Our Black Friday Experience

At 3:30 a.m. I drug Chris out of the bed because it would be un-American to miss the biggest shopping day of the year. The three oldest kids spent the night at Grandma's, so it was us and little baby Ava. She seemed puzzled when I woke her, changed her diaper and dressed her. Anyway, we loaded up and headed to Bristol. Why Bristol? We wanted to go to Wal-Mart and Target and avoid Tennessee sales tax, so Bristol was the obvious choice. At 5 a.m we were in Wal-Mart with thousands of other people that did not want to miss out on the "great" deals. The shopping carts were bumper to bumper, people were not friendly, babies were crying (including ours), and everyone there acted as if the world would come to an end if they failed to get the items they wanted. Chris gave up and took Ava to the car, I loaded the shopping cart with all the "great" deals and then trudged over 1/2 mile to the car with my purchases.

As if we did not learn our lesson we then headed to Target. It was a much more pleasant experience the people were friendly, Ava was happy and we got a few things that we really needed.

The early rise and marathon shopping caused us to need a big breakfast so we headed to IHOP for the world's best pancakes. They were delicious!!

We returned home exhausted, broke and determined that we would not be sucked into this idea next year!!

Long Time.....No Blog

There are several very legitimate reasons that I have not updated our blog.........!!!! Regardless, so much has happened in the last few months. I am going to attempt to capture a few of the memories!! Our sweet Ava is growing like a weed, she has learned to sit up by herself and she now eats lots of different kinds of baby food. Knowing that she is our last baby :( makes everything that she does seem so special.

My wonderful (and very generous) husband bought me a new camera for my birthday. While I have admitted that I am no professional photographer, I love to take pictures of our kids.

Check out these cools gals on the tram to Dollywood....

We went to Dollywood with Nay Nay and Jason and a crew of Jason's family. It was lots of fun!! The girls loved it. Maddie is now big enough to ride several of the kiddie rides by herself. Anna Beth is getting brave and attempting the bigger rides.

Our fun filled summer had inevitably come to an end. The holidays are quickly approaching causing us to take time to count the many blessing that we so selfishly take for granted on a daily basis. We are thankful for our children and the thousands of smiles they bring to our face everyday. In this life of chaos and rush we often forget to be thankful for the little things that bring so much joy. We are blessed with a very caring family and lots of great friends. We are fortunate to have jobs that we enjoy and to do work that makes a difference in this crazy world. Most of all we are blessed to have each other. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!!