such a slacker

Well, I have not been doing well at keeping my blog up to date.  I hate that.  Things are going well here.  We are busy with school and church and keeping up with Ella!  Ha!    Her 18 month update will be coming soon.  Can’t believe she is almost a year and a half already!  Wow, how the time flies.

Big family news -

About a week and a half ago, Alec started reading in school!  He is only three letter words, but he is getting it!  It is so exciting!  He is so happy!    I hope he develops a love for reading, like Caleb has!

Just a couple of days ago, Chad and Cindy had their second child – first baby girl – Taylor Grace Barr.  She was 5 lbs, 8 oz and 19.5 inches long.  She is such a little peanut.  (Ella was that same length, only 9 lbs, 2 oz!  Ha!  Big difference!)  Here is a photo of her:

That is all for this post…time for bed!

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…

Goings on…

Well, there has been a lot going on around here.  We are doing pretty well, just staying busy.  I am having a hard time finding the time to post – I hate that.  But I thought I would update on some things over the past few weeks.

Park Day…

One Saturday, we had a work day around the house.  We decided to have a picnic lunch at the park.  So Chris and the boys rode their bikes while Ella and I drove in the van (with the food!)  It was such a fun little outing.  It was such a great day – relaxing, fun and productive!  Doesn’t get much better than that!

 

Alec LOVES to swing!

Havin’ fun!

 

Ella also loves to swing!  She was in there a long time!

 

Sweet kiddos!

 

 

Ella’s Ducky…

Recently, Ella has a new love for the bath.  She liked it before – well, most of the time, but now she gets excited!  Her favorite thing in the bath is her ducky!  She now says, “Duh” when she sees the ducky.  (We were at the store the other night and she started saying it – I turned and sure enough, there were a whole bunch of rubber duckies! )  She also says, “Ba” for bath.  It is so fun to see her making connections and figuring things out!

 

 

February catch-up

So, I am playing a bit of catch-up on the blog…

Here are some fun things that happened during the month…

Both of our moms celebrated birthdays this month.  I had great intensions of writing about each of them on their birthdays to honor them.  But unfortunately I was sick that week and barely keeping up with life…so it didn’t happen.  But…I still wanted to say how much we love each of you and how grateful we are that God chose us to be your children!  We hope this next year is blessed!

My mom came to Orlando a couple of days before her birthday, so I fixed dinner and a special dessert and we got to celebrate with her in that way.  We went out to dinner for Emily’s birthday (no photos from that night.)  Here are some from my mom’s trip to town…

 

For Valentine’s Day this year, we went to Discovery Cove with our friends, Kyle & Taraleigh!  This is the 3rd year in a row that we have celebrated V-day with them!  It has become a fun tradition!  For those of you that don’t know what Discovery Cove is, it is a small theme park owned by Sea World.  It is an up-close and personal encounter with sea life.  We got to swim with lots of creatures in the reef pool, “swim” with stingrays, enjoy the lazy river, not to mention just soaking in the warm sunshine.  It was SO quiet and relaxing – just what we both needed.  We even got to watch a few couples get engaged out there.  So fun!  We had a great time with our friends and just enjoyed the “day-cation”!  The park closed around dinner time, so we met up with David and the kids at Gator’s Dockside for dinner.  We watched some basketball and had a great time together.  Here are some pics from that day…

More posts to come…

Go Gators!

So, I thought I would take a break from December photos to post some from last night.  We went to Chris’ parents’ house for a Gator party.  Andy is a HUGE Gator fan and loves to have parties for the big games!  It is great! 

Anyway, we went for the game and stayed until the end of the 3rd qtr.  By that point, our kids were exhausted, so we came home and watched the rest while they were in bed. 

It was a fun game and we were so excited that the Gators won another championship!

Ella – practicing her Gator cheer!

Dodo (Andy) LOVES the gators & his girl! 

dressed in orange & blue for the big game!

-fall festival 2008-

We went to Journey Christian Church’s fall festival last night.  It was a lot of fun!  We have gone almost every year since Caleb was little.  The boys LOVE to get dressed up and they talk about fall festival all year long!  This year, we decided to dig in our closets to find costumes.  Caleb was Darth Vader and Alec was Jedi Luke!  Ella was a pumpkin!  All of my kids were dressed as pumpkins as babies! 

It was just our family last night, but we still had a great time.  The air was chilly – so nice! 

Here are a few pics from our evening!

 

            Darth Caleb                                    Jedi Alec

 

                    all dressed up                                             they love star wars!

 

                                 our little pumpkin!

 

                                                                punkin’ doodle!

  

                    sleepy little pumpkin!

 

not sure what this is called, but they bounced on trampolines and were attached with harnesses…they had fun!

