Things I Am Thankful For

Tomorrow is Turkey Day, and as I sit here getting my recipes together to start my cooking I thought I would blog about things I am thankful for.......

-first and foremost my family and God
-sweet stinky snotty kisses
-great friends
-my home
-this awesome little town of Jasper
-my church
-chocolate
-cozy socks
-nights at home with my husband doing nothing
-fingerprints on my walls
-slobbery kisses from Millie
-coffee
-the mountains
-having the best neighbors in the world
-walking outside and seeing the cows right at the fence
-fall
-winter
-snowmen
-snow days at school when we cozy up and make hot chocolate
-having the sweetest, most loving, and unselfish husband
-knowing that every morning when Matt leaves he wakes me up to kiss me bye
-vacations
-life
-my neice, Caitlyn's, prayers
-having my grandparents close by and knowing they are happy
-sitting on Aunt Lu's front porch
-Miss Lynn's words of wisdom
-shoes
-peanut butter and jelly
-my boys getting mad if they are going to miss church
-Tyler taking his money to Atlanta and giving it to homeless without me even knowing
-Tanner's freckles and sweet smile
-Tucker's red hair and personality that keeps us smiling
-and again GOD and My Church, Revolution, where I have learned so much in the short time of going there

Hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving!!....now I am off to cook

Priceless

A few weeks ago Tucker went from saying his prayers to singing his prayers. His own tune and all. Every couple of days he changes the tune up, but the other night I caught it on video. Enjoy!

Living In A Small Town

So, it has been forever since I have blogged, and I remember standing on Main Street during the marble festival parade and thinking I have to blog about this. As I get older I realize how much quicker life seems to be going by. So, I am trying to consciously "take in" the little moments.

Every year, the first weekend of October, Jasper has the Marble Festival. They start it off with a 5K in the morning followed by awards ceremony and then parade before the actual festival begins. As the morning started I had reminder after reminder of the reasons I love living in this place called Jasper, the First Mountain City. Here they are....

- I love the marble festival-I love getting up early and going to root on my family and all the runners-I love that I know almost all the people
-I love the cool morning-I love the "competitiveness" of some of my friends and who is going to beat who
-I love Coach Morris, Tyler and Tanners P.E. coach, pumping the kids up and hoping we have the biggest turn out of all the elementary schools
-I love Main Street-I love walking to Main Street after the race to see the parade
-I love that I am so blessed to have Aunt Lu with us every year to enjoy these things with
-I love the excitement of all the kids waiting for the parade, mainly just for the candy that gets thrown
-I love the "small town" feel PERIOD!

I could go on and on about why I love it here. This to me was just a reminder that we made the right decision a few months ago when we made the decision to not take a job 5 hours away! So that is all for now....I will blog again later about Ty's surgery and our beach trip!

Kodak Moment

I have a really bad habit of forgetting my camera and not having it with me at the right time. This weekend was no exception. We were on our yearly extended family trip and I remembered my camera, but I left it in the car the whole weekend. So, needless to say I missed out on alot of pictures of the whole family together. The last day we always go to this Apple House place for breakfast and I DID remember my camera! I believe I got the best picture of the weekend! The picture above is of my sweet little niece Molly and Tucker. They are two peas in a pod and have the neatest little bond. I love having them together! They are so much fun and this picture is the best picture I think I have ever gotten of them and I don't think I will ever get a better one! They are about 6 months apart and at the funnest age. I wish I could just put a pause button on the two of them and keep them just the way they are right now. So, even though I forgot my camera for most of the weekend, this picture says it all. I got my "Kodak Moment" :-)

We had a great time as always. The boys really look forward to this trip because they get to see their cousins. I think there were 22 of us in all. I think we were all a little worried that the hurricanes may dampen the weather, but it turned out to be beautiful weather the whole weekend. We had an awesome time and are so blessed to have such a good family that we can enjoy these times with.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well....until next time....

Tuck's First G.T. Game!

Thursday night we took the boys to the Tech game. It was fun getting back into college football mode and all the excitement that goes with it. The boys were so excited (matt wasn't at all) :) It was Tuck's first game and he did SO good. We were a bit concerned on it keeping his interest, but he literally sat there the whole time! Must be a boy! His only concern was the noise. He spent alot of his time with his hands over his ears worrying that there might be fireworks. Other than that I think he enjoyed it as much as the rest of us.

The boys are truly die hard GT fans. GT fans are few and far between and it makes for fun when we get around family on Matts side and mine, who are all HUGE bulldog fans. I am afraid no matter how hard people try to waiver them, they won't budge AT ALL! Even this weekend we were at Uncle Danny's house and he had out his Georgia chairs while we were cooking out. Tyler came to sit in one and said "I don't want to sit here, I am afraid I will get contaminated", so he goes out to Matt's truck and gets his own chair. This is a child who at 3 could sing the WHOLE GT fight song. I think they just look up to their dad so much that at this age they want to be "just like dad" and go to Tech like he did. Wonder how long that will last! Anyway , below are some pics from the game...Enjoy!!

