Christmas Cookie time!!

Look another post before the new year....you are all so impressed!

Anyway, here are a few pics of our cookie decorating experience this year. We went to my sister's house (because she is so much more demestocated than I am....lol) to bake and decorate cookies. The kids had a great time. I think we went through at least 2 whole bottles of sprinkles plus some more! Josh was blowing the sprinkles off of his cookies he had so much! And Mary and Jamie just thought it was cool to dump them all over the cookies. (you'll have to excuse the white trash hair on the girls....it had been a long day and they didn't get fixed before we went...lol)

We had a good time together and will have our Christmas together tonight at Mom's house. The kids will wake up at home to see what Santa brought (a new tv, Wii system, games for the Wii, movies, and so on) I am so done with toys!!! Then they go to Chris's at 4 pm on Christmas day. It's kinda hard to let your babies go on Christmas, but divorce sucks and this is how it has to be. Makes me enjoy the time I do get even more and they get Christmas all over again!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and enjoy your time with family and friends!!!

I can't believe it's December....I think I said the same thing about October yesterday!! lol

Anyway, Abbey has been busy with cheer and her squad has taken 1st place in division at all her competitions so far. We have one coming up this Saturday and the Nationals in Orlando in January....and then we can rest on that for a while. She really likes it and does really well with the whole thing.

Josh turned 8 on Thanksgiving day. Can't believe that, but I will go with it!! He had his Boyscout Christmas party last night and lucked out with the mortal combat game in the gift exchange...he was super excited about that.

Mary is Mary and is busy trying to be as big as Abbey and Josh...gotta love her though, she makes me smile like no one else....lol.

A little on the late side, but here is a pic from Halloween too.

Love ya, I'll be back in what like Feb.!!!!!

October, already??

So it's been a while and a lot has been going on, that's for sure. We had a fall festival back in September at church and I was in charge of the "kissing booth". This is Mary playing at the booth. It was hershey kisses covered in whipped cream and you had to eat all the kisses without using your hands. Pretty cute, but pretty messy! We had a lot of different booths and the kids had a great time...how can you beat a hayride! The kids are on a camping trip this weekend with their dad and Josh's boyscout pac. I'm heading up in a few minutes to eat dinner with them and see Josh's "bobcat ceremony". Not really sure what that is, but I'm sure it will be cute. I will try to do better with my posts, it's just hard to fit it all in...I'm sure you all know!

BACK TO SCHOOL

Back to school came yesterday and all had a good day. The kids decorated a "back to school" cake when they got home. In the magazine where I got the idea, all the creative wonderful mothers collaborate with their children to come up with themed designs and decorations and then make the cake from scratch with their children. I am not one of those mothers, but I did think the overall idea was cute. So, I baked and iced the cake while they were at school because they did not want to make the cake (which was fine with me-much easier and faster that way). Then when they got home they decorated it with m&ms and star sprinkles. We decided instead of one of the fancy chalkboard or apple cakes like in the magazine, to go with a circle. You are impressed I know, but it tastes the same. I did learn I do not like to write on cakes with icing. All I did was their names and grades and my hand was killing me. Anyway, they liked it, they ate it, and it tasted just as good as a fancy one!

Cheer, Chop, Grand jete'

School for my monkeys starts back on Monday. They all seem to be excited which I really wasn't expecting from the younger two. Abbey thinks school is a social event so she is thrilled (yes, I remember that I thought that too...I know the reminders are coming). We went and met teachers and took our hundreds of dollars worth of supplies with us. For all you old MPFBCers, Kim (Reed) Taylor works at Dacula Elementary and it was fun to talk to her for a minute.

On top of school we are adding Competition Cheerleading for Abbey with a tumbling class on another day to go with that. Hebron offers both and it's half as much as cheering for the county. There are no games, but they do 4 competitions: 3 in GA and the nationals in Orlando...maybe I should rent Bring It On before we start...LOL. Kim's daughter also cheers up there and so does John and Sherry Densen's oldest daughter. So it was good to see some old familiar faces there. They are all in the same grade but their girls both cheered last year so they are on a different squad. Abbey loved the clinic today and hopefully she will enjoy it. If they are looking for energy...they have definitely found it.

Josh has visited Hebron's school of karate twice now and wants to join that which meets twice a week. He was going to join this week, but then we had an incident with some beating up on Mary and now he has to wait because, "With great power comes great responsibility". It works for spiderman--let's hope it works for him. I think it will be a very good thing for him in a lot of ways.

Miss Mary is signed up to take ballet/tap after school once a week. She wanted to cheer but I thought we would hold off on that for another year. I should have gone with her idea it would have been cheaper! I think she will like dancing though and her recital will be fun to watch. Her teacher is the same lady who taught Abbey when she was three. I assured her Mary was a much different child than Abbey and of course she laughed...but you know she was thinking it!!

