Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Hey - I don't have time to post much, and I'm sure I'll do a huge christmas post soon, but I had to plug in here Savanna rolled for the first time yesterday! :-) She rolled from her belly to her back and I know she doesn't know what she did or how she did it, but I know this means soon I'll have a little tater bug rolling all over my house. She's such a cutie! And such a happy baby! I've been beyond blessed with the two most perfect kids in the whole wide world!

Bad to the Bone!!

Joey went to get his hair cut this week. I took him along with his Uncle Garrett (Kris' little brother). He always says he wants his hair just like Uncle Garrett's hair. Well the girl who does their hair, Stacey, (a girl I went to high school with) has different colors of hair gel. Needless to say, Joey chose blue. Ha ha ha - and I thought this picture was just priceless. My sister Amanda took it and Joey would NOT smile - every time she told him to smile, he just scoweled more. Soooo here's my adorable cute little 3 year old. Hopefully things like this doesn't happen when he's a teenager, or maybe this is just a shadow of things to come!! He's just bad to the bone!

Fire Lerms and No Sleep

I'm starting to wonder when I will ever get a full night's sleep any more. I'm starting to wonder when my kids... BOTH of them will both sleep through the night and I can sleep and not be awakened by a hungry baby, a crying 3 year old, a snoring husband, a loud dog, or annoying cats. I'm starting to wonder if I will keep my sanity. BUT I know I'll miss all of this when my children are grown and I still won't be able to sleep because I will miss them so much.

An interesting thing about Joey is his obsession with fire alarms. I think it all started about 6 months ago and I was cooking and accidently set off the fire alarm - food's done! Well Joey FREAKED OUT at the fire alarm. Since then, we have tried to explain to him what we do when the fire alarm beeps and how it's just a way to keep us safe and get us out of the house. But he's still obsessed with them. He notices them everywhere we go. He calls them 'fire lerms'. Every store, house, doctors office, or anywhere we go he searches untill he finds the 'fire lerms'. He will then compare them to other ones he's seen. At first he was afraid of the fire alarm in his room and wouldn't walk under it by himself. Thankfully he's over that, but now he's starting a new trend. 2 nights ago he woke up crying and I went in there and he told me he needed me in bed with him. Well I didn't give in and he did go back to sleep and the next morning he told me that he saw the 'flashing fire lerm moving'. Hmmm. Well last night I woke up at 4 in the morning to someone crying. While I layed there trying to hear which kid it was and how insistent it was over my husband snoring, the crying stopped.

Then here comes Joey toddling into our room. *sigh* It starts.

He says 'Mommy - I need to sleep with you. I saw the flashing fire lerm in my room moving again.'

I said 'Joey - fire alarms don't move.'

He says 'But I saw it move!' then climbs up in our bed. So much for sleeping...

I let him in our bed - which will probably make this a repeat performance. Hopefully next time I will be able to persuade him to sleep in his own bed. I'm not against parents letting their children sleep in their bed with them, but I cannot sleep well with a kid in the bed and really don't want to make it habit of letting him in our bed all the time.

Stupid flashing fire lerms and good imaginations! Ugh - I'm tired!

4 months for my Monster Baby!!

Happy baby!

Distracted baby

Today my baby turned 4 months! I can't believe it's been 4 months already. Time really flies. I know in no time I'll be saying 'she's 14 already??' But as of right now she is all but 4 months. We started out the day by taking her for her 4 month check up. As the title of this entry says, she's a monster baby! I can't believe how quickly she is growing. She is 15 lbs and 14 oz (95th percentile), 26 inches long (100th percentile), and her head circumfrence is 16 inches (60th percentile). So she is heavy and tall, but her head is almost 'normal' size.

I really am pleased with her so far. She is sleeping great - she usually only wakes up once at night around 4 a.m. There have even been quite a few nights that she has slept all night long. Even when she does wake up, she goes back to sleep fairly quickly. Actually, last night when I was reading a story to Joey I heard her start crying and I thought Kris went in there to get her back to sleep. Well, she cried for about 5 minutes, then went back to sleep. After I got joey to bed I went to thank Kris for taking care of her, but he said he couldn't get to her because he was in the bathroom. So she woke up and cried and put herself back to sleep. I felt horrible for making her cry - she probably thought her mommy had abandoned her, but it is good that she can self sooth already when I really haven't even made her do so at all. She eats great, too. She's a good little nurser! I've got to tell you it's so pleasent. Joey was a great baby, but with his reflux and constipation issues, plus the fact he was my first so I was stressed anyway, this is so nice to have such a good natured healthy little baby. I definately know it is a blessing to have two such healthy little ones!

