Summer.... Please Slow Down!!!!

Summer, Please slow down I don't want you to end!

i am not ready for getting up early, getting two kiddos ready for school... one of which IS NOT a morning person, or homework... we have FINALLY reached the point where our day doesn't really start until 9:00... i never ever thought i would see the day my kids actually slept late... and now that is all about to change... sign... change is good right... so they say... i keep telling myself that... ready or not here it comes!!! Meanwhile we have been enjoying ever ounce of summer fun... hang on this is a hodge podge of pictures so be ready... Brylee got to be princess for a day... we rolled her hair, applied make up, put on a crown, and pretty pink princess dress and headed to the party to celebrate cousin katie turning 3...

While sister girl was decked out in her finest... big brother bear and daddy were roughin it in the woods at RA dad and lad camp. They had a blast! Here are a few pictures... i am suppose to be getting a cd of pictures but until then here are a few from their fun camp experience...

look out second grade here comes one motley crew...

funny enough 4 of these 7 guys are all in the same class...

yes say a prayer for that poor teacher(s)... they will have there hands full

cooking breakfast on "buddy burners"

S.N.O.W. ( Something New On Wednesdays)... jackson has been having a BLAST on Wednesday nights at church this summer... we have the best children's leader who has been doing all kinds of super fun stuff with the kids... these are picture from Splish Splash night and the giant water slide..jackson and mrs laura going down the slide... she is the best... how many children's leaders would do that... and have that much fun! Mrs. Laura's husband Mr. Phil was mine and richard's first sunday school teacher at LBC and he left our class to go teach in the children's ministry when our kids were babies... we were so sad... but now we are go glad b.c they now have our kids... what a blessing they are! they have also had a "messy night" where they played in pudding, grits, and flour and tonight we had a mini-carnival with games, popcorn and Mr. Phil's homemade cupcakes and icing... OH MY they were DEVINE! i hope to get my hands on some of those picture too...

We went to Alabama Adventure Monday and had a blast! We were there ALL DAY LONG... 10 to 5... the kids LOVED it... they got to ride the "toilet bowl slide" for the first time and that was Jackson's favorite... they loved the "big kid water slide park" and the lazy river too. Again we have finally reached and age where we can just go and do all day long and everyone is just fine! So nice to reach that point! No picture from that... i think my little point and shoot finally bit the dust... it works sometimes and not others... this was a not others time :(!

I think we are headed to the lake this weekend for a long weekend... looks like it might be the last time for a while... school is around the corner, football for daddy will be in full swing very soon, and we will just have to slow down and take it easy and kiss summer fun goodbye!

leaving you with a beautiful sun set from our front porch tonight!

Today is one exciting day....

because this sweet little girl got her new backpack in the mail today and to say she was EXCITED was an understatement.... i am not sure she has taken it off since it was delivered... she is BEYOND excited about starting kindergarten in a little over 3 weeks. She ask us DAILY when school starts.... every thursday we tell her how many more weeks it is.... she can hardly wait! :) and if the new backpack was not enough exciting news for our little household... this little dude lost his top tooth... finally! I think there is NOTHING cuter than a little one who has their two front teeth missing... the other one is wiggly too so i know it will be coming out soon....my on my will we have a super cute second grade school picture! Poor guy thought I look a lot of picture of him before... he just better get ready! :)

How cool is this... it is almost one year to the day of when he lost his first tooth!

It's A Happy Tuesday for sure!

Atlanta Market Girls Weekend....

