HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON!

Saturday night, we had a party for our oldest and only son, Jason. We are so proud of him and the man of God he has become. He runs his own company (see side-bar), takes excellent care of his wife and together they produced the cutest little boy ever! Jay also serves in various areas of our church and is an excellent big-brother to the little girls. We're so very grateful for how he has chosen to live his life with integrity ....posturing himself to still receive input from his dad, and continually disciplining himself towards Godliness. He's awesome! Enjoy the pictures. Mel, Jason's wife and our extraordinary daughter-in-law made dinner for everyone. Mel herself is the oldest of 6 ....her family came early but had to go because of a previous commitment, so you'll see grandparents, more grandparents, Mel's brothers and lots of little people. The girls and Cade had a blast because Jason's their giant jungle-gym-climb-on-toy. We are a very blessed family don't you think???!!

Shoplifting the "Hoe-man"!

Julie took the girls all morning Christmas shopping for Mommy. (I'm trying to bribe them to tell ....but their little lips are sealed!) This pic is downloaded from Julie's phone, as they entered a store....Katie grabbed a beloved "hoe-man" and wouldn't let it go. She doesn't even acknowledge any other Christmas items but you know when there's "Hoe-men" about! She'll wrestle you for it! And win!

OOPS! For Eloise the Elf!

Poor, poor little Eloise. She was trying to do a good....make that great thing. She was entertaining Katie for her Mama and had quite the accident. Katie's room sits upstairs on the front of the house. She has vaulted ceilings with floor to ceiling palladian windows that overlook the front. Very cool. It's one of my favorite rooms! Anyway, the daddy put a 7ft. tree in front of the window, so that at night when lit, it's absolutely gorgeous from the street. (normally this tree is downstairs in the Kitchen/dining area). Well, Eloise found this loud, obnoxious, ornament that sings "Rockin around the Christmas Tree" and while Mama was making dinner.....decided to "Rock" with Katie around the tree that wasn't meant to be "rocked" around. The entire tree fell (not on little girls thankfully...it's big!!) but all ornaments, and items went flying. Eloise went berzerkamoid!!! After much cuddling and hugging and assuring Eloise that it was indeed an accident, and all was well (with the exception of some beheaded nutcrackers)....Eloise's emotions went back intact:).... Mommy was somewhat worried because I have some very precious adoption ornaments...many of them fragile that were on there, as well as ornaments from China. None of those were hurt or harmed. YEA!!!! Tree was put back up....and now stands a little crooked...but hey....no problem. We're back ROCKIN and looking forward to some very busy days ahead!!

P.S. The pics loaded out of order. The top is after tree rescue and Eloise is back to normal :) Check out the Disney princess doll Katie had disrobed and adamantly declared had to be in the picture! The second pic is the fallen tree. No one has touched the tree since :)

100% Class~ Yep, That's Us!

Meet Katie and her new favorite item. The Snowman. Except she says it "HOE-MAN!, HOE-MAN!" (she's really loud). In the deep South where we were born and raised, a 'hoe' is either a garden tool, or a 'lady-of-the-evening' pronounced in a slow southern drawl. Try it. Now you'll hear for yourself what Katie sounds like whenever she sees a beloved snowman. :) We had her say it alot when she first started cuz it was cute....now it's getting embarrassing. Running through Target shouting "HOE-MAN!" at every snowman she sees can be a bit unnerving after a while .....hoping people have no idea what she's really saying. Pray for articulation for this child.:) Ssssssssssssssss....she can't do yet. Yep, we are a classy family. 1oo% class. That's us. We'll try to work on that, ok?!

If the praise of man elates me and his blame depresses me: if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself: if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love. A. Carmichael.

Thanksgiving~ Part deux!

First of all....please accept my apologies. This slide show is really long. Hope it isn't too boring. If it is....don't watch if you don't want. No pressure intended. :) Second of all....the water was as really gross as it looks. You were warned. But since it's Disney water all the algae was shaped like Mickey Ears.......not. :)