The unfortunate thing about these early check ups are the shots. :-( Actually, both Joey and Savanna got shots today. They gave Joey his Flu shot. I talked to him about it the past couple days preparing him for it and he was actually excited about it. He kept calling it his 'blue shot' - I think he thought I was saying blue whenever I said flu! He would point to his arm and say "I'm getting a blue shot right here just like mommy!' (he watched me get my flu shot about a month ago....). But when it came down to the time of actually getting the shot, he wasn't so happy. There were definately big crocodile tears. After the nurse left he said 'That nurse hurted me!! She pushed the button and hurted me!' He was so mad - so offeneded acting. Kinda cute. Savanna, on the other hand got 3 shots plus and oral vaccine. I can't tell you what they were for - any more I just say 'ok' when they say they need certain vaccines. I truly believe the benefits outweigh the risks. She cried for maybe only 30 seconds after the shots and then got over it! Joey cried longer than Savanna did. I found that humorous.

Anyway, all in all, everything went great. Happy 4 month birthday Savanna! I can hardly wait to watch you grow and see what you will be like as your little personality develops! I love you so much my sweet baby girl!! :-)

More Thanksgiving pictures!

My wonderful mommy just e-mailed me some more pics from thanksgiving that i wanted to include!!! :-)

Grandpa kept the kids entertained by letting them play on Kris' new trailer outside - it's amazing what kids find as fun. The one in the red coat is my boy, Joey and he's with his cousins, Kenny, Jacob, Kaylee, and Kristin

My pretty baby, Savanna, loved her Thanksgiving!

My Seeester, Julie, and her husband, Jorge.

Another pic of my pretty table!

New floor!

Kris ripping out the carpet

As I stated in the earlier post, we are doing some home improvements! I have always loved hard wood floors, but never thought I would actually get them. We put the Pergo floor in Savanna's room and saw it's just as good (if not better than) real hard wood floor. So Kris went all gung-ho and got it for the entire downstairs of my house. We also started painting the living room, but I think it will take me forever to actually finish the painting in the living room and kitchen.

This picture is looking at the entry way. I don't know why the picture turned out so dark but it still looks nice!

This is in the play room. This one turned out alot closer to the actual color of the floor. Looks so nice doesn't it?? :-)

This is the living room. We will eventually get an area rug and new couches and a new TV and stuff, but those things will have to wait a year or two! you can also see in here the 2 walls we painted - the far wall a cranberry color and the other wall a darker tan.

This picture you can really see the wall I have painted vs. the one I haven't. The one on the right is the darker tan we are painting - the one on the left hasn't been painted yet. I like the warmer feel the darker paints give it. Don't pay attention to the mess - having 4 kids here every day - 2 infants and 2 3 year olds definately gives my house the 'day care center' look! :-)

Thanksgiving 2008

First off... I found my camera! Yay! Kris had hi-jacked it - it was in his laptop case!

Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is definately at the top of my list along with Christmas. I love it! I love the time to reflect on everything we have to be thankful for, the time with friends and family, the time to relax, and of course the time to eat! As I posted in my earlier post, I love my place settings! Meemaw (Kris' Grandmother) got them along with the silverware, tablecloth, and napkins for us last year for Christmas.

Aren't they gorgeous? They also have matching soup bowl and mug/saucer but those aren't out in the picture. It really makes for a fun formal-like feel to thanksgiving dinner. Here is a picture of the table all ready - it stretches to 12 feet! We got it a few years ago from and Amish wood furniture. Let me tell you what - worth the money!!!!!!
I know my sister Julie won't like hte following pic, but I had to put it in cause it's the only one I had of the 'after' of the table. I think Julie looks great in this pic, but she didn't think so. Obviously everyone had a good tiem eating, drinking, and being merry!! I am SO grateful for my friends, my family, my husband, and my two beautiful children!!

Daddy can fix eeeeeverything!

Joey is at such a cute age right now! He is at the stage where he thinks Daddy hung the moon. Daddy can do no wrong! It's so cute to watch. Well Daddy got this crazy idea in his head to make a 'cars garage' with Joey out of popsicle sticks. It was a fun activity for them to do tomorrow and I'm certain Kris enjoyed it just as much if not more than Joey. Joey treasures his 'cars garage' now. So cute!