This past weekend I got to check something off my "bucket list"... going to the Atlanta Market! I have always heard about it but have never been and I was so EXCITED when Ashley ask me and amelia to go! We had a blast and bought lots of cute new stuff for Favorite Laundry. We left Friday afternoon and got to meet Paige at Maggion's for dinner. Our dinner was delicious and getting to see and talk to Paige was even better. There is just something so contagious about Paige I could talk to her for hours... she is just amazing! I am so glad we got to see you Paige! :) Saturday morning we hit the ground running bright and early so we could shop, shop, shop (or in market lingo write, write, write) in all THREE buildings that have about 13 plus floors on each.... imagine the biggest mall you have ever been to on steroids... that is about how big it is! We ask mickey favorite laundry's sales dude to take our picture... lets just say we are certainly glad he sells clothes better than he takes pictures... best we could get! hey do you think our name tags are big enough??? Saturday night we ate dinner at Rosa Mexicano and it was really good... they made fresh guacamole at our table and I actually tried it and liked it... by this point we were done asking folks to take our pictures and we looked like we had been shopping for 12 hrs so we opted out of a picture! Sunday we went back to market to finish up and then back to the ham! It was a great weekend away with two of my favorite past times... girlfriends and shopping... and of course Ashley treated us like royalty with our big ole king size beds and delicious meals! Thanks ash! :) Now it is going to be like Christmas over the next few weeks as we anxiously await the UPS to bring us all the new fun stuff!!! yippee!

Celebrating 9 years....

today richard and i celebrated 9 years of marriage... it is so hard to believe it was 9 years ago... it really doesn't seem like it has been that long...we laughed at this picture when we saw it... we look like such "babies"... :) here are a few and i mean few pictures of just the two of us... we have maybe one or two picture of just the two of us a year... i really did not realize that... i guess we need to get better about taking picture of just us!

the club... october 2005

ross bridge... july 2006

beach... may 2007

beach... july 2007labor day... beach... sept. 2008date night... april 2009 beach... july 2009mother's day... may 2010

we had a very low key celebration... we enjoyed dinner just the two of us at the new mexican place at the summit chey's, yogurt from yogurt mountain, and i got my hair and nails done and drug richard into every shop at the summit... he was such a good sport and just followed me along! :)

I am so thankful God blessed with such a fine man to call my husband; he is my total dependence for everything. I love him dearly and look forward to spending many more years together!

Splash Pad

Today daddy, jackson and brylee went to the Splash Pad in Gardendale. They had a BLAST! We have been wanting to go all summer but they are closed on Mondays and that is usually the day i take off. Well lots of our friends were going today and I talked daddy into taking them... he was all "worried" b.c he was going to be the only guy... i finally convinced him that no one would care and that there would be other men there just maybe not with our group... with a little begging from me and the kiddos he agreed to take them! After it was all said in done he realized it was a good idea... no one cared that he was a guy and he came home with two tired kiddos... you can't beat that. I hope to make another trip out there this summer and join then this time!

I knew asking daddy to take pictures would be WAY to much to ask so thankfully my dear friend leisha took some pictures of my kiddos... so I could see how much fun they had! Now we are all begging mayor niven to get us one of these in Chelsea! It is free by the way... can't beat free fun!

and look who paid a visit... the icecream man...looks like luke was excited to see jackson... how sweet!

McWane Center

Today we went to eat lunch with GoGo and the kids went to visit her at work and then we headed to the mcwane center to see Mr. Potato Head and to have fun playing in the cool!

We had a great family day!

I can't believe there is only 4 weeks left of summer... it is flying by... i know "daddy daycare's" patience is wearing thin and he is probably a little more ready for the kids to go back to school than I am but we are soaking up the last few weeks of summer with lots of fun activities!

Family Reunion at the Lake

this past weekend we headed to the lake for a powers family reunion at richard's aunt and uncle's house... the kids had a GREAT time playing with all their cousins that they only see a few times a year. Jackson LOVES playing with all the older boys and brylee is just right there with them too. She loved playing with the girls I just missed their picture some how? Fun times with all our little water bug! The adults had just as much fun sitting around having uninterrupted conversations since the kids were all entertained and mine were suited up in their life jackets we were worry free!

Hello Blog World....

