ww-my brenna girl

a february randoms

ready one, two, three, JUMP.... harder said than done i guess. i could not get them all to jump at the same time :) makes me laugh.
we have had a few warmer days here and there and we have enjoyed every second of being outside and warming up in the sun! it feels SO GOOD to have the sun bake on your back. living in a place that has distinct seasons has taken some getting used to. even though i still really do not enjoy winter, i do enjoy and appreciate how awesome our god is to have made the earth and how it all works. how the trees drop their leaves and then store up its nutrients in the the winter and then blooms with beauty in the spring! it seems to make the time go by faster too. not sure if that is just part of getting older or living in a place where the seasons change... maybe both.
jori enjoying the warm sunshine. i can almost feel that warmth as i look at these photos.

school time: i have been trying to be more diligent to do about an hour to an hour and a half of "school time" on the days that the girls dont go to preschool, here at home. it helps me to have a plan and make the day more organized and seems to go by a little fast. it also is really helping the girls. i still struggle with how to do activities that are well suited for both girls. all rae wanted to do this day was paint! so before i just let her paint a picture, we painted the words that she is learning how to read. she did great. not sure if you can see in the back ground but she knows a lot of words. we have not been doing this very long, she just picks it up so quick. another reason i wanted to start doing more intention school work at home. she just soaks it up. the words she knows are:

can

and

the

blue

red

yellow

in

it

is

me

said

have

at (and the at words like cat, fat, hat...)

you

go

to

he

I

a

she also knows all her vowels.

brenna has been doing really well with the work too. i just feel like i am having a hard time finding what is appropriate for her. it either seems to hard or to easy. but we have all been having fun doing school together.

also, dont know if you noticed... rae lost her first tooth just a day or two after she turned 5! then just last week she lost her second tooth!! mom says i lost mine pretty early too. she is so stinkin' cute. i just love her little smile.

alright, bye for now.

can i get a redo???

so i'm finding myself at a place with this blog that i so often find myself.... so far behind. it sometimes stresses me out to be honest, and i KNOW that is NOT what all this blogging stuff is about. i just feel like so much that we do i want to document so i dont forget about it, but then life gets in the way and i cant get to blog and then i just feel so far behind. i have to choose whether or not to blog things or to let them go. well last week, "life" surely got in the way. on tuesday i had all three girls at doc for yucky coughs, doc says just viral let them work it out. so glad i really like this doc and he knows i would choose not to medicate if i can get away with it. so that is what we did, we worked it out. wednesday is when our good friends came into town and i took there photos, by friday morning of this same week, i had to call dave and ask him to meet me at the doc because i felt like a kidney stone was coming on! i have not had a kidney stone since before dave and i were married. over 10 years ago. he liked to claim that he cured me. well he cant say that anymore, although i wish he could.... so we got to doc and i was 98% sure it was a kidney stone again, i remember the pain pretty well. he gave me a pain shot and kept me in the office to just watch me for a little while. he wanted to make sure it wasnt appendix. pain was still bad so they gave me another shot, this time anti-inflamitory. there was talk of me going to er and getting a cat scan which would say if it was either kidney stones or appendix. i HATE the hospital so i was trying my best to stay out of there. again the doc was good held out making me go. about this time the meds are kicking in and i can barely lift my head anymore. i am such a light weight. the meds completely knocked me out, but thankfully the pain was getting lighter. so doc sent me home all doped up with a strainer to catch the stone, more pain meds and a strong antibiotic (because i also had a UTI). dave had to carry me in the door and into bed. we got home around 9:45 am and i slept about 24 hours. i would wake for short periods of time and drink as much water as i could and then fall back asleep. i ended up passing the stone early saturday morning around 2am and then continued to sleep pretty much all of saturday as well. i ran a fever on and off all day and just felt terrible. not sure if that was do to the infection or not? so in two days time, i was sleep about 30 hours! to be honest it was really nice. i guess my body really needed the rest. it had given up and was letting me know! sunday morning i woke up with a HUGE fever blister spread across my entire bottom lip. to be honest, i think the pain of this was just as bad the kidney stone. the fever blisters make me so anxious and jittery. not sure how to explain it any better, it is just a different kind of pain, one that just gets under my skin and i cant shake it. after spending to much money to get another rx filled for the fever blister meds it finally started feeling better on tuesday morning...... so that leaves valentines day in there. we pretty much just skipped right over it this year and i wanna redo.... some friends brought us dinner, i did get up and set the table, however it was with paper plates and napkins left over from the girls school parties and i put pink straws in the kids milk cups with dinner. dave and the kids got me a pandora bracelet and three hand picked charms. i just love it. rae picked out a horse, brenna picked a treasure chest and garret picked a scroll that says "best friends" - how sweet is that. melt my heart!

