Memorial Box Monday; April 20,2009

So I've been thinking on what gives me some of the greatest joy in my life (besides GOD, my family & friends) and I came up with this--The beach. Yes, it is the beach. The beach has so much joy for me. It brings peace, fun, & sometimes even craziness (oh the memories of those crazy times!!)but in all it brings me happiness. So on this memorial box monday I am posting a picture of a picture frame with REAL Gulf Shores, AL sand & seashells in it along with a picture of a sailboat passing by us one day during Spring Break (the last Spring Break that I was on in fact).

Oh how I love it & I am going to miss it this year (I think even more than the kids) but I do know that it was the right thing to do & I can look at this picture to remind me of my years of going & know that I am SO BLESSED to be able to go like I get too.

THANK YOU MAMAW & PAPAW; & DAD & CONNIE!!!!

Thankful Thursday on Friday!!

Well I missed Thursday, but is anyone counting? No one has said anything so I will post my Thankful Thursday this time on Friday. ok so here I go...

*God, Jesus, & the Bible- With this being post Easter week I have to be thankful for my Savior & Friend. He rescued & saved me from a life of sin & distress. He even took my sins (as well as yours) to the cross and died for them there on Calvary. How wonderful is HE? He took all the bad stuff in the world & died so that we (a wretched bunch) can be saved & be part of GOD's children. WOW what an awe-inspiring GOD.

* Family & Friends- You know who you are & I am thankful for you being in my life. You are what has made me who I am today (a new person with Jesus in my heart) & I am SOO thankful we are friends or family.

*My Children- Well my children are my material everything. Do I need to say more? I am thankful that GOD allowed me to be their Mommy, caretaker, & person to show them Christ's love for them. I am NOT the perfect MOM nor will I ever be, but I am soo thankful for my GOD givin job to these two wonderful boys. :)

*The material things we need to live- Yes I am thankful I have a home, food, electricity, water, gas, a car, a job, & clothes. I am even thankful for the things that GOD allows us to have but shouldn't like cable, games, & even Internet. Those aren't things we HAVE to have but I am SOO thankful GOD lets me have them.

humm...well I guess that is all for now. Of course I am thankful for MUCH more, but I don't want to do all of them to where I can not think of anything else for the next time. So I leave you with many blessings for the weekend & lots of love from us to you!

A New Thing for me & Our Blog

Hello Family & Friends =-]!

I am soo excited to announce that I am going to try two new post at least every other week & that is a "Memory Box Monday" post & a "Thankful Thursday" post (& for those of you who reads Linn & DW's blog yes I got it off of their's). I say it is going to be every other week because I cannot really commit to doing it every single week (even though I have soo many memories laying about the house & sooo much to be thankful for!!). So for now it will be every other week & I might do one one week and the other the next week. So how does that sound? **On a different note* some of you more experienced blogger's need to show me how to do the "here" to share Linn & Dw's blog it is SO encouraging**

Ok back to business... Today is still Monday so I'll share my first memory with ya'll tonight. It is a very special memory (but unfortuantly I'm not prepared enough to do a photo) of my first born. Many of you Mom's have this (or used to) laying about the house it is a pacifer from the NICU. Our's came from Baptist Montclair (now Trinity) from our first born. He was in the NICU for 5 days before coming home with me. It was a very exciting but scary time for me because I was a new Mom & not very sure what was going on. Now, that David is older I know that even though he had a rocky and shaky start GOD wanted him here with us. It is our job to steer him right and to remember what GOD did for David in the NICU nursery when he was first born. Praise GOD for HIS wonderous HAND in healing & mercy!!

Ok so I'll post another memory for "Memory Box Monday" in two weeks. Love & blessings to you all.

A lazy Spring Break, a birthday party & a spring break full of fun

So, as you can tell by the title this post will be sort of long. Plus the pics...well you get the idea.
Ok so here I go...
The marriage retreat started UAB's spring break BUT I still had to work & get up early to get the kids to bus/school. So not much of a Spring Break. I was blessed enough to be able to have lunch with Cindy & her eldest and be able to finish reading Jon & Kate Gosselin's book Multiple Bles8ings. It is very good and easy to read if you want to know more about their life before the show. I then tried to get ahead in my school work so I wouldn't have to be locked up in my room reading constantly (I might say that I made the right choice with this :-]).

Then the weekend brought on one of my favorite little 5 year old's birthday party. This family is so sweet and dear to ours and our children love each other so (well @ least L & Lil D do). The above slide is all about her birthday party. Lil D picked out her present what do you think?

Big D went to my sister's house to be with her family during their Spring Break. How lucky was I? So his spring break was in Newbern, TN & I do not know what he did for sure. But I can tell you what Joey, Lil D, & I did.

I had school, but no work so I got to sleep in on Tuesday & Thursday (YAY!!). After school on Monday it was just sort of a lazy hazy day. I think it was rainy that day & we just stayed inside and chilled out resting for the rest of the week. Tuesday, Lil D and I went to the zoo just the two of us. It was a Date with Mommy for Daniel and I think he enjoyed it soo much. We saw LOTS of people we knew and saw most of the animals. We got to ride the train and the merry go round twice. UGH! I did NOT enjoy that so well (LOL-motion sickness). We also walked around the children's zoo and I let Lil D play in the play area for about 30 min. Wednesday was a date with Mommy and Daddy for Daniel. We talked about going to Oak Mountain State Park that day but something else came up with another family so instead we went to Swann Bridge in Cleveland, AL. I have heard Joey talk about that bridge over & over again since we began dating and it thrilled him so to take us there. Below are the pics from that. It is very beautiful and I tried to capture its beauty with the camera.

Thursday was a day at Vulcan with the sis-in-law & her/our family. I had never been to Vulcan before so I really enjoyed being able to see the sights. The kids also loved being able to go around the museum and then being able to go up to Vulcan. WOW!! Is it ever high up there. I just kept looking straight out & snapping pics, LOL. Below is pics from this trip. (Lil D & I went to the playground too).

Friday David returned to us and we all went out to eat at Chik-fil-a for lunch/dinner and we also went to the playground. My sister and her family wanted to go on up to our Dad's home so she did not join us to our next outing which was a showing of Bolt @ the dollar movie theatre. We met our sweet friends there and ALL 6 of our children were on their best behavior.


Saturday the fun continued at Oak Mtn State park. We had a picnic lunch, went to the petting zoo, & then went hiking up to the wildlife preserve & the wild bird preserve. We also went to the "beach" there. Here are the pics from there.

Sunday our friend's joined us at church and then they hosted a yummy lunch @ their home to celebrate their anniversary. We had to be back at church for AWANA & the girls wanted to come with us. Unfortuntly, we had only room for 2 of them (I wish I had a minivan-or could afford one) so just 2 got to come back with us. They had a great time though & we all enjoyed our spring break.
So that was our spring break & here is a final picture of Lil D asleep @ some friends house Sunday afternoon.