Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!

Well all I can say is I am not keeping up with anything in my life... as I sit here blogging... I have not updated in a long time... I need to work on doing a very large and long update (not today though)... so be sure to have some time to devote the next time you come to my blog... it will be long I am sure... As of right now, I have no presents wrapped (except the Christmas Pj's they will wear tonight...), I have no cookies made, my Christmas cards were just picked up today!! (a side note... always pay the extra for 1 day at Wal mart.... I never realized when I ordered them a week and a half ago that they would not be in until today Christmas eve, and when I went into the store to see if I could get the envelopes so at least I could address them and get them out as soon as we picked them up, of course they said NO! grrrrrrrrrrrrr.),
and my house is somewhat of a wreck from all the shopping, grocery shopping and getting ready to bake cookies, plus I never really fully decorated this year since I was so busy with everything this year for some reason... I am not really sure what made me so far behind. Our living room is decorated and the front porch is decorated and we have candles in every window, but that is it! We usually have icicle lights up, wreaths on each window, and the whole house is usually decorated.
NOT this year..:-(
Well, I had better go I have a LOT to do.
I mainly wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Christ filled Christmas...!!
See you in a few days!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Its December Already.......

We have been very busy around here I have not posted in so long....I will give you a short recap of our December so far and maybe a little of our November.


We had a wonderful visit with Tyler's sister and her family over Thanksgiving... they drove down from Pennslyvania on Wednesday night... we shared a wonderful Thanksgiving meal! His sister Angie and I decided that there was nothing that special that we needed to get up really early for, so we slept in and went out about 9am or so. Got a few good deals and called it a day.


Friday evening Tyler, Jonathan, Hannah and his sister's family all went to the Dorman High football game against Byrnes for the spot in the state championship. It was a good game but Dorman couldn't hold them this time. Abigail, Sarah and me opted to go to Haywood mall for a little more shopping. We had a fun time. I forgot to take any pictures of the kids and their cousins over Thanksgiving... I was going to take a picture of the cute plates the kids used but someone used the last one!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Wondering what 153 Samaritans Purse Shoe boxes look like...Here you go!.



I am so proud of our Sunday School class!
We have been collecting toys, school supplies and other fun things for a whole year now.
We were as a class able to put together 153 shoe boxes. I believe we covered the $1071.00 in shipping also by collecting money all year in our class to cover such things.
Our class takes up an offering each Sunday to cover all the mission projects we are involved in.

Jingle Bell Ball



We were given a wonderful opportunity to attend the Junior League Jingle Bell Ball. It is a big charity auction and dinner to benefit all the causes that the Junior League supports. My good friend Chandis Digby offered us two tickets that her parents were given that they could not use. This was great for us because the tickets normally cost 75.00 per person, so needless to say this is not an event we would normally spend the money to go to. The only thing I needed was a fancy dress. I went to Belks and was able to find a beautiful holiday dress on the clearance rack and then another 40% off the price... what a great deal!! I bought Tyler a new tie off the clearance table and we were ready to go. Several other friends were there also...Chandis and Randy, Heather and Gerry, Tracy and Brad, Melissa and David, Debbie and Mark and a few others.



We had a great time and even won a few auctions...
I bid on a pair of mother/ daughter monogram clogs, We bid on 2 upward registrations (which was good since we were signing Sarah up for the cheer leading anyways...so it covered that plus one for the future, and we won it for less than 2 would have cost us, and the money went to the Junior League's charities.), I also bid and won a foil hair color, cut and eye brow waxing from Bama (Debby Cash-Westside Styling Salon), who I already had an appointment set up for in December that it will cover and it ended up I paid less money for the auction than if I had to pay her for it and the money again went to charity, too cool. Well all in all it was a wonderful evening!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

High School Musical 3


We were very fortunate to have a good friend, (Thanks Wendy!) to give us 4 certificates for free tickets to see High School Musical 3. Wow, what a blessing... we would have never gotten to see it in the real theatre. We would have had to wait till it came to the dollar theatre. We only had to pay for 2 kids and we got Me and Tyler, Abigail and Hannah free. It was a cute movie, I don't think there has been another movie lately that has held all 4 children's attention. Here are some pictures of the kids in the movies.


Celebrating at School

My fellow teachers convinced me to dress up for the day.. so I went with an easy costume that Heather had, I was Eeyore, how embarrassing...!!
Well we all looked cute together. Go 4K teachers!!

