows us to be more connected, even though most days we are pretty quickly in and out of there.

I also have started a new journey. I have been a little reluctant to blog about it because I am still in the early stages but I will share a little. I have started the running program Couch to 5K. This is a progressive program that trains you to run or jog a 5k. I am at the end of the 2nd week. I really enjoy it. I have even run on some of the really cold days. It is really refreshing being outside and enjoying the beauty around us. Today we all went to the park together and I ran while the kids and Jim played on the playground. Jim has been really been great about it and even rushed home from work a couple of times just so I could get out and run before the sun goes down and gets really cool outside. I am also doing a Bible study and reading a book called Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. She wrote this book about her own struggle with weight and food. The basis of the book is that God made us to crave Him, not food. I know that I have far too often put food above my needs for God. My best friend and I are studying this together. We are not on some big weight loss journey, we just want to get the right perspective and priorities when it comes to how we treat food in our lives and to make sure that we are putting God first, above our food.

Well, that is a lot of information today! Hopefully it will not be so long until next time and I will actually have some pics to share!