I was talking to my sister in law the other day (she just had her 3rd boy this summer) about the difference having 3 little ones makes. It's huge! For some reason the jump with Katie was overwhelming logistically......just trying to go to the store is a huge event that must be planned well in advance. Well....with 3 little ones.....we get where we're going ....in this case, Ft. Wilderness...and we unload...and park for a while. We bring all our own food.....because taking them (the little ones...big ones tend to behave somewhat better.....unless our son is in one of his moods:)) out to eat is not fun. I hate paying money to never sit down and actually eat what I ordered. Anyway....we played in the swamp.....rode bikes....rode horses.....fished....took our Christmas pictures (not in swamp), swam (in and out of swamp), enjoyed Mel, Jason, Cade, Grandma, and Grandpa.....etc. You can rent golf carts that take you around the camp....but not us. We walk, run or walkrun. We have never done anything like this with everyone before because all 3 little girls had to sleep in the same room. That had us really worried. REALLY WORRIED!! So we did what all good parents do.....run them ragged and hoped that they would pass out in the end and not wake up till daylight. That's exactly what they did. At night we went to the bonfire, sing-along (my, my, my....if Julie would work really, really hard, she could lead the sing along and sing Kermit songs too!:)) and the nightly movie. They show a Disney movie on a giant screen outdoors everynight. We saw a few minutes of Narnia (too scary!!) , Toy Story, (somewhat scary....left that one too), and Little Mermaid (ahhh....just right!). Julie taught Katie how to sing the Ariel song so that became the song of the weekend. The weather was terriffic and we were so busy we never, ever went to a theme park! Didn't need too! Our only episode out of the ordinary was when Julie left early and accidentally took Dad's keys with her. We had no way to load up (they do not allow cars in Ft. Wilderness except for loading, unloading) and had to call Julie back from singing Sunday morning to rescue us so we could check out. She came to the campground and clomped about in high heels and a dress. That's committment! Sorry Eastham family for messing with our plans on Sunday! We considered this event a great success and want to make it a family tradition. This year we made our goal....not to break anything or anybody! Success is a great feeling!

Frontier Thanksgiving~ Part 1

We did a really awesome thing for Thanksgiving this year. Exactly one year ago, we booked a cabin at Disney's Fort Wilderness for this holiday. Yes, they book that far in advance! These "cabins" are really mini motor homes edged in wood. They're about 800 sq. feet and have a bedroom with a queen, and bunk beds, full bathroom, FULL kitchen w/dishwasher to boot, and living room with a murphy bed. Each cabin is set in it's own "woods" among all that Ft. Wilderness has to offer. They have a petting farm, trails, pools, fishing, biking, horses, boats, nightly campfires, sing-alongs, outdoor movies, restaurants and more. We went on Thanksgiving day.....Mom had prepared our feast from scratch the day before and had it packed in coolers ready to go....including a 14 lb. turkey with all the fixings. We took our bikes, Barbie electric car, baby joggers, flashlights and oh yea.....the girls. :) Our particular cabin this year was set (see pic) in the middle of a cypress swamp. Joy, oh joy. Disney is trying to go "green" and is getting rid of all vegetation that is not indigenous to Florida. They have gone through and pretty much cleaned out all of the little cabin's wooded areas surrounding them....in hopes that this spring...the Florida stuff flourishes. That left us....with the swamp...full of tadpoles, frogs, a snake or two, and lots of green gooey stuff. The girls were in heaven! The dad declared swamp safe for girlies....after all, having been in so many 3rd world countries....american swampland looks very safe in comparison. We went through our whole sock quota the first day we were there. And we had no washing machine. Oh well. A small price to pay for the fun the girls had. We sent them out in their duck boots and let them run. They tortured froggies, tadpoles and whatever else they could find!

We have much to be thankful for this year. We have chosen as a family to walk the hard road both with our faith, jobs, our family and all decisions we make. It's definitely not easy, but the Christian walk never is. Our home is not on this earth. The first day was mom, dad, Julie and the little girls....... and others joined us as the weekend continued. We had a blessed time together! And Eloise actually behaved herself (even the fish-throwing wasn't out of control:)) TBC....

And as we sat on the first day there, at our outdoor Thanksgiving table and had everyone share what they were thankful for.......Katie for "EAT!", Kristin is thankful for polly pockets, turkeys, bunk-beds, ... Julie for her family and friends, .............Leni in a direct quote....." I'm thankful for my God, my Lord and my SWAMP!" (see pic.) Yes, she actually said that.

To be continued. If you want to see prissy girly girls you may not want to see the forthcoming pictures. Our girls are not known for their ruffles, lace and decorum when there is swampland nearby!!

This Is Toe-tally Wrong!

Scott has our Thanksgiving pics on his camera that still need to be downloaded......so in the meantime, I thought I'd share what happened to the mommy last night while putting away mounds and mounds of laundry. I broke my toe. Not the first time, and definitely not the worst....but none the less.....a dreadful, dreadful, dreadful inconvenience. Now I shall have to lay on the couch and drink champagne. (only kidding:)) This mommy doesn't sit down from sun-up till well into the night:), toe and all.