The Days Before Christmas

I truly believe that no one enjoys days off from work more than school teachers! I don't know why....but there is immense joy in knowing that I have time at home with MY kids for several days! Other parents are usually grumbling because their kids are going to be home and they have to figure out what to do with them for 2 weeks, but for me and my kiddos, those days are golden! I get to spend plenty of time with other people's kids and I love the time I have with just MINE!!! As my kids have gotten older the days and time at home with them is even better! We have so much fun just being together. Yeah...we do have some errands to run and things (like laundry and grocery shopping) that have to be done, but my children LOVE getting to spend half the day in their PJs. Alex thinks getting to eat breakfast in his pajamas is the best thing ever! And I must admit, waking up in the 7:00 hour to go to the gym is MUCH better than the alarm going off at 4:30 AM!!!

So, in our "days before Christmas" we have visited with Santa (see previous post), gone out to lunch, made and decorated Christmas Cookies, visited Gaffney to hear Gan and Mrs. Allison play their Organ/Piano duet of Christmas Music, and we have gone to see a movie! Here are some pics of our "Days Before Christmas"! I hope you and your family have a chance to enjoy your days before the big day!

A Visit with Santa

Alex and Emily had a chance to whisper their Christmas wishes in Santa's ear yesterday at Carolina Place Mall! This is the first year that Emily did not show any signs of hesitation! No tears, no grabbing my leg, arm, hands, etc! A true Christmas Miracle! : )

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

I LOVE Christmas! Ask Ryan, he will tell you! When we buy houses, I always envision what it will look like at Christmastime. If I that it will look good at Christmastime then it might be the one for us! I bring out the Christmas music as soon as Thanksgiving is over, and there is nothing better than lots of sparkly red and gold and silver decorations! And then we had kids..... and that makes Christmas even BETTER! We got our house decorated the weekend following Thanksgiving...partly because I wanted to get out all the Christmas stuff and partly because I knew if I didn't get it done before I went back to school, it might not happen at all!

So here is the Christmas decor 2010.... I don't have TONS of decorations but I do have visions of grandeur....but for now, I am more than happy with sparkly decor that I do have!

Emily is 4!!!!!!

Can you believe that my baby is 4? Neither can I!!! But the week before Thanksgiving we celebrated Emily's 4th birthday... We have called her Princess Emily since the day we found out she was a little girl and she has completely lived up to those expectations (for better or worse)! So, it was not a shock when she told us she wanted her birthday party to be a Cinderella party. We celebrated with our family and had a blast! Emily is light and laughter to our days! She is silly and loving and drama queen all wrapped into one 4 year old blonde-headed, blue-eyed little body and we cannot imagine our life without her!

Emily and her Rapunzel dress!

Blowing out the candles on her Cinderella Doll Cake!

Her new big girl princess bike!

The look on her face when Ryan brought her Princess Bike into the family room!

Princess Emily....hands on the hips....eyes cut to the side!

Halloween 2010!!

Here are some Halloween shots of my favorite pumpkins! Lucky for me this year both of them wanted to use costumes that were in their dress-up baskets! Emily chose to be Cinderella. She has been Princess Emily since the day she was born, so she wanted to put on the dress and sparkly shoes to prove it! And, Alex, of course could not resist being a Clone Trooper! I think he really wanted to wear the costume so that I would buy him the Clone Trooper gun to go with it! At first I told him he could carry his light saber, but then he informed me (in a tone that only says, duh, mom...how could you be so clueless) that Clone Troopers do not use light sabers. I am not sure how I have gone through life not knowing that one simple fact! : )That was my Halloween deal with them...once they both told me they wanted to use the costumes we already owned , I told them I would purchase the accessories.....soooooo the princess got her sparkly shoes and the Clone Trooper has the proper weapon. And they both had a blast trick-or-treating around our neighborhood!

Soccer Mom

Alex and one of his buddies from school ended up on the same team. They are reviewing their game strategy before one game! : )

This is what I mean when I say Alex isn't into the game when he plays goalie! He;s watching the games on all the other fields around us.