As you can see.... in typical kris fashion... he even rigged it up with working lights for the cars garage. He he.
Our 5 year old couch broke a couple days ago! A couple of the springs popped loose. Well Joey was just FASCINATED that Daddy fixed the couch! He truly does believe Kris can fix anything. Whenever we are out somewhere and he sees something broken, he says 'daddy fix it!' We went to Kris' aunt Karens house a while back and Joey noticed one of her light bulbs were burnt out and he told Karen about it. She said that Dale (her boyfriend) would fix it and Joey said "NO! My daddy will fix it! Daddy can fix eeeeeeverything!" (motioning outward with his hand when he annunciated the word everything! So cute!)
Don't look at the dirty glass on the back window - lol! Gotta love those little kid fingerprints!

Whoever says there is no God....

Has never tried a pomegranate. What a heavenly fruit!!!

Bummer!!

Hmmm... I have so many fun (well, probably boring to all you guys out there in bloggerland, but fun to me!) things to post about thanksgiving and stuff, but I can't find my camera! I've taken lots of pictures and now my camera has *poof* into thin air. This just sucks. I hope I can find it. As I'll talk about later, we've been doing some home improvements and that's the last pictures I took and the house was literally in pieces when I took those pictures and I'm sure I just set the camera down and now it has been misplaced. It worries me because now the house is all put back together and my worst fears are it might have been thrown away or something stupid like that because we did have so much mess laying around it might have gotten mixed up with trash - that would so suck!

Anyway, I'll start with thanksgiving. It was great! This is the 4th year that we have had thanksgiving at my house (maybe 5th, but I think just the 4th....) It is always kind of a combined thanksgiving because my parents and most of my siblings come, along with Kris' mom, grandma, and most of his siblings. All in all we had 12 adults and 8 kids! So fun! It would have been more, but my sister's poor twins were very sick and stayed home with their dad. I am always lazy about thanksgiving. I do not understand how some people put together an entire thanksgiving dinner all by themselves!!! I always assign who is bringing what. I got a half of a ham and a boneless/skinless turkey breast from the Honeybaked Ham store, made the bread (store bought rolls....), mashed potatoes (Ore Ida Steam n' Mash - hehe) and the stuffing (Stovetop!) My dad brought a whole turkey, my sister Amanda brought the sweet potato casseroles (YUM!) My brother brought the green bean casserole, my mom-in-law brought the salad and everyone pitched in on desserts. My sister Julie brought an amazing hot apple cider. YUM YUM So as you see - Thanksgiving dinner is easy for me - hardest part is cleaning and getting the house ready!!

The best part of getting the house ready for Thanksgiving is setting the table I think! This is because 3 years ago my husband and I bought a magnificent Amish built solid Oak table that extends from 5 feet all the way to 12 feet! And last year Meemaw (my husband's grandmother) got us a tablecloth to fit the table, plus a really nice table service and silverware for christmas. Again, I took pictures of this, but iwll have to wait for the camera to re-appear to post it! Anyway, it makes it all look very fancy and formal. So fun!

Another 'fun' thing that happened this weekend is my husband decided to continue home improvements. I mentioned in the post about Savanna's room that we wanted to update our living room. I told my husband that SOMEDAY I would like to get the Pergo 'hardwood' laminate flooring all over our downstairs since our carpet is crappy and I would like to paint the living room and kitchen. Well, my gung-ho husband went out and got all the pergo flooring and ripped right into it! I was barely cleaning up thanksgiving dinner and he was tearing up the carpet! Don't get me wrong, I really wanted this improvement, but it was just so soon. I was so nervous. He swore to me it would be done in 1 weekend, but it ends up he was in a little over his head. Amazingly, all but like a 5 foot square area of our downstairs is done with the floor down! All he needs to do now is finish that small area, put all the trim back up, and finish putting the quarter-round around the trim. The floor really does look amazing. We also began painting, but that will probably take us a while to finish. Obviously we can't paint when the kids are up and painting around all the cabinets in the kitchen will be a chore and a half! But I'm excited to see how it will look when it's done. I will definately post pictures of all this craziness when we find that silly camera!!

On a different note, Savanna has been really fussy the past couple days. :-( Poor baby. I can't figure out why either. I think it has something to do with eating - I hope it's just a growth spurt. She is nursing every 2 hours again - like she's a newborn again! And she's all fussy and out of sorts in between nursings. I worry I'm suddenly not producing enough milk because even pumping has become more difficult recently, but I'm trying to convince myself it's just a growth spurt and it will pass. She's always been such a good little eater and she's always been content with every 3-4 hours eating. So this fussy every 2 hour stuff is a little annoying an concering. She is such a sweet baby! And she's monster baby! I can't believe how big she is getting. Her 4 month check up is Monday, so we will see then how big she is. I'm sure she will also get shots then. :-( Poor thing.

