Christmas 08

The time FINALLY came!! The kids had been counting down to Christmas since July!! The presents were wrapped and we were ready for Santa. Vanessa, Jason and Halle are here visiting. When Ness and I were little girls it was a family tradition to attend the midnight candlelight service at our church, Wise Baptist Church. We had not particpated for the past couple of years. This year we were determined, we being me and Ness. Jason and Chris were not at all excited, they thought the idea was unfeasible with 5 children. Of course, Ness and I won the battle and we headed out in the middle of the night. I woke Anna Beth up and she said" I haven't even had time to go to sleep". The kids were relatively good. At the end of the hour long service Sam, Anna Beth and Ava were asleep. Maddie and Halle were still going strong. It was a great reminder of the birth of Jesus in all of its splendor and humility.

Santa was kind enough to leave HUGE Lollipops in the kids stockings!!

Santa and his elves built Ava this awesome rocking horse. She looks so cute in it!!

Anna Beth asked for an American Girl Doll that looked like her!! Against my better judgement we broke down and bought it. She was so excited!!







Sam loaded up on all the latest boy toys!! I am not much on purchasing boy toys, it seems that you pay a significant amount of money for plastic. Regardless, I always buy whatever he wants, even if I can't pronounce the name of the toy. He loved all of his new toys!!

Our sweet Maddie loved the gifts, however she did not want to open them. After she finally warmed up to the idea she opened her gifts and everyone else's.

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours.....Merry Christmas!!

Our own Oompa Loompa

AnnaBeth recently starred as an Oompa Loompa in the Appalachian Childrens' Theatre's production of Willy Wonka. She loves to be on stage performing. They performed the show 8 times. It was a marathon theatre experience. I am learning to be the perfect "stage mom" lol!!! The local news station came to do a piece on the show and Anna Beth was on the news singing her "Oompa Loompa" duet with her friend Hope.

This is a picture of Taylor, Hope and Anna Beth (left to right). They had so much fun waiting for the shows to begin.

My Sweet Girls

All of the girls were dressed in coordinating dresses for church. It was so cute that I had to take a few pics.

WHEN I GROW UP

This morning I had Anna Beth and Sam in the car. We were headed to my office. School was on a snow schedule and the plan was for them to hang out at the office for an hour until time to go to school.

As we are driving along Anna Beth says "Sam what do you want to be when you grow up?" Sam replies, "A firefighter or a lawyer". Anna Beth questions, "Why a lawyer?" she goes on to tell him that Jason ( my bro-in-law) is going to be a lawyer and it requires that you go to "law school". Anna Beth knows that Sam is not fond of school. Sam replies "Lawyers make one million dollars a year."

This one is for you Jason!! When you make your first million Sam and Anna Beth would appreciate a small percentage for their unwavering faith.

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!!