more to come…

I have a lot to post, but thought I would post this picture from July 4th for now!  What a great day!

Happy Independence Day!

I am grateful…

-for this amazing country that the Lord chose to be my home
- for the faithful founding fathers that weren’t afraid to fight for what was right
- for the men and women who have given their lives to secure our freedom
- for the many troops who are risking their lives at this very moment to preserve our liberty
- for the fact that ultimately God is in control of our country
- that the freedom we celebrate today is a reminder of the true FREEDOM we have in Christ

Lord, please bless our country – protect us, help us to turn back to You.  Thank You that our trust isn’t in our government, but in You – the One who is in control!  Help us to be faithful to do our part to bring You glory in this country. In Your name I pray, Amen.

.burnin’ breakfast.

So…this morning I wake up to Alec in my room saying that he did something…Chris saying something else (all of this was a blur) before I knew it, I was in a smokey, STINKY kitchen trying to figure out what Alec had done. 

 **What a great way to start a Monday, huh?!**

Alec is usually the first one to get up.  He doesn’t like having to wait for his breakfast, so this morning he decided to fix it himself.  He got out a frozen breakfast croissant sandwich (thankfully he took it out of the plastic wrapper), put it in the microwave for who knows how long (when I got in there, there were 73+ minutes left on the timer!!!)  The whole living room/kitchen areas were smokey and it hurt to breathe…ughhh.  I turned off the microwave, started opening the doors and got fans going to try to pull the smoke out. 

It has been about 3 hours or so, and the house still stinks.  Thankfully that is the only ‘problem’ we have.  There were no actual flames in the microwave that I saw, just a nasty-burnt-to-a-crisp sandwich (see below).  We are so grateful that the Lord protected all of us.  It could have been much worse.  Now we ARE planning on redoing the kitchen, but that wasn’t the route we were planning to take. 

So, all is well in our house.  We now have a good story to tell! 

Sovereign Grace Music Kid’s Project ~ Coming Soon

FYI – you can hear clips from the upcoming SGM Music release ‘To Be Like Jesus’ here.

My sister-in-law (Allison Gilland), several others including a few kids from our church as well as myself sing on this upcoming project coming out later in the month of June.

Hope you enjoy it!

-Chris

*13 (1/2) months*

 

 

Well, I am a couple weeks late for Ella’s 13 month update (surprise, surprise!). 

After Ella turned one, it was as if she just started growing up!  So much of her personality started to blossom – she doesn’t seem like a little baby anymore.

At 13 months, she was still crawling really fast, cruising a lot and just starting to let go.  She would reach and take one step as she fell, but that was about it. 

She loved being on vacation – swimming in the pool was very exciting to her.  She also loved the Disney rides and the Princesses (of course).  (When she saw Cinderella, one of her sandals fell off.  Cinderella quickly said, “Are you trying to be like me – losing a slipper?”  It was so cute!)

She loves to be outside.  She got a cute (pink) swing that we put on the swing set in the back yard.  Every day (multiple times a day) she wants to go out there! 

She isn’t actually changing a lot in size.  I think she may be a little heavier, but her clothes are still the 12-18 month size.  There are some 12 month outfits that she has been wearing since 5 months!  Crazy!  Her size 3 diapers are finally starting to get a little small, so we will move to 4’s for the next box.

Her hair is still growing at a snail’s pace.  It lightened up from the sun on vacation.

That’s a little update on our sweet girl!

::Happy Birthday, Chris::

On this day, 32 years ago, in Orlando, FL, a little baby boy came into this world.  His dad would name him Christopher Adam Jessee.  He would grow up and come to know the Lord…his family would become members of Metro Life Church where he and I would meet at the ripe old age of 12.  He and I would become friends, then best friends, then husband and wife.  Over the next ten years we would grow as a couple and as a family – adding 3 precious children to our home.  He would grow as a man, a husband, a father…a servant and a leader…he would grow in humility and self-control, in knowledge and wisdom. 

I am so grateful that Chris was born…that the Lord chose to give him life, even when his mom was told she couldn’t have children.  God had a bigger plan – a plan to raise up a man that would serve Him with every fiber of his being – who would love his family, his friends and his church.  A man who will quickly admit his failures, yet one who leaves an example that is worth following.

I am honored to have this man as my husband – the one I get to spend my life with. 

Chris, I love you more than words can express.  I pray that the Lord will help me to show you each day what a treasure you are to me.

Happy Birthday, babe…I love you!

Trying to get caught up…

Life has been busy around here.  Immediately after completing our school year, we headed up to G’ville to attend both Angela and Allison’s graduations.  It was a busy trip!  But we had a lot of fun.  My Mamaw & Papaw were able to come down from Arkansas, so it was great to visit with them as well.

Here are the pics from that weekend:

The day after we got home from G’ville, we left for vacation with Chris’ parents.  This year we decided to stay in-town, so we had a resort just minutes from Disney.  The weather was hot, but beautiful!  (Thankfully we didn’t have all the rain that has been pouring down this last week.)  We enjoyed the time away.  Of course it didn’t last long enough…it never does! 

We got to spend a day at Disney and a day at Sea World.  We kind of had a “tourist” vacation, but it was great.  We DO live in the vacation capitol of the world!   

Our day at Disney was a lot of fun!  We went to Magic Kingdom in the morning and did fun stuff for Ella.  She especially loved the carousel and meeting the princesses!  Then Andy & Emily met up with us and picked her up.  That way we had the rest of the afternoon/evening with the boys!  We went to Hollywood Studios. 