Joey met Santa! (again... gotta find that darn camera). Christmas is so fun! I love watching Joey get excited about Christmas. He is now old enough to understand the whole santa and gift thing. What stinks is I can no longer have him with me while christmas shopping! I'm fairly sure we know what 'Santa' will get him... he's an easy one to shop for!

Well, I think that's it for now. Hopefully I will find my camera soon and will be able to post pictures. Lets all pray it's not in the bottom of a land fill some where!!!!!! :-|

Rollerblading.... hmm....

Ever since... forever I have been trying to find a work out routine that I can enjoy enough to do consistently. Given I LOVE horseback riding which is really an awesome work out, but with two small children at home and not being able to board my horse in a place that allows for riding in freezing temperatures (like an indoor arena??) I am unable to ride the 3 or 4 times a week it would take to get sufficient excercise from it. Heck - with having a new born it seems I can only ride once a month - maybe - if I'm lucky! So my bestest friend Amy suggested I try rollerblading. I looked at them online and saw cheepest end they are $50, I didn't want to put the money into it just to find out I don't like it. But then my friend Laurie offered for me to borrow her roller blades! I was like yes! She brought them this week and today was the first time I was brave enough to try it. Let me tell you what - I loved it!! It's a great work out, but it doesn't exhaust me within a quarter mile like running does. Plus it's low impact and according to all the 'calorie burning' counters on line, it burns around as much calories as running does. It really seems as if it's something I can do for a long time to actually get the excercise I need! I still have about 30 lbs to lose to get to where I was before I got pregnant, so hopefully this will help to keep me on track! Today I did 4 miles on the roller blades - about 45 minutes worth (broken into 2 sessions mind you...) I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow! I can already feel it! Anyway, wish me luck - I really do have a desire to be more active and healthy.

Plus, I did go to see Twilight Thrusday night! And I LOVED it!! It was a good depiction of the book. There were a few things that disappointed me about it like the fact that they kind of flew through the story to fit it all in the movie, so I worry had you not read the book, you would be confused about what was going on. And the special effects really kind of... um... sucked - no other word for it! But all in all it was a good movie and I will definately watch it again and probably buy it when it comes out on DVD! The guy that plays Edward is hot enough to watch again and again and again *sigh* he he!

Twilight!!

About the time I started blogging (not long ago!!) I started reading the twilight series because my friend, Laurie, said it was great and lent me the first book. The first quarter of the book was OK, but I wasn't real into it - then all the sudden it got amazing! I couldn't put it down!! SO GOOD! So I finished it last Saturday, and she gave me the second book. Needless to say I finished it in 4 days!! And I'm a really slow reader. Now my house is destroyed and my children and husband are being neglected cause I just can't put these stinking books down. I just started the third! Well, out of my new found obsession I couldn't wait to see the movie! Laurie and I are going tonight... at midnight... to watch the premier show. It opens tomorrow, so they are showing it at 12:01 a m. We are watching it on the ultra screen, which I guess is 3 stories high! I just can't wait! I will blog tomorrow and tell you all how it was.... if I'm awake that is! Not real sure how I'll get up at 6 when I probably won't even get home till 3! ha! Totally worth it tho I think!!!

Christmas pictures

Ha ha - thought this one was funny.... photographer accidently hit the button. This shows how we were really feeling! LOL!

Cutest baby in the world!! Savanna - 3 months old.

Cutest boy in the world!!! Joey - 3 years old.

We had family pics done today! So fun - NOT! I find it ironic that the pictures show such a happy family where as in between shots we're bickering and carrying on because one or more people are not cooperating! I'm glad we got them done tho - They always turn out looking so nice - and I can't wait to get the christmas cards and mail them out!!!

Savanna's room - my favorite room in the house!!

Happy baby loves her room! :)

The view when you enter her room. I didn't get a good pic of the rug, but you can see the corner of it here - it goes PERFECTLY with the room - found it at home depot!

The view looking at the changing table

The turtle behind the changing table - notice the amazing detail! I LOVE IT! Notice how amazingly real the grass looks, too.

One of the 3 large flowers on the walls.

The view over her crib.

The view looking at the window (we will eventually have a ceiling fan, but until then the stand up one works....). My mom made the quilt hanging on the back of the rocking chair. I found the rocking chair at walmart!