 

Caleb on the rock wall                                            Alec playing a game

The Last Couple of Weeks

I have had a hard time keeping up with the blog over the last couple of weeks.  But everyone seems to be better and we are getting back to a “more normal” life (for now!)  Here are some photos…

 

Alec was helping Daddy mow! 

  And here he is being silly.  He has Ella’s “bumbo” seat on his head!

  

The last day of soccer…

The boys and their medals!

Happy Birthday, Dodo!

Ella’s Pink Converse! 

We took the boys to Pioneer Days in Pine Castle.  It was a lot of fun, since we are studying the Early American Settlers/Pioneers in school right now.  They had some demonstrations on Pioneer life.  It was a fun family day!  Andy and Emily joined us and we met up with the Davis’ later in the day.

This last week…

As I mentioned in another post, this past week has been a little crazy around here – due to illness.  Not sure where this came from but boy it got us!  Alec got sick last Monday.  He originally had croup and then it turned into bronchitis by Saturday.  Ughh…we knew he was sick when he didn’t want to play soccer!  The doc put him on antibiotics and a breathing treatment.  It all seems to be working – Thank You, Lord!    He still has a cough, but it isn’t as bad.  Overall, he seems to be feeling much better.  (Back to his trouble making self!  ha!)

Last night, Caleb said his eyes were burning and that he had a headache…you guessed it…he had a fever..102.3, I think.  So back to the couches!  (When my kids are sick, the high point of that time is that they get to sleep on the couch with their pillows and blankets.  I sleep out there with them, so I don’t disturb Daddy as I get up and down during the night.  I can also keep a closer eye on them.  Often I let them watch cartoons if they can’t sleep.  Last week when Alec was sick, Caleb said that Alec was lucky because he got to sleep out in the living room!  Ha!) 

Ella’s first tooth is still cutting through, so she has been pretty fussy and clingy.  At times she is fine, but other times she just squeals (in a way that can go all through you!)  I am just trying to keep Tylenol in her so she is more comfortable.  But she has still been very sweet!

Needless to say, I am in even more need of grace and strength from the Lord than normal.  But he has promised to give me everything that I need – that is GREAT NEWS!  We would love your prayers for health!

Here are a few photos from last week.  Alec seemed to be feeling better this night, so we went to Coldstone for their ice cream social.  They gave out free (tiny) cups of ice cream to benefit the Make a Wish Foundation.  We saw a lot of people up there that we knew.  Here are just a few pics from our night out.

so behind…

Wow…things have been really busy around here.  We hit the ground running after Celebration and I can’t quite catch up!

I am quite tired, so this will have to be quick, but I wanted to post some Celebration pics.  What a wonderful conference it was!  The Lord was so kind to meet us through worship and the teaching.  The theme was FREEDOM.  We heard practical ways to walk in the freedom that Christ purchased on our behalf.

A couple of favorite quotes from this weekend:

“We don’t need a church full of convinced sinners, we need a church of overcomers!” -Danny Jones

“You don’t know the gospel any more than you are living it.” – Jerry Cisar

Ella did incredibly well.  I was able to hear all the messages and to participate in worship!  That doesn’t usually happen when I take a baby to Celebration!

One of my favorite sessions was the worship & ministry night.  The Lord ministered to so many people!

I sang on the worship team for a couple of sessions.  Ella would go to rehearsal with me.  She would be so happy and “sing” (AAHHHHH) along with us!  She really wanted the mic! 

The boys had a blast!  They loved their classes!  There was an army theme for the kids this year.  They also enjoyed hangin’ with their friends, going swimming and riding their scooters at the skate park!

Okay, that wasn’t short…and now it is late!  Enjoy the pics!

Busy, busy…

Things have been busy around here. 

- We have been doing school – it is going pretty well – yay! 

- Last week we were stuck in the house while it rained and rained and rained!  (Thank you, Tropical Storm Fay!)

- This week we are getting ready for Celebration South Florida.  We will head out a little early, since Chris is driving a truck with equipment.  Today is my big packing day – I feel like we are moving any time we go anywhere these days!  Ha!  But seriously, we are really looking forward to this conference and praying that the Lord will move on our hearts and the hearts of all who are there.  I am excited about the worship – there is always something special about the worship times at Celebration!  The boys are really excited about going as well!  They love the kids’ classes!

Here are a few other highlights from the week:

Ella with her friend Sadie!

Ella had her first baby food (aside from rice cereal).  She LOVES it! 

Messy…but yummy!

An experiment for science – a cup of plain water and a cup of salt water.  Will an egg sink or float in each?  Try it for yourself!  The boys got really excited about this!

HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY, DAVID!  We had David over for his birthday dinner.  I made home-made fried chicken & gravy (like Grandma does), mashed potatoes and green beans!  Yummy!

I guess that is about it from around here.  I will post again after Celebration!