I was Eeyore, Leigh was Hannah Montana and Sophie
was the Queen of Hearts.

Trunk or Treat

I am so behind, so here are some pictures from trunk or treat. Our Sunday School class had a great turn out. We decided at last years trunk or treat that we would tailgate this year. It was a huge success... We had so much fun. Phil brought the big Piggly Wiggly grill and we cooked hamburgers and hot dogs for all the adults and kids. We had 5 cars in Trunk or Treat, but about 10+ families sitting together giving out candy. Our wonderful teacher's wife, (Thanks Heather!!)
decided to make up personal invitations to our class to give to all the parents that through.


We have such and awesome class. Our class is very involved in the all the things going on in our church. We have a lot of fun, and we get things done! One of these days I will get some pictures of our class helping out at the Miracle Hill Rescue Mission (most people won't allow me to take pictures since it is so early, we start cooking at 6 am). We make and serve breakfast for about 70 - 80 men and women every 8 weeks, it is such a great time of serving and fellowship!

Well back to the subject at hand... Trunk or Treat.
We were told to decorate with a pumpkin theme... Here was our trunk.

I had pumpkin scented candles burning and had several comments about how good it smelled as they walked by.
Our children all did different things this year. I don't have a picture of Abigail because she went to a party at a friends house, and really I forgot... until it was too late... The only reason I have a picture of Hannah is because I copied it from a facebook friend who took pictures... Once we got there she pretty much hung out with her friends and we didn't see her again till the end of the night, when she went over to the gym with the youth group.
Here is a picture of Braeden and Brycen, I also took some pictures of the kids in my class that came through,(I just don't want to post their pictures without their permission, sorry) well until my camera died and I couldn't get anymore.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

After the game......A picnic at the park

A couple of weeks ago Jonathan had a late game at 11am so we decided to pack a picnic lunch and stay after and play some at the park and walk the trail. We had a great lunch. The bees tried to take us over but we got done before they got to us. Then the kids went to play on the playground.
Jonathan stopped playing to bring me a flower... What a sweet boy!!
Of course Abigail was reading while everyone else was playing....
Look at who we saw there.... Bethany Hurry... she was at the park with another family, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture of her.
After some time playing we took a long walk on the trail for the Disc golf course.
I think we missed the idea of what was supposed to land in the catchers.
They sure do look cute though!!






Here are some shots of them walking on the last part of the trail.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Thursday afternoon revenge

I volunteer every Thursday at Westview. One Thursday many weeks ago my good friend Sophie was also at school... So as I left the school I moved her 2 magnets to her driver's side door. Just to surprise her.


Well on Thursday I was at the school and so was Sophie, I came out to my car and this is what I found

Of course I left them that way till I could get home and take some pictures of it to blog about... Yes Michelle, I am also blogging about car magnets. I have waaaaaaaaaaaaay to much time on my hands.
And Most of all I can't forget to thank my wonderful friend Sophie for a really good belly laugh, when I finally found my magnets on the front of the car. I really thought she took them with her.
Thanks Sophie!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Kids weekend without us

While we were in Charleston Jonathan had a great opportunity to go to a Dorman game Friday night, and run out on the field with the big Dorman players.... We found out about this long after our weekend away was already planned. We were so sad we were going to miss it. Thank goodness Grandpappy agreed to take Jonathan to Dorman for the game and video tape it for us. It looked so cool I wish we had been there.
Here are some video clips from the night and some pictures.





Saturday Grandpappy took all the kids to Fall Festival at church, this is also always on the weekend we go away for our anniversary. We missed it last year also. I forget were we went last year for our anniversary, but he took them that weekend also. I am sure they had a fun time. If anyone saw my children and they were dressed strange, it was not my fault. He or my mom let Sarah wear whatever she puts on, and sometimes that is really scary. I think Abigail or Hannah did her hair, not sure. If they were acting crazy, again, not my fault, I wasn't there.

Sunday they took the kids to church in the morning. I was so proud of them for getting ready for him. Sarah picked out a red dress, no tights and red patten leather high heel clogs that are way too big on her. She looked interesting when we got home. Thank goodness we can usually trust what Abigail and Hannah put on when we are not home.
All in all I think they had a fun weekend with their grandparents. They just love spending time with them. And I think my parents love spending time with them even though I am sure they drive my parents crazy.

The long awaited Charleston Post...