Going after the ball!

And yes, this is what Emily does at the games. She is usually dirty from preschool and then she takes down her hair and creates Emily styles. And usually she dances around and sings to entertain herself and anyone else who might listen to her!

More action shots!

Good Game!!!! Great Season!!!

Alex has been playing soccer for several years now. However, this fall soccer season is the first time his games have been even halfway competitive. And guess what I found out..... "I am one of THOSE moms"! Yeah, you know the one...cheering, yelling, intense. The other moms are asking me the score because they haven't been paying attention. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised...I have been going to football games my whole life and love watching the game and all the yelling, competition, etc. I, however do not yell at refs or yell at the kids if they make a bad play. (I do have standards, you know!) I have on several occasions "encouraged" Alex to pay attention....especially when the coach has him play goalie. He absolutely hates playing goalie. Take a look at the pic above that shows Alex leaning against the goal totally unengaged in the game as the goalie. Now put him in as a forward or playing defense and he is all into it! It has been a fun season. Tonight is his last game. He says he wants to play baseball again in the spring, so for now, I can put away the yelling soccer mom, until she returns as the yelling baseball mom!

Alex's Birthday

It's hard to believe, but I am now the mom of a 7 year old. A month ago, we celebrated Alex's 7th birthday. When I think back to the day he was born, I don't think I ever imagined him actually being 7. At that point in time I was just so thrilled to have that little 7 lb. 1 oz. bundle in my arms that my thoughts really didn't go much further than cuddling him and feeding him and changing diapers. But wow, time flies and that baby is now 7 years old with a mind that thinks and wonders, and dreams, and a body that runs and jumps, and slides and a mouth that closes only for the hours that his eyes are also closed! : ) My prayer is that God will continue to grow Alex and draw Alex closer to Him with each passing day, that Alex will develop a heart and mind that stays focused on the things of God! And that God continues to grow me as the mom of a boy.....that I will know what he needs as well as the wisdom to say and do the right things at the right time.

For Alex's big day, we celebrated with a friend party at the bowling alley and a family party at our house. Alex wanted everything to be Clemson Orange....so we had a Clemson Tiger Football field cake at the bowling alley and then we had what else, but Tailgating Food with the family that night. It was a great day, and we were thankful to share it with so many friends and family!

Alex was super happy when he finally got a strike! It made the bowling birthday party even better!

Lake Pictures

Lake Days

Now that fall is setting in (although the weather here has been warmer than usual, and most days have not felt very fall-like) we have had to put our favorite summer toy away for the season....the boat. We had a blast out on the lake this summer. Alex continues to get the hang of skiing and towards the end of our boating season, Emily surprised us all with her announcement that she was going to try knee-boarding one day. And, she did!!!! We look forward to those summer Friday or Saturday mornings or summer evenings when the 4 of us can hop into the boat, find our favorite cove and spend time together laughing, splashing, and skiing!!! Ryan, of course, likes that time the most of any of us. And to make this year's boating season a little sweeter, he was able to do something he has wanted to do for a long time, he bought a "new-to-us" boat. The red Stingray, after 20 something years of faithful service was beginning to be a little less than faithful. So, Ryan started looking around and we said good-bye to the noisy, little red boat, and welcomed a Malibu skiboat to our family! I will admit, it was a lot harder than we thought to bid the red boat farewell, but we have LOVED our family time on the new boat!! There is more room and we don't have to worry quite as often about making sure we have an oar on board in case we need to row back to the boat ramp!

Cleaning up the "red boat" before selling it.

Getting ready to bring the "new boat" home!

Alex's 1st Day of School 2010

Alex has just finished his 1st 9 weeks of 1st Grade. He has had a great start to his 1st grade year. He loves his teacher and his friends in his class. As a mom, and as a teacher, I could not be more thrilled with how much he is enjoying school. His reading ability continues to improve (and even though he won't admit it, I think he is actually enjoying the fact that he can read more things). He LOVES math and science and excels in both. And of course his favorite time of the day is recess where he can run and play with his friends.