Then there is Awana and children's chior that starts next week too.

On top of all that for the kids, I register to go back to school next week. And I have gotten a job during the time they are at school. Oh my goodness, what was I thinking???? Family, I may call on you for taxi services on occassion...fair warning!

Gotta Get A Little Mud On The Tires

We went to Fort Yargo State Park today up in Winder. The beach was great, much to my surprise. I was expecting Lake Lanier quality, but the Yargo beach was extremely clean...no goose poop! Wednesday happens to be free admission day, so that was an added bonus. We stayed for a good three or four hours playing in the water and then in the sand. I love watching my kids make friends with complete strangers and then play with them all day like they've been friends forever. Plus an added bonus for me is that my hair loves nothing more than lake water. It will look amazing for the next two days...yes, I washed it when I got home. I don't know what's in it and I'm sure I don't want to, but my hair is happy.

Then we went to my friend Melanie's house and had burgers and outdoor entertainment!! Her husband, Adam, gave Abbey her first 4 wheelin' lesson. She did pretty well for her first time and ended up riding for probably an hour and a half...well into dark anyway. After she got the hang of shifting gears, which took a while, she came to ask Adam exactly how fast that thing would go. He assured her there was not enough room in his back yard to open her up. She was okay with that and went back to her present speed which I thought was plenty fast enough. I think she would have rode all night if we had let her. The first time I told her it was about time to get off she cackled, "you'll never take me alive!". I found that amusing so she rode for another 5 minutes or so and then we proved her wrong. Josh took a turn with Adam riding with him and did not like it at all. He got in one whole lap and decided that it was too fast for him. It's funny how night and day he and Abbey are.

What Mary does when she gets bored!

This is aparently how Mary spent some time while I was painting Abbey's room. There are a total of 10 pictures of her feet all in different poses and nine of the cat laying in the same spot. I wondered why there were so many pictures to download when all that should have been on there were the pics of Abbey's room. I just thought this was funny and had to share.

Abbey's new room

Sorry, my pictures are in reverse order (no blogger of the year award for me), but whatever it works. We have spent this week getting Abbey's new room fixed. All of them have been in one big room together since we moved in November and I wanted to get her moved before school started. We had an extra room that was filled with boxes and unused funiture. It took 2 days to get everything moved and organized in the basement. Chris was a huge help in that process. It was painted two shades of greenish brown...not what Abbey wanted. So I patched all the nail holes and sanded it down a little, vacuumed the walls with a friend's shop vac and we got started!!

At first everyone wanted to help...Tom's friends all thought it was fun, too! The thrill wore off and I finished it myself. That's fine though, because there is something theraputic to me about painting. I don't think it's the act itself but rather seeing the finished product and knowing you have accomplished something completely. Plus, it looks pretty! Abbey picked the colors herself with only a tad of guidence and I think she did a great job. I told her Nana (who is a great home decorator) would be proud of her-hahahaha.

She also picked out her comforter set and I got her approval on the sheets we bought (then we found a matching gown...too cute). I wanted her new room to be exactly what she wanted. She loves horses and so that is more or less her theme. She has plenty of room to add to her decorations but I only have so much money at the present time to spend on her room so some things have to wait. She gets that and she's happy with what we have done so far. I have some cute painter pics I'll post later of all the kids helping me. I didn't want a mile of pics on one post!

Mega church experience

Well, we went to Hebron yesterday for the first time. My mom was apparently excited about it because she and Joy Bryan had looked up where everyone went on the website so I didn't have an excuse not to go I suppose. It was extremely helpful though, so thank you mom. I know I grew up in a much bigger church than what I have been going to, but the small 100 (that may be exagerating believe it or not) family church with 2 buildings is all my kids remember. Abbey was a little overwhelmed as we walked to E Building for her sunday school and children's church classes. She was nervous and said, "Mom, this place is so big, I like our old church where I know where everything is." I explained that I grew up in big churches like this and it can be a lot of fun and that she would know where everything was in no time. She had a good time and was thrilled that she didn't have to sit thru service like she did at Dacula this year. Josh wasn't keen on it until I told him they have karate that he could take on T and TH, then it was the best church in the world. Mary loved it from the minute I dropped her off and her teachers loved her so she was fine with it, but she's younger than the other two and has a pretty easy going personality. Abbey wants to be friends with everyone imediately and there are just too many people to do that in one Sunday, but she will settle in. Josh stays on edge in situations like that where he knows no one, but I checked on him between sunday school and church and he had made a couple of friends so that eased my mind a little.

