Family History

I love technology. I think it's great that my sisters (in-law) and I can keep everyone up to speed on our blogs. It's so nice to click on my friend Kim's blog to see what their family is doing. And all of this because we're all many miles away from each other. But I found another great perk that my blog brings to me...

I used to be a really great journal writer. In high school and the first year or two of college, I was very devoted to my journals. The majority of mine and Jake's relationship is recorded on paper! But then something happened! I got too busy playing with friends late at night - which is when I usually wrote. And then I got a job, and married, and started having kids. Life got too crazy. So unfortunately, there are a few years of my life that haven't been recorded.

Thankfully some genius came up with blogs and I learned about them. Now I can put pictures (which I take way more of now because I want to keep my blog updated!) and text together and have a record of my life again! And did you know that there is a publisher (Blurb) that is working on making blogspot compatible with their software so we can print our blogs in books? How great will that be? I can print my blog in yearly spurts and have a hard-bound copy of our family's life.

Now as much as I love blogs, I still love to scrapbook. And often times I scrap the same pictures that I may have featured on a post in the blog! But my scrapbooks allow me to get really creative and put little twists on things. The boys LOVE to look at the scrapbooks and see how they've grown or how different embellishments were used. It's great.

So I hope that I'm doing my part to keep a history of our family. Maybe generations from now will appreciate all of the time and effort (not that I mind) that I put into these memories!!!

No allergies!

We hit another milestone in the journey to finding out what's going on with Wyatt's health. For years he's had trouble breathing through his nose and often resorts to snorting because he prefers nose breathing to mouth breathing. We've had him on Nasonex and Flonase, but I still believe that's what has created more of his headache issues than anything.

So since we knew his head was fine but that the CT scan showed enlarged sinuses, I made an appointment to go see a pediatric allergist. Dr Thai was awesome and very thorough. She immediately had her staff order a copy of the CT scan so she could take a look at it. She was concerned with the inflammation and has put Wyatt on a more gentle nasal spray as well as an antibiotic to hopefully take some of the swelling down. We've also been instructed to irrigate his nose twice daily - ha! We'll see if that flies!

After the poke tests for allergies, the results came back negative. Wyatt isn't allergic to anything!!! So our next step is to get an x-ray of his neck and head to see if it's the adenoids. If they're swollen, then Dr Thai is sending us to an ENT to get those things taken care of.

Poor Wyatt was a trooper. He wasn't expecting to be poked, but did fine despite the uncomfortable pricks. He has no idea what this irrigation stuff is going to entail, but I'm sure it'll be fun for all involved. And we have yet another hospital visit to take care of the x-rays. Luckily he's already done the CT scan, so this should be a walk in the park.

Family Fun

So mom sent me this picture as well as another one to do some touch-ups. I decided I needed to play with this one. It was a bit fun!

Don't we look nice?

Travis decided he needed to try my boots on. He usually wears everyone's shoes around the house, but these were harder to get on. I do like that they cover his entire leg!!!

And yes, he did walk with them on and didn't fall!!!

What is love?

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'

Rebecca- age 8

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'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

Billy - age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

Karl - age 5

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'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'

Chrissy - age 6

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'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

Terri - age 4

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'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'

Danny - age 7

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'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss'

Emily - age 8

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'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

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'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,'

Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

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'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'

Noelle - age 7

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'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'

Tommy - age 6

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'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'

Cindy - age 8

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'My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'

Clare - age 6

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'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'

Elaine-age 5

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'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt.'

Chris - age 7

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'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'

Mary Ann - age 4

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'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'

Lauren - age 4

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'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

Karen - age 7

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'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'

Mark - age 6

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'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'

Jessica - age 8

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And the final one

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
'Nothing, I just helped him cry'

Valentines Galore

It's the time of year when I can use my crafty expertise to make fun little goody bags for teachers and those that I visit teach. Below are the bags of kisses that the boys gave to their teachers. I didn't let them take part in making these because I was selfish and wanted them to look superb.

Now I did let the boys each make their Valentines for their friends. We decided on Ring Pops this year. I love for the kids to give out candy or pencils or something. The reason is crazy, but it's because we never gave out the scratch-n-sniff cards or anything with bells and whistles when I was a kid. I'm sure it was because Valentine's Day was never a big deal in my family growing up. But because I can display my card making skills and such, I really like V-day now.

Here's Brad stamping his bugs on his cards to fold over and staple to the Ring Pops.
Wyatt made his own cards too. I even made some for Travis so he can take them to his little friends in nursery on Sunday. I realized that Travis has more little girl friends than boys in the process!!! I guess he's starting young to be a little Lady's Man!

And a closer shot of the toppers and then the candy with the toppers added. It was lots of fun. Brad and Wyatt like it when I have stamping projects for them. I guess I need to find other things that they can stamp, huh?

A day at the park...

It was another gorgeous day today. The temperatures hit 60 degrees and if the wind hadn't been blowing it would have been PERFECT!

Travis went to a puppet show with CeCe and Shane and then we all met up at the park.

Here's Travis sliding down the "Whee" as he calls it.

By the end of the day he had become Mr. Independent and didn't want any help doing the Big-Kid types of things. It made me a bit nervous, but he did alright.

Shane and Travis take a break.

Swinging was quite fun, but not nearly as fun as playing and running everywhere else.

Another move for Mr. Independent!

And to finish off the day at the park, we watched the ducks at the creek. Travis wanted to pet them, but they were smarter than that and always flew into the water when he got too close.

A day at the park...

Nice days...

There are always a couple of days throughout winter that are much warmer than the norm. This past weekend was one of those times. We enjoyed 60-degree weather on Saturday and Sunday and it was in the 50s on Monday. The kids enjoyed being outside nearly all the time.

Nana and PawPaw took the boys and Tammy to the Mill Mountain Zoo on Saturday. They had lots of fun and had lots of stories to share when they returned. Of course I didn't take my camera with me on that trip, so I didn't have any of the boys seeing the animals.

We also celebrated Granny's birthday by going to the Homeplace for dinner. The Homeplace is family-style restaurant where they bring you everything and set it on the table. You eat as much as you want and they keep refilling the bowls. Everything is southern-style too - so it's delicious. We enjoyed fried chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, pinto beans, biscuits (with fresh apple butter), coleslaw, gravy, chow-chow and cobbler topped with icecream for dessert. Yum!

The Possum

Jake and I were able to see George Jones in concert this past weekend. Jake got tickets from his parents for Christmas, so we made a trip to Roanoke for the occasion.

The evening opened with a tribute to Conway Twitty. His daughters have put together this tribute to honor his memory. The guy that "played" Conway was REALLY good. They even had a gal that "played" the part of Loretta Lynn. She was pretty good too. Apparently this group is touring the country and you can buy tickets now for a showing in Roanoke this spring.

We had a bit of an intermission as they changed equipment out. So many people got up and left. Jake assumed it was for concessions. I told him I wanted to go get a drink and all he said was, "Good Luck!" Ends up all of those people were either going to the bathroom or outside to smoke. It didn't take me very long to get my drink!!!

When George came out the place erupted with noise. His band was awesome!!! He's starting to get up there in years, so he can't sing for as long as he used to. After about 1 1/2 hours, he was ready to call it a night.

We enjoyed it! I'd go see him again because he was funny and his band was entertaining. It was also quite amusing to do some people-watching while there. I would say that about 55% of people were over 60. 35% were your typical redneck donned in camo, tight jeans and boots. The other 10% of us were aged 25 to 59 and were the normal working class. It was quite a mix - and quite fun!

Good Weekend