Our afternoon was especially exciting as Chris was chosen to compete in the American Idol Experience!  He sang in the first round against two other people and won!  Then he went to the “finale” round – competing against the six other winners from the day.  He won that, too!  It was so fun!  He won a “golden ticket” – basically a Fast Pass to get him to the front of the line at any American Idol audition!  Unfortunately, he is too old to use it!  He is just above the cut-off age.  Oh well…it was so fun watching the crowd LOVE him!    He was amazing!

Here are the photos – this slide show is long!

During the rest of the week, we spent a lot of time in the pool!  It was so nice and relaxing.  My kids are part fish, I think!  The boys have always loved the water and Ella is no different!  She has NO FEAR of the water!  She holds her breath, blows bubbles and even went down the BIG slide all by herself!  She just smiled and laughed. 

As I said before, we spent a day at Sea World.  Andy and Emily joined us, so that was a nice treat.  We had a great time!  Chris, Caleb and I got to try out the new Manta roller coaster!  It was still in the “soft-opening”.  What a great ride!  Can’t wait to do that one again!

Here are the photos from the pool and at Sea World (another long one!):

Okay…I finally got those on here!  That feels good.  Hopefully I can keep up a little better now!    We’ll see…

-last day of 2nd grade-

 I can’t believe it!  Yesterday was our last official day of school.  Caleb has now completed 2nd grade!   This also means that we finished our 3rd year of home schooling!  God has been very kind to us.  There have definitely been days when I felt overwhelmed, but God has given much grace! 

Caleb LOVES to read.  Often the rest of school would get delayed because he would disappear with a book!  ha!  I guess there are much worse problems to have!  ha! 

I could tell, though, that we both were ready to be done.  We started a bit early for the school year and didn’t take many breaks, so we are very excited about the summer!  (Speaking of summer, we leave on Sunday to go on vacation!  yay!)

Caleb, you did a great job this year!  You learned about all the States in the Union and got to learn about a lot of fun things in Bible, American History, Science, Spelling, Language Arts, even in Math!  It has been a good year and I am grateful to be your teacher!  I love you, honey!

Here are a few pics from the last day of school!

 

Next year, Alec will be in Kindergarten!

We studied the Names of Jesus.  This poster has all of his memory verses for the year!

As his last History assignment, he had to write a letter to the President.  Here it is:

Ella check up

I forgot to post about Ella’s 1 year check up.  We went last Monday, 4/13, for her appt.  It went well.  She looked great and did okay with the 3 vaccinations that she got.  (She didn’t even cry with the first one!  The other two stung a bit more, though.)  

Her stats – Weight – 21 lbs, 10 oz  – 50th percentile – She has gotten really thin!  It is so weird to have a baby that is the average weight of a one year old at ONE YEAR!  (The boys were way past this at a year!)

Height – 30.5 inches – 90th percentile (Tall and skinny – I’m a bit jealous!)

Head Circumference – 18 inches – 90th percentile (This is fine – we always pay attention to this measurement because of Caleb’s Hydrocephalus).

We are so grateful that she is a healthy, thriving little girl.  Chris and I were talking about how much she has changed in the last week.  He was noting that she turned one and then decided to grow up!    But it is true, it seems that all of a sudden she understands more and is communicating more, she is trying to say more words, getting more teeth (3 that I know of are trying to cut through).  She has this funny little sense of humor and she likes to play little games.  She is standing more now – still not trying to take steps, but getting SO close!

Today, I had to laugh…she was crawling around with her little pink purse on her shoulder!    That’s my girl!  Oh, and she has figured out how to unzip my purse and the diaper bag – she empties them immediately!  Then she has also figured out how to open the back door, if it is unlocked.  She wants to go out there and get in her swing! 

So, as you can see, Ella is changing at a rapid pace!  I am just trying to enjoy every bit of it!

***Ella’s 1st Birthday Party***

Well, the special day finally arrived…Ella turned 1 year old and we were able to have her party ON her birthday!  (It was convenient that it fell on a Saturday!)  We had family and friends here with us to celebrate.  Thankfully the weather was nice.  It was warm and a bit overcast, but it didn’t rain at all (which was good, because if everyone had been inside the whole time, it would have been a very tight fit!)

We had a wonderful time.  Our dear friend, Val Busser, made an AMAZING cake for the day!  Wow!  Yes, it was a bit over the top…(smile)…but it was SO MUCH FUN!  (Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU VAL!)  I am totally loving this whole girly-girl thing!  Of course everything was PINK.  Ha!  (I have never even been a big “pink” fan, but something about a little girl does it to you!)   

 Enjoy the photos below…

Our sweet girl on her birthday! 
 

 She seemed to be excited!  (She really liked the cookies, too!)

                 

The INCREDIBLE cake!                                  

This was the “smash” cake – “1″

With Mama & Daddy!

  

I must have forgotten to take this photo at the beginning of the day.  But there were a whole bunch of rubber duckies as party gifts for her friends!  (Since rubber duckies are Ella’s favorite!)

She got a PINK guitar from Grammy & Grandpa (they got the boys each a guitar for their first birthdays).  Check out how she is holding it – like she knows just what to do!

This was our gift to her…a little stroller that will help her learn to walk!  She is here with her friend Lucy!

She was having so much fun!

 

 Happy Birthday, Dear Ellllllaaaaaaa….

She did try to blow out the candle – we had been practicing…she just couldn’t quite do it by herself!

Hmmm…what do I do with this????

Yes, she just stuck her face in it and took a bite! 

Then, she stuck her hands in it…

mmmmmm….chocolate!

gotta love this face….

need…more…chocolate!

the “big kids” eating cake

Ella (after a much needed bath and change of clothes) with her friend Sadie (who turns one exactly one week later)!

I will post some more photos soon, but wanted to at least get these on the blog!  Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated our sweet girl’s birthday!  It was a day we will never forget.