A Bundle of Blessings

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I love the fact that we get to spend time with family with nothing else today. That and eat all of that yummy food! This year we traveled to my grandparents' house in Hokes Bluff. The kids were so, so, so excited about seeing everyone there. Especially their cousin, Jacob. I love it because I rarely get to see my family up there and I miss them so much. We used to live closer (like 20 years ago) and I used to go up there more. After this weekend, I realized how much I missed seeing my family. I want Gray and Katherine to know them and love them and realize all of their wonderful traits. All of that said, we'll definitely be back in 28 days!

My grandmother is a cook of epic proportions. I'm sure that everyone says that about their grandmother, but mine is for real! Even Chris woke up Thursday morning ready to "throw down on some of your grandmama's cookin'!"
Here she is: my sweet grandmother who always answers my cooking questions and works so hard to prepare a feast for us!
And here is my sweet granddaddy who is always ready with a silly joke and can build anything!

After visiting for a while, we began to feast on something that we had all been waiting for: fried turkey, broccoli casserole, sweet potato casserole, corn casserole (do you see a theme here?), green beans, and other scrumptious goodies.

After eating and eating and talking and laughing we all felt like bedding down for a while. However, the kids had other ideas in mind. Like maybe rolling down a hill or two...
Or jumping in leaves that Uncle Paul raked just for that purpose... Or picking up pecans....
All in all, it was a wonderful day and made me realize how much that I am thankful for.
I am thankful for Jesus Christ, who died for MY sins, my husband Chris, my sweet babies, my family (even with all of their nuttiness--I am not excluded from that!), my grandparents: the ones in Hokes Bluff and the ones who are my guardian angels in heaven. Here's to the beginning of a wonderful holiday season where we remember our blessings and the reason that we even celebrate Christmas in the first place.

Saturday in the Park

We have all been a little stir crazy this week due to our sickness! This little one finally started feeling like her spunky self on Saturday morning so we were up and out. Chris was working at the church for a grounds yard day so it was just me and the kiddos. We started by having breakfast (in public) and then headed to the park.

We went to the new Miracle Park in Dothan, which is a park that was designed with special needs kids in mind. This playground is so cool! There are tons and tons of different things to do: slides, swings, rock walls, spinning stools, bars, sand diggers, just to name a small few! We stayed pretty much the whole morning! How nice to be outside!!!!And now for a Saturday nap....

Thankful for....

A barnyard of blessings! That was the name of Gray's preschool program today and it was absolutely perfect! It started with them saying the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23 and just kept on getting better! He sang with enthusiasm and made his mommy, daddy, and sister proud. Katherine kept saying, "I see him! I see Gray!"

Katherine is so proud that she sees her big brother!

Gray is singing about falling leaves!
Now he is singing "Where oh, where, can you find pumpkin?"

Once Again...

Here we go again! Another attempt at keeping up with our lives on a blog. For the past two days I have been confined to the house with a severe case of strep throat. A girl can only watch so much tv and look on the internet for so long before starting to go a little nuts. This led to uploading my pictures on Snapfish for the entire year of 2010. No ugly comments, please! All I can say is that life gets in the way sometimes. This really got me thinking about how fast this year has gone! I thought that I would share some of these pictures with you!

Taking Time to be Thankful

It's that time of year again. The craziness is already starting. Christmas trees are up, sale catalogs come EVERY day in the mail. And we are skipping over my all-time favorite holiday--Thanksgiving.

I absolutely love this day because there is nothing about it except remembering your blessings and being with your family. I love the three days off work to be with family. I love the turkey and dressing from my grandmother. I love the long naps after lunch. I love seeing Gray and Katherine play with their cousins, whether it be in Eufaula or Hokes Bluff. I love realizing how much I have to truly be thankful for!

Christmas Pictures

What was I thinking when I decided to have a professional picture taken of my two sweet babies? Especially after work! I raced home from school, got the kids from daycare and headed to Judy's in Malvern so she could capture my children's precious faces forever. Once I got there, I had about 5 minutes to change both children's clothes, which as though of you with toddlers know, is next to impossible. Now I'm sure that Judy wouldn't have cared if I was a few minutes late, but seeing as it was already 4:30, I just felt bad. I knew that they wanted to get home as well as us being on borrowed time with the kids' moods.

The session went pretty well until Katherine found a glass Christmas ball ornament and decided to eat all of the paint off of it. Not sure, but I don't think that paint is safe for babies to ingest. Not to mention that it is next to impossible to get the tiny flakes off of her skin! Thank heavens for digital editing! By the time we finished (a total of 15 minutes later), we are all in a sweat from trying to get everyone to sit here and look this way and smile like this. I load the children up in their brand-new smocked Christmas outfits and we head to the car. Somewhere along the way, Gray has gotten a piece of chocolate candy (thanks, Bethany!) and it is now on his brand new shirt. Oh, well...zout works wonders. Even though I had to go all the way back to Malvern to get Gray's tennis shoe that fell out of the car, it was a pretty good session. I can't wait to see the pictures!