My first grader....I can't believe he's already 1/4 of the way through the year!

I can't keep up! and God's Blessings

Let's just be honest here....I can't keep up with everything. This blog is piece of evidence # 1!!! Summer ended and school started and someone still has not let off the gas pedal! In all of my 13 years of teaching (yeah...I did say 13. I am getting old!) I can honestly say that I do not think I have ever had a year as crazy busy as this one. And to be perfectly honest, I have yet to put my finger on why the start to this school year has been NUTS!!!!!!! Nevertheless, this blog along with several other things have been a little neglected over the last 2 months.

But as I sit here on Saturday morning, and listen to the sounds of my kiddos running around playing I can say that I am thankful even in the midst of all the craziness of schedules, school assignments, presentations, church work, meetings, soccer games, etc. As I have rushed through the beginning of fall trying to take one day at a time and on some days, one hour at a time, I have friends all over the place who are in the midst of all sorts of trials that are far worse than my crazy life! Currently I am receiving 4 Caringbridge updates via e-mail. If you aren't familiar with Caringbridge, it is a website that allows those in the midst of all sorts of medical needs, a way to keep friends and family up-to-date on the progress of a family member. I am blessed to call these folks friends and see how each family is handling their "medical crisis" with the help of friends and family and a loving God. And every time I get a Caringbridge e-mail in my inbox I am reminded of what a wonderful God I serve and how blessed I am. And I am also reminded of how selfish I am when I have a "bad" day and think that no one could have possibly had a worse day than me.

God has been with me each step of this crazy fall. And in the busyness of life I know that I have forgotten to take time to worship Him, praise Him, and allow Him to be at the center of every part of my day and my life and thank Him for the blessings he has given me. Will you join with me this week to truly be thankful for all the ways God has blessed you? And will you continue to pray for your friends and their needs as I continue to pray for the families in my life who have needs? And, if you have a minute, leave a comment and let me know what you are thankful for. When I hear other people talk about the ways God has blessed them it always reminds me of other things to be thankful for!

Other Summer Adventures

Our summer has been fairly low-key! We have spent a lot of time at home and at the pool where we have a summer membership, but in addition to our beach trip, we have had a few other summer adventures! Alex went back to soccer day camp for a week this summer. And once again this year it was incredibly hot outside! But he loved every minute of it. I think he is going to play soccer again this fall. We also made a trip to Jacksonville to see Ryan's family right before the 4th of July. We got to spend a couple of days catching up with the Allreds and the kids were thrilled that they got to go on a boat ride in Granddaddy's boat and spend time with their cousins. We also had a chance to watch some Pre-4th of July firewors with Granddaddy and Nene before coming back home. Our other summer adventure was swim lessons. Alex is basically our resident fish...his lessons this year consisted of working on his freestyle stroke and learning to dive! I think he would live in the pool if we would let him. Emily, on the other had, is a different story! God bless our friend, Heather, who has done swim lessons for the kids the past 2 years. Emily went the first day, feeling very brave and bragging that she was not going to cry this year. I think that lasted for one lesson. By day 2, she was in complete tantrum throwing mode. All Heather wanted her to do was put her face in the water adn Emily was having NONE of that! I owed Heather a lot more than her money at the end of the week! She probably needed a huge bottle of Advil in order to survive Emily's 5 days worth of lessons. But I will say, that Emily has made major improvements after her lessons! She still doesn't like trying to swim without her swimvest and she still doesn't want to stick her face in the water all the time, but she is improving! I told Heather, after our week of lessons, that "Stubborn" should have been Emily's name. It isn't that she is scared of the water, she apparently just wanted to do it all in her own time! Lately Emily's favorite things have been jumping off the side of the pool and practicing using her arms and kicks with her swimvest on! Her face is going in the water more often, so hopefully by next summer she will LOVE swim lesson days! (I'm not betting any money on it, though!)



Soccer Camp

On the Boat with the cousins

Waiting on the Fireworks!!!!

Emily....will she swim, or won't she? Only time will tell! : )