It wasn't a good sunday to get a real feel for the church...the sunday school class I visited(co-ed singles 30-45) had a substitute teacher because the real teacher was on vacation, the pastor was on vacation so the assistant pastor preached, the chior is on their 2 week hiadous for the summer, and the numbers were tremendously down in both sunday school and church. It was still nice though, very contemporary, which is not what I am used to but I do not oppose it at all. Amazingly, at least for this week, it still had a small church feel to it if that makes sense. Everyone was very nice and genuine, they do an invitation just like everywhere else, which I guess I wasn't expecting for some reason, but I liked it. The Praise team is great! The choir loft seats about 125 (mom counted) which will be so much different than the 22 person choir I've sang with for the past 4 years--but it will be awesome, I'm sure!! So, I think we will stick it out and see how it goes at least for a little while, but I'm pretty sure we will stay!

Why do they grow up so fast?

I just had to post this picture because I think it is too cute.

Where does the time go? Abbey is 9, Josh is 7 1/2, and Mary is 4. It feels like Abbey was just going to pre-k and now I turn around and Mary's about to go. I handled it a lot better with Abbey, that's for sure. I'm already nervous about Mary's first day at a new school (don't know why, she's been in preschool for the past two years but not every day and not all day). Plus Abbey and Josh are changing schools this year, too in the 4th and 2nd grades. That blows my mind!!

They have been through a lot over the last year but I think they have handled it like champs. Keep them in your prayers as they all start new schools in a month and a new church this week.

Celebrating the 4th on the beach

Yes, I am one of those people who dresses anything that will hold still in red white and blue on the 4th. But don't they look cute! Abbey's shirt says firecracker which I thought was extremely fitting. Anyway, we were on the beach to watch the fireworks that the Blue Parrot restaurant shot off. Their fireworks display was 20 times better than their service and 10 times better than their food. (Can you tell how impressed I was with them?)

The kids played with sparklers and then we dug for crabs in the sand. Other people were having more luck because they were using their flashlights and we were following the rules and using the "turtle friendly" LED lights that the rental place gave us when we checked in. Apparently the flashlights confuse the little hatchlings and they can't find the ocean. The LED lights are not crab hunting friendly and we didn't catch any but the kids looked at the lucky kids crabs next to us...oops-no mom of the year award for that one!

All in all we had a great 4th of July!! We headed back to the house after that and hit the hey, Mary crying all the way. She was more than exausted by the end of the day. So I threw her in the shower and put her in the bed wet head and all. I love that Josh and Abbey are past that point and can pretty much take care of themselves in the major departments. They did and everyone was asleep 30 min after we got home.

I will have to write about our dining experiences in St. George next. You will be rolling with laughter at the things these servers did! I wasn't at the time but now it's funny...good thing they added in their gratuity!

Fun in the Sun

Wow!! A week has never gone by so quickly. The kids and I spent the past week (June 30th-July 7th) on St. George Island with my mom, sisters and brother, and their spouses, my niece and Jay's dog. We rented a massive house with pool by the beach. We had a great time. It took about 7 hours to get there but it was an easy drive and didn't seem like it took that long. Everyone was there by Sunday afternoon and we had a good time. We went on a surry ride where we peddled around the island for a while, we spent tons of time at the beach and the pool, went out for some fresh seafood a couple times and the best pizza I've had in forever one day, visited the shops, the kids got airbrushed t-shirts, had ping-pong tournaments, and we played a lot in general!

Abbey is definately a fish, and not a bad ping-pong player either. She would have stayed in the ocean the entire week if we hadn't of dragged her out. She and Jay "accidentally" swam with the dolphins. They didn't know they were riding the front of the same wave the dolphins were behind until they got out and another family told them. She was thrilled and now thinks she touched one with her foot (wink wink nod nod). They spent the next hour in the same place trying to call the dolphins back....very interesting! Abbey I understand, she is 9, Jay however is 26! He did teach her the finer points of ping pong while we were down there too! She never did beat the master though!

Josh spent the majority of his time with his best friend, Uncle Dave. They mostly hung at the pool because neither of them was too fond of the ocean. Josh did like diving for shells with his mask on a few times, though. They also had some video gaming, and watched some cartoons. Dave likes to hang with Josh because he likes the cartoons as much as Josh does and Josh doesn't make fun of him for it!! Dave also taught Josh how to swim while we were there!! Yeah, Josh!

Mary learned to doggie paddle without her floaty swim suit (which I am convinced is the best invention as of yet in the world). This was very exciting!!! Mary did not like the ocean at all, but was fine playing in the sand. She loved the pool and tagged along with Josh and Dave on their adventures as well.

All of them look like little mexican children now, but they are happy and they had a great time. I had a good time as well. I took a nap in a hammock, read an entire book, put a couple of puzzles together, played some ping pong, swam a lot, and enjoyed my family!!! We've decided to do it every three years, and I'm excited about that.

Okay, that last post was such a lie, aparently!!

So I guess I never really got back to this, but now I am because pictures of my kids are all over my myspace account. So I think I will use this so family and friends can stay posted on all the goings on!! Love ya'll. I'll try to put a link on my myspace account, if I can figure it out!!