HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

TRUNK or TREAT last night at church was a blast. The girls had an awesome time. Brooke played in the inflatable maze for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth time (do you get the picture). She loved it. Emily had a great time with her friends, although she would circle every now and then and hang out with us a bit. I don't know what I am going to do when the day comes that she no longer wants to hang out with her mommy at all. For those of you who don't know, our church is huge, parking lot full of people at an event like this. You could lose a kid easily. I let Emily go run around away from us with her friends for the first time...felt really weird. I was nervous the whole time. But she had a blast.

I hope you all have a great time with your family tonight...BOO!!

Good food, good friends...

Last night Bo and I went to dinner with a few very close, dear friends. It was so nice to be able to let my hair down. These are the kind of friends that it does not matter if you eat chicken with your fingers and not a fork in front of them. It doesn't even matter if that chicken is Buffalo wings and you don't wipe your fingers until your done. HA! Your hair or clothes don't have to be perfect, they just want you there. Being ourselves, laughing, joking with and about each other, and a lot of talk of much about nothing. AAAAAAHHHHH!!! We had a great time.

Emily Brooke and Nanny had a great time too. Evident by my house...it's a wreck. Oh well, the weekend is coming. WOOHOO!

Have a great Thursday.

BOO...You've been Booed!!

Halloween has been fun this year. Brooke is going to be a Poodle...Fe Fe. Emily is going to be Kelly Pickler. She says Brooke is going to be her pooch. HA! She wants to put her on a leash. Yeah...we'll see how long that lasts. I have a feeling Brooke is not going to go for that and she usually wins. Last night we went with a few friends to a place called Wells West. They have the neatest train ride there. They had a Haunted Train Ride. It was great. We all got to pick out pumpkins and decorate them. Hot chocolate and cookies at the end of our ride was YUMMY. Or so I was told. If you read