Well its finally here.... Sorry for it taking so long... sometimes I am so busy, I can't seem to sit down and just do it....It's really not that bad once I do it... I am always afraid it will take me so long... so I just put it off..... kinda like a lot of things....
We started our long weekend off early Friday morning... it was walk to school day for Jonathan and Sarah so we got Abigail and Hannah on the bus and then we drove to the shopping center to park and unload the kids... we walk from down where the old Harris Teeter was. We walked them to school and into their classes... It was a nice walk... I forgot to bring my camera and take pictures... I am so bad... one day I will get better at remembering to bring the camera everywhere. We then came home and loaded the car. We had to go to the church office and pick up my paycheck so we would have some money to spend and to the bank to deposit it. We finally got on the road around 10am or so... We had a nice relaxing ride to Charleston...



We stopped for a early lunch in Columbia since we knew that we were having a early dinner at Hymens when we got to Charleston....It is our favorite restaurant there for seafood...It is always good no matter what we order. The last time we were in Charleston... about 2 years ago we were spotted wearing a Hymens raving fan sticker and won a 25.00 gift certificate... the catch is you have to use it before 5pm to get the full value... after that it was only worth 12.50... so we had to eat early for sure.

Once we arrived in Charleston, we headed to our favorite "thrift" store and found some wonderful bargains. I found 2 Lily Pulitzer skirts and some other cool stuff for the kids and Tyler. The 2 skirts were in wonderful condition... I think one of them is brand new just without the tags. If they don't fit me I will put them on eBay. I also found a great blue shirt from Talbots that was new without tags also. Tyler found some Jos A Banks dress pants and a nice blazer. I also found the Hannah some Abercrombie jeans and a sweatshirt. All in all it was a great visit to one of our favorite "stores".

Once finished we headed downtown to our hotel. It was so nice to check in and have the valet take the car to park for us. We did not see our car again till Sunday afternoon when we checked out.
We went to dinner at Hymens and had a wonderful dinner. Since it was our anniversary I got to get my all time favorite for dinner....Alaskan King Crab legs... they were a little pricey but they were wonderful. I got 6 huge legs and some butter to dip it in, I was in heaven. Tyler got something... I am not sure what... I was so into my crab legs....I ruined a brand new black shirt with a small butter stain, but it was worth it. We left Hymens and walked through the market for a little and went back to our room for an early evening.

This was a cool garden that we saw, it had already closed for the day. We meant to go back sometime over the weekend, but we forgot. Maybe next time.

We woke up early Saturday morning and went to Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast. It was really good. After that we went shopping all day on King Street. We had lots of fun. We looked in lots of cute shops and bought a few things, but not too much. We saw this store window which made us laugh



It rained off and on all day... but we were together so it didn't matter... well sort of.

We went back to the room and got ready for dinner. We had a great dinner at a small Caribbean place called Toast, it was wonderful, off the beaten path and not busy. We decided not to have dinner there and go to Kaminsky's for dessert. We walked out and it was pouring rain.... we had left our umbrella in the room which was several blocks away, so we decided to just run, about 7 blocks up to Market Street. We hung out on Market Street for a while, but we were so full that we never made it to Kaminsky's for dessert. We stayed out late and had a fun time with each other.

This was before we went out for dinner... and before the rain.
We woke up Sunday not wanting to leave. We took our time and got ready, we didn't know where to eat breakfast so we just walked around till we found Poogan's Porch, it looked cute and was busy so we waited for about 15 minutes till we were seated. If you go to Charleston, this is one place to skip. The food was not very good, the service was poor and it took forever. At one point during the meal they took Tyler's coffee cup, once he had finished the first cup, now I did say they took it, not refilled it but took it all together.... finally Tyler asked if he could have another cup of coffee he was told that there were no coffee cups clean and he would have to wait. We were sitting near the coffee and wait staff station so he could see one cup sitting on the shelf, he pointed it out to our waiter, and he said "you want that cup, its too small" Tyler said Yes, its the same size as my last cup, so after 25 minutes with no coffee he finally got another cup. Then our meal arrived, it was biscuits and sausage gravy, there was no sausage in the gravy just one patty on top and the biscuit was sooooooooo dry. He had asked Tyler how he wanted his eggs that was with the biscuits and gravy, he told him over easy, well they came scrambled. I asked for a side of bacon instead of the side of sausage that was with it and got the sausage and the bacon and charged 5.00 for 2 pieces of bacon.
We spent the remainder of Sunday down by the battery and walking around the neighborhoods around there. We headed home about 4 pm.
It was a fantastic weekend!
Can't wait till we can go back!