Tuck Dancing At Blues Brothers Restaurant

I finally figured out how to post videos without going through youtube! Here is Tuck dancing at the Blues Brothers restaurant in Orlando

Getting In Trouble

Tuck being the youngest, seems to get away with alot more than his brothers did. He actually has been our easiest, so he doesn't truly get in trouble very often. I caught this on camera last weekend on the front porch and thought it was pretty funny and kinda sweet.

Tuck getting in trouble

Broken-hearted & Pouting

Daddy telling him he loves him

Making Up

And now it begins....AGAIN....

Beautiful weekend! Wish we would have gotten some rain with all the wind, but the wind made it so relaxing to be outside. I have been getting Fall fever the last 3 weeks and am afraid it is just teasing us....BUT maybe there is hope. The acorns have started falling at our house and they are HUGE! They say that is a sign of a hard winter! That might not excite some of you, but it excites this south Georgia girl who didn't even see her first snow until she was 21!! Last year the acorns were small and we had a very mild winter, so maybe there is some truth to it. I love the snow, the anticipation of snow, school being canceled, Tyler asking for hot chocolate, snowball fights, and building a snowman with my boys. WAIT!!....I am getting way ahead of myself. It's not even fall. Oh well, my point is I love summer but am ready for it to move on.

Anyway, the last couple of months have been pretty laid back as far as sports. Now it begins again.....Tyler soccer, Friday and Saturday practices then games will begin. Tanner, fall baseball, which all we know right now is every Saturday afternoon. I guess we will find out more in the next week. So, it begins again,....I just wonder how we will juggle it once Tuck starts! It seems like alot when we think about it, but once it starts we love going and watching them. They are only young once so we have to enjoy it while we can! Anyway, hope you all had a wonderful weekend..until next time...

You Couldn't Pay Me Enough!

So, yesturday I had to get the boys out of school early to get to Alpharetta by 3:45 for a pediatric ENT appointment for Tyler. I picked them up at 2:00 and hit the road. Arrival time at docs office 3:48. WHAT!!?? Then off we go hitting the road to be back in Jasper by 6:00 for soccer evaluations. We left at 4:48...arrival time in Jasper.. 6:24. Now, this drive should only be about a 50 min. to 1 hour at the most. As I sat in traffic with these people I called Matt and said you could not pay me enough to do this everyday. I would have to pray for my patience and to not have road rage! The funny part of it is I realized how truly impatient Tyler is also. He stressed the whole time about him being late. I sat back and thought how funny it is to see the difference in all three boys. Tyler stressing and saying over and over how late he was going to be, Tanner sitting in the back informing me of every opportunity to get in the lane beside us b/c they were going 1 mph faster.."mom put the pedal to the medal and you can make it! They won't hit you!"..my daredevil..then little Tuck sitting in the back in his own world just going with the flow without any care in the world. It just amused me in the midst of my frustration.



On another note, the doctor was wonderful! He played around with all three boys and was just a really nice guy. The verdict....Tyler has a deviated septum. Our next step is to get a CAT scan to see how severe it is. Apparently, the doc doesn't like to do this surgery on someone his age unless it is absolutely necessary. So, we will see. Our ortho is ready to start treatment on Ty's teeth but he says this has to be treated first. I have a feeling when all this is over Tyler will have ALOT of money invested in this mouth. Then he will probably fall and knock all his teeth out :)



Anyway, I have vented and will now close! Till next time...

ALIVE!

Our church has been doing a series called "ALIVE" for the past couple of weeks. Basically it is about if you had 30 days to live how would you spend it. Making us realize that you are never guaranteed tomorrow and we should live each day to it's fullest. I'm not even doing it justice trying to explain it, but it has really hit home for me and Matt. It makes us realize the importance of family and not our jobs, how much money you make, or what you have on this earth. (you can't take it with you anyway!) So I have been trying to make a list of the things I would hope I have done.

1) I would hope and pray that I have instilled in my boys as they grow up the importance of faith and knowing that as long as you believe in HIM anything is possible.

2) That my family knows that no matter what their past has been I am thankful for them and wouldn't be the person I am today if not for them.

3) That my husband knows how much I love him and that I think I am the luckiest girl in the world that he picked this CRAZY, loud, aggravating, South Georgia girl to be his wife. He is such a genuine, sweet, caring person and the most wonderful father in the world. Our boys and I are so blessed to have him! I have grown so much since meeting him and strive to be as good of a person as he is.

4) To leave this world with no regrets...trying to be a good friend, mother, wife, and most important a good Christian.

The list will continue I am sure, but for now I will close. In reality I know that it is hard to do and be those things 24/7. I'll just take it one day at a time.....Till next time....