A Day at the Zoo

Here's a page I created on Scrapblog about our zoo trip at the beginning of the week. Click on the collage to read about our day. As you can see from the last picture, Matthew was worn out at the end of the trip!

An Outing With A Friend

A few weeks ago, Tyler went to the UAB basketball game with Jeb, his mommy and daddy, and his big sister. Tyler had a blast. He thought it was so cool to go somewhere with Jeb without Jason or me going along. Jeb's daddy bought Tyler and Jeb each a stuffed Blaze. Tyler loves his Blaze and didn't put him down for an entire week. We are very thankful for Jeb and his family and hope Jeb and Tyler will be on the same t-ball team this season!

Tyler said the Blaze statue was huge! The funny part here is that when my dad took him to a game and to see Blaze, Tyler was scared to death and wouldn't go near the statue. It's amazing what a little peer pressure can do, even at the age of 4!

Happy New Year!

I know it's January 3rd and I'm a little behind on my blogging. My computer had a virus and I was out of commission for a few days. Thanks to Dad for restoring my computer and all of my documents!!!

We usually spend New Year's Eve kids-free but our plans changed this year when we waited too late to make dinner reservations for a party of 8! We adjusted and ended up spending two great nights with friends. On December 30th, we had our annual New Year's Eve dinner at Flemings and enjoyed a wonderful meal...one night early. On New Year's Eve, everyone came to our house with kids to hang out and play. Of course, when you have seven kids age five and under in one house, it is complete and utter chaos but we wouldn't have it any other way! We are so blessed to have healthy children and great friends!
As the clock struck midnight and the year changed from 2008 to 2009, I thought about the events of 2008 and what the future holds for us in 2009. Here are two of my favorite pictures from 2008 that really sum up our year...

Our last picture as a family of 3. I was scared to death not knowing how Tyler would adjust to life with a new baby.

One of our first pictures as a family of 4. I was overcome with emotion when I held both of my boys in my arms. As my wonderful co-worker Kathy assured me before Matthew was born, "Your love won't be divided between two children...it will multiply." Boy was she right! And, as you all know, Tyler has adjusted just fine to being a big brother and loves his little brother so much.As I look ahead to 2009, I see my baby turning one, Tyler turning five, and me turning 30. Yep, the big 3-0 is just around the corner. Where does the time go??? I pray that God continues to watch over our family and that we will grow closer to Him in the year ahead. Happy 2009!

Christmas With Friends

One thing we love about Christmas vacation is having time to spend time with our friends. This past Saturday night, we went to Daniel and Laura Ann's house to play. We made reindeer cookies and completely destroyed the James' house. I mean, COMPLETELY! It doesn't take 6 kids very long to destroy a house!

As I was getting ready to post the first picture above, I started looking back at other pictures from our December gatherings. Our babies are growing so fast! Below is a picture from last year (2007) and then from 2005. I couldn't find one from December 2004 or 2006 of all the kids together so I added in non-Christmas pictures so you can see how much they've grown. As you can see, we've also added siblings to our group along the way! Even though we don't see each other as often as we used to, we are so thankful for good friends.

2007

2006

2005

2004

Summer Fun with Friends

Tyler has had a fun summer playing with friends all over town. Having a new baby brother hasn't slowed him down!

Update on Tyler & Some Cute Weekend Pics!

Tyler is much better today. When he woke up this morning his hives were gone but his feet are still a little swollen. We have counted the ant bites on each foot several times and I am not kidding when I say there are over twenty bites on each foot! It's easy to see why his body broke out in hives yesterday. The doctor gave him a steroid to take until the end of the week and, if you've ever had a child on a steroid, it is NOT fun! It makes him do things out of character for him such as spraying sunscreen all over the stairs because he was "painting them". Ask me how much fun it is trying to get greasy spray sunscreen off of carpeted stairs. Our entire house smells like sunscreen!

On another note, I wanted to share some cute pictures we took this weekend of Tyler and Matthew and their friends Reese and Kate. It's rare for Tyler and Reese to get together and smile for a picture so you'd think getting all four kids together would be very difficult but they all just sort of fell into place and posed for the camera.

We're off to Atlanta tomorrow to cheer on the Braves. Hopefully I'll have some cute pics to post of Tyler enjoying the game.

A Day at the Zoo!