The PERFECT table! I couldn't pass it up - found it at www.companykids.com The vase and flowers are from Savanna's Aunt Angie - goes perfect with the room!

Kris' pile of stuff he still has yet to hang. he he!

Happy frog by the rocking chair - again, notice the amazing detail!

Tree frog by the crib

Well, since we bought this house nearly 5 years ago I have decorated one room... Joey's! The plain walls were definately beginning to get to me, so when I found out I was pregnant again, I got all excited about doing another nursery!! Then to find out it was a girl I got pictures of pink and floofy in my head! I couldn't wait! So the plans started... and got more and more advanced! After contacting a painter, he stood us up. Hmmm - strike one! So I called him back, and he never returned my call. SO we figured we would try Kris' cousin - he has a painting business. I really didn't want to go with family cause that always adds another level of business vs. personal, but I figured we'd try it. Well we made an appointment with him and go figure - he stood us up, too! I called him the next day and he apologized profusely - it really wasn't his fault, but I told him I had someone else in mind that I knew since Kris' cousin was so busy. He understood and told me he'd be there if the other person didn't work out.

Well the other guy is a guy who has 2 horses and he boards at the same barn I keep Olivia. He said he paints on the side and showed me a picture of a BEAUTIFUL mural he did. I made an appointment with him and he showed up! A big plus in his direction! I told him what I wanted to do, and he said it's totally doable. The more he painted the more talented I found out he was!! He was amazing!! You've got to check out the close ups of the pictures he painted! I told him I wanted green and pink stripes on the bottom, a chair rail 3 feet up, and light purple on the top with a boarder around the chair rail of grass with some turtles and/or frogs mixed in and a few large daisys on the wall. I was picturing like stick frogs/turtles and just big puffy looking daisys. I had no clue how lifelike he would make everything! I SWEAR I will NEVER re-paint this room! It's just too amazing! And he barely charged anything at all - I was amazed at how cheap it was!

Also, Kris put in the pergo floor and the chair-rail all by himself! I was so impressed. I was nervous when he said he would do the floor himself, but he got it done in one day and my jaw dropped when I saw it! He did such an amazing job! All in all we got an amazing room - yea it cost some money, but I love it! And I'm sure Savanna will grow to appreciate it! My next big project in this house will be to re-do our drab living room.........

Last Chance Corral - yup - I'm a true horse lover!

I will post more on this subject later, i'm sure, but be sure to check out the Last Chance Corral's blog every now and then. They are an AMAZING organization that takes in nurse mare foals and any other horse that needs help and some love. Be sure to look at their older posts and find the one about King - I think that post is titled 'a new arrival' and was posted in October... I think. Once I figure this blogging thing out more I'm sure I'll know how to post the link, but don't have time to figure it all out right now.

As most of you know I LOVE horses - I have a real passion for them. I really appreciate what the LCC does - gives horses the chance they truly deserve. The first horse picture is my baby, Olivia. :-) Just thought I'd stick one in there! The second one - the one of the black horse - is off of LCC's blog.

Beginning a Blog and Halloween 2008

Alright - so here I am - starting a blog! My sister, Amanda, has been trying to get me to start a blog for a while, so I probably won't tell her for a while I have started one until I get this established. I am sure it will take me a while to figure things out as to how to post and put up pictures and stuff, but I'm sure it won't be bad. The main reason for my starting this blog is to begin journaling more for my kids. I worry I don't write enough down about their early life - I'm HORRIBLE about taking pictures and keeping baby books up to date and stuff, but I think maybe if I start blogging, then I can print these out to be part of their baby books and some day they will appreciate me 'giving in to the dark side' and creating a blog.



I figure my first post can be about Halloween this year. My kids were soooo cute! Obviously they were the cutest ones out there! My son, Joey, was a fireman. He won't stop talking about it! He especially loved the hatchet. Thank you to my sister for allowing me to borrow the costume! And my daugter, Savanna, was a cow! That was a hand-me-down from Joey's first Halloween in 2005. So this year I spent $0 on costumes! Priceless! And both were so cute. As always, Joey got WAY too much candy! He thought when we got home he would get to eat it all. In his words "I eat my candy all gone mommy?" Ha - try convincing a 3 year old that that's just not how it works! I did fairly well not eating much candy though - I had committed myself to not eat any at all - well - that didn't happen, but I did good to not eat too much!

At any rate, wish me luck at this whole blogging thing - I know my blog will be a LONG time in the making, but hopefully it won't be a total flop!