Hello Blog World, Long time no blog... to say that we have been busy is an understatement... everything got busy all at the same time... baseball was in full swing... work was is full swing... we were busy getting trunks out and one day i worked 13 of the 24 hours... does that tell you how busy we were... i did thread charts minutes before i left for cullman... and kissed it all goodbye for a few months! So grab a cup of coffee or a diet dr. pepper for me... sit down for a while, scroll on down and consider yourself indulged in pictures and the happenings of our lovely little family! PS... my cousin arron is out of the hospital and is at home recovering... we are so thankful God choose to spare his life... thanks for your prayers, comments, etc!

4th of July

Sunday after we finished baseball we headed to the lake... Brylee was already there... she spent the whole weekend with Granny and Pap Pap so she would not have to "endure the pain" of watching her brother play basbeall ALL WEEKEND LONG and so I would actually get to watch the games and not chase her. So Monday we enjoyed a beautiful day at the lake and pretended it was the still the 4th of july!

We look our annual 4th of July bathing suit picture on the back of the boat! :)

More fun pictures from the day at the lake...

this little guy is a skiing maniac... he can go outside the wake and is trying to "jump" the waves... he can ski with one hand too... he loves it and it amazingly STRONG.... i mean what 7 year old has arm muscles like he does... not many! :)

More pics before we shot fireworks and then headed home! :)Happy 4th of July from our family to yours!

Cullman State Tournament

Last weekend we went to Cullman for the Dizzy Dean 6 year old State Baseball Tournament. It was A LOT of baseball but we had a great time and our little guys did really well. I am so proud of these guys and can not wait to see them to grow into fine little baseball players as the years go on. We played 5 baseball games in 3 days. We played Hayden Friday night and won. Is there anything better than both teams in the middle of the field praying together at the end of the game... God is GOOD! Saturday we played Northport... which should be Alabama's Baseball team... they are AMAZING and we lost.. them we played Moody and won... Sunday we played Vinceit for the 85th time and won and them we had to play... yep you guessed it CALERA... for the love... and we LOST... we just can't seem to beat them however we better learn b.c we are going to be playing against these guys for many years. So once you loose twice you are out of the tournament... so we finished up late Sunday afternoon! I am so proud of this little guy... he played third base and stopped A LOT of balls, caught some pop flys, and tagged a few runners out too.

He ran lots of bases and helped his team put some runs on the board!He hit a bunch of balls... singles and doubles He celebrated with his team when they won and showed great sportsmanship when they lost! and reeived a big ole I am PROUD of you hug from his daddy after the Moody game! A little Jackson story about the Moody Game:

We were playing Moody and started off great then they came back and were beating us... it was the top of the 6th inning (last one) Moody was at bat and we needed to hold them, they had 2 outs and 2 runners on base and we could not let them score those two runs... batter hits a pop fly and Jackson catches it to end the inning. Then it was our turn to bat... last at bat... we needed 5 runs to win... we had score 5 runs... we had 2 outs... 2 runners on base... and Jackson is at bat ( i am a nervous wreck and really can't watch)... the stands were going NUTS both side...I am sick at the presure that is on my little man... he walks up to the plate and BLASTED it to left field right in the hole and the 2 runners score and we win the game!

Baseball is a team sport and you win and loose as a team and I get that and I know Jackson did not soley win the game by himself it was a team effort but we were so proud of him for all he did especially in the last 2 innings of the game! It was a great game for Jackson! He has A LOT to be proud of.

After the second loss... our team was awarded metals for coming in 5th in the state... which is great... especially when there are about 60 or so teams competing in our disrict, area, and state!

Jackson aka "The Govenor" his nickname he was given b.c he TALKS to EVERYONE... all the coaches from the all the teams knew him... even some of the fans... they said he would come into breakfast and shake hands and kiss babies... :) ha ha ha LOL! These guys played hard and they have ALOT to celebrate!

We enjoyed playing All Stars and I am little sad that it is over with... i am glad we can rest and enjoy our summer without having games and practices everyday and every weekend but I LOVE watching my little man play baseball... it is so much FUN!