Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving Festivities

BMom, Pop and Boppy came to our house for Thanksgiving.

We ate turkey, dressing, gravy, corn casserole, greenbean casserole, sweet potato casserole (how many casseroles could a wood chuck chuck!?), mashed potatoes, asian salad, rolls, olives (black and green), pickles, and cranberry sauce. Not to mention pumpkin pie, pecan pie, blackberry pie (we didn't get to this), and my favorite (I'm eating it right now as I type!).....BMom's white chocolate popcorn.

((You may think it's weird that I just told you what we ate for Thanksgiving, but I wanted it recorded so that next time we remember our favorites that we had from this year.))

Anyhoo, of course you all know by now that the Aggies lost to the Longhorns, so now they (the LH's) have a better chance of getting into the Big 12 Championship. I guess I'm telling myself that a happy marriage is better than winning a game against a long time rival.

Enjoy the pics and have a great rest of the Holiday weekend!




































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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy TURKEY Day!

"Happy Thanksgiving to you, Happy Thanksgiving to you, Happy Thanksgiving dear you-ooh, Happy Thanksgiving to you!"

This is a little "Happy Thanksgiving!" from some turkeys in Romania. Jason was there a week ago for their Leadership Conference to meet with pastors for their 2009 campaign.



Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. When I was growing up, my dad's sisters would travel in from California and Florida to be with us. They are a ton of fun and my dad just loved spending that time with them. We would cook and eat and eat and cook and rest and laugh and eat some more and laugh some more. Even at an early age, it very quickly became and has stayed my most favorite holiday.

It's also a tough time of the year too. My dad went the day after Thanksgiving to the hospital only to find out he had tumor on his back that was cancerous. That started a very quick 10 week battle for his life. I do believe there is a time to be born and a time to pass on, but it is probably still the most difficult thing I have ever faced in my life...the death of a parent.

Although it pains me deeply not to have him with me during this time of the year, I choose to hold on to all of the memories of Thanksgiving and how much fun we would have. I miss and love you, daddy. I'll eat some turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes for ya! And I bet we'll laugh a little too!



























I'm also praying the Aggies win a third year in a row too, but like Jason said, "you will need A LOT of praying for that to happen!"

Happy TURKEY Day to all of you out there!

Copy and Paste this to hear a special Thanksgivin' song: http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ecard|10001|10051|143698|147551;-102001;11441;-102238;68110|ecard|P0R9S|ecards?&totalCategories=28&sortBySelect=&categoryId=68110
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Saturday, November 22, 2008

Midnight Twilight

Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyer....GREAT book to read, if you're looking for something good to read.

I was a little skeptical being that the only books that grace the bottom of my shelves in the last 15 years are all pretty much self help books; How to Have a Godly Marriage, How to Raise Your Kids God's Way, Love and Respect, His Needs Her Needs, etc etc etc. I don't get into fiction much....but the Twilight series have been a great fast read.

Anyhoo, a group of gals and I challenged each other to get the first (of four) books read before November 20th since that was the day (night....midnight) the movie of the first book was coming out.

Well, we all read the book(s) and made it (in our old age) to the midnight premier! Of course books are always better than their movie and this was no different. However, it was great fun to be in a theater full of giddy teenage girls. Made me feel real young (and old all at the same time)!

Here are some pics of us crazy gals...From Left to Right: Sherry Samuels, Jackie Schelp, Jenni Graham, Emily Berg, Christy Smith, ME, Stacy Cameron, Kara Krouse, Krista, Abby Wood. Then a pic of the girls getting ready for the movie.

Bottom pic is of me, Amy Robinson, and Laura Samuels (Warren Samuels' daughters). Shirts read: "Bite Me", "I Like My Men Cold, Dead & Sparkly" and the regular Twilight shirt. I still wish I would have gotten the one that says, "My Marriage Survived the Twilight Series!"
























Just an FYI...other Godly women love the Twilight series as well. This is a gal (who does the Home Script vinyl letterings), Ruth (the third girl from left)...she and her girlfriends went to the release of the last book, Breaking Dawn. See their cute t-shirts too. I'm telling you - go get the book, you'll really enjoy it!














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Monday, November 17, 2008

Update

Oh yeah, this is going to be a crazy LONG catchup. But I'm sick of not blogging. You wanna know the reason why I haven't blogged in so long. Because I can't find JULIA'S 8 and 9 month baby pictures! It's frustrating being a Type A personality.

I've let go and here is the catch up. When I do find the pictures, I'll post.

Johnathan: Johnathan turned 8 months old on October 4th (the day before my 36th birthday) and 9 months old on November 4th. He's growing like crazy, has 6 teeth, eats everything (hasn't eaten baby food in a long time), runs everywhere in his walker, army crawls everywhere on the floor, pulls up on anything and everything, still drools and snots, he laughs when you tickle him, claps, waves, says mama and dadda, still loves his bath and his sister, sleeps 10-12 hours at night, and we love him so so much. We couldn't imagine our lives without him.