when i told dave i wanted a redo, he jokingly said "no more presents". thats ok, i just wanted to be able to feel good enough to tell the people i love how much they mean to me. dave was such a great care taker while i was sick. he took care of all the kids, including jori since i couldnt nurse. she was a champ with a bottle. i am now trying to get back to nursing her, but it has been a tough road. i just feel so drained. not sure i can make it as long as i would like this time around.

wow.... so that was a really long and random post. sorry. but there is where our little family has been up to since i last posted.

and since i cant post without a picture, here is what we did on the wednesday before i got sick. it was ANOTHER snow day, so we did some crayon projects. you can find out how by clicking here.

i love the shadows they create on the floor when the sun shines through the doors.

i am feeling much better now, very thankful for family and friends that helped in lots of ways.

jody and emily

our good friends jody and emily decided to go on active duty with the military last march. they moved to beautiful Hawaii for a three year term. dave and i are already saving up frequent flyer miles to get over there to visit. jody is a military nurse and recently got word that he would be deployed to Iraq. since jodys family lives here in TN, they decided to make a quick trip back before he heads over seas. emily and i had gotten really close, so i am enjoying our time together very much.
i asked them if they would be interested in me taking some photos of jody in his dress uniform. they are always such great sports, i love photographing them. click here and here you can see our other photo shoots.





above: my favorite

and one last one of my beautiful friend. we are praying for you guys as you start on this new journey. we are praying for safety for jody and peace and strength for emily while he is gone. they have two great kiddos that i am sure will miss there daddy too, so we are praying that the kids can adjust as well. jodys return date is in September.

daddy/daughter dance

i so wish i could have been a fly on the wall this past saturday night. raelyn and dave went to a daddy/daughter dance at one of the local middle schools. they have been doing this dance as a fundraiser for the last 5 years, but this was the first time that dave and rae went. when dave first asked her if she wanted to go she was pretty timid. we told her that daddy would be with her the entire time and some of her friends and their daddys would be there as well. she decided she would go so i asked her if she wanted me to make her a dress. she said yes :) so i made just a simple little jumper that was a little longer than any of her other dresses. she wanted braids in her hair, NOT curls. i had a fun time getting her ready. made me excited about when she is older and really goes to a prom or something :) i have so enjoyed getting my nieces ready for theirs in the past.

daddy thought to get a corsage for rae and picked it out all by himself. when he brought it home and showed me, i almost cried. what a thoughtful idea from a daddy just smitten by his first born daughter. raelyn loved it of course. they had a great time at the dance, they danced together and then rae danced (well pretty much just ran around in circles) with her girl friends. i was so proud of both of them. i know that was NOT daves sort of thing, but they sure did have a great time together. brenna cant wait till its her turn :)

cub scouts

at the beginning of the school year garret joined cub scouts. he and dave are part of pack 93. garret and loved all the different activities they do and earning badges along the way. dave takes garret to the meetings each week on tuesday nights and sometimes they have activities on the weekends. i am so glad that garret and dave can do some "guy" things together.

one of their adventures was to the appalachian caverns. they crawled through caves and had a great time.
they were in this years christmas parade. even daves truck and trailer made it to the parade :)

this last picture is garret helping sort food that they collected for the local food bank. other activities they have done are : a big camp out, popcorn sales, pool parties, ice skating, bowling, learned fire safety, learned pet care and they are getting ready to do their pine wood derby cars.

garret has really enjoyed scouting this year. there are more moms involved in garrets pack than there are dads and they have all come to love garret as well. there have been a few times where dave was not able to be there and the other moms have taken him under their wing. it is nice to know they are looking out for him :)

Raelyns 5th Birthday Party

so we had a little party for rae for her fifth birthday. she wanted a "girlie" party. she calls Barbie's "girlies". she said she wanted a "girlie" hair brushing party. so i thought that might be really fun and we could brush and braid her little friends hair, but she said she didnt want to do that with real, just the "girlies" hair :) so thats what we did.

i decorated with blue, green and yellow.
gram made her a sweet blue cupcake dress. thanks gram. we love it :)
we had lunch and then the girls all got to pick out buttons and flowers to make their own hair bows. i think they had a really fun time picking out all the fun things to make their very own.

then she opened her gifts and got a few more Barbies with long beautiful hair to brush.

then we had yummy cupcakes.

i found a tutorial on how to make these sweet cupcakes stands on this blog. She has the cutest party ideas!
and one last picture of me and my birthday girl. cant believe she is 5! that seems so grown up.