Julia: Julia turned 2 years and 9 months old on October 4th and 2 years and 10 months old on November 4th. She's also growing like crazy, has all of her teeth (still, if she doesn't quit falling during her little toddler years!), eats everything also (except tomatoes like her dad and chunky chicken), she is pretty athletic (how do you tell at this age?), but she loves to run and kick the ball. She keeps us laughing at everything. Here are her top 10 sayings/words:

10. "Hippopatamus" (that's a hard word for a 2 1/2 year old!)
9. "Daddy's in Romania" (another one...)
8. "What did you dream about last night, Julia?" "Um, ABCs."
7. Her dinner prayer: "Thank you for mommy and daddy, Shay and Steven...Jesus Amen"
6. "Mallory's my cousin like Deego is Dora's cousin"
5. "I go poopoo - it's a heart!"
4. "Bubba just said, 'Dora!'" (does this girl love Dora or what?)
3. "Johnatin, you in time out....2 minutes!" (she thinks SHE'S his mommy)
2. "The zipper is broken! Get some batteries to fix it?" (her suggestion after I fixed one of her battery operated toys...she thinks batteries will fix anything....even zippers!)
1. "Mommy got a peeter like daddy" (in response to my new COMPUTER looking just like Jason's)

The Beginning of October: We went to see Brad's team play soccer. Mallory and Julia played together as well as Johnathan and Morgan. I made a make-shift bed for Julia in the hotel room - pushed the two chairs together and voila! a toddler bed!


















Mallory and Julia couldn't WAIT to get in BMom and Pop's car to go spend a week in Burk. And Shannon and I celebrated when they did! ((I teared up a bit, but was quickly over it on the car ride home...in peace and quiet!))
















I did some projects when Miss Julia was gone for the week. I put the ball fringe around her valance and moved some things around. You know that garage sale Shannon mentioned in her blog? I got the white shelf for $2 and put some fringe around the bottom to spruce it up. I hung it up over her bed along with that "Dream" thing I bought for real cheap at Hobby Lobby.






















And I (uh, Jason) even did some redecoratin' in our closet. Took down that awful globe light in our closet and put up the $12 Trades Days find. Much better!














NOTE: No babies were harmed during this making of this film: This is what happens when you turn your back on an 8 and a half month old football player. He tackles everything - including our VERY HEAVY IRON barstool! He was laughing so hard like he'd really done something magical. I guess he did in his own world.















This is Brian, Kari, Jason and I trying to be real cool in our not-so-young-anymore-ages....going out from 8 o'clock to midnight and riding EVERY scary upsy downsy ride there is at Six Flags and Jen (yeah, that would be me!), getting el' sicko after!!!














Pumpkin Patch times a million. Mom took Julia on one of her school days because I wasn't able to. Then we went with MOMs Group, then....well, I guess that's it....it just FELT like a million!














Mom, me, Sherry Samuels and her daughter, Amy Robinson went to see NEIL DIAMOND! He's mom's favorite and I grew up listening to him pretty much every Saturday when mom cleaned the house! The concert was soooooo much fun and if you ever have a chance - it's an experience! He puts on an EXCELLENT show. We had a blast!














Friends of ours, Todd & Sonnya Airhart, sent Julia a Prosper Eagles cheerleading outfit equipped with pom poms! THEN! We went and beat the Celina Bobcats (our RIVAL) after 24 straight years of losses against them. It was truly an experience! We were out late late late with the kiddos (we usually leave at half time). Johnathan was KONKED out after! Soooo much fun.















Julia teaching Johnathan to drive....there are longer videos of this, but it wouldn't let me download them. Here's a little taste....


And Julia is helping me fix BMom's Chicken and Rice that we cook ALL OF THE TIME! She is cutting the bell pepper (bell pecker in her language, though!) and Johnathan is helping cheer her on in the background.














Then we have Halloween Halloween Halloween! I was soo tired of Halloween and all the costume days, that when November 1st came, I secretly smiled.

Julia went as a Ladybug (my mom has her own little business called Ladybug Wreaths, so we thought it was fitting!) and Johnathan went as a horse. So stinkin' cute. I love that guy.

Julia goes to two different schools, so it's double this, double that during the holidays. She had two costume days, plus we had storytime for MOMs Group at the library on Halloween (see picture of a ladybug in Julia-Ladybug's hand. How ironic that a Ladybug would find a ladybug during the photo shoot!), then that night we went to a festival in Prosper (not to mention all the pumpkin patch trips). Johnathan goes to a totally different school than either one of Julia's and had his own costume day.

So again needless to say, I was really really happy to put the costumes and halloween decor away after the festivities!! More stuff for November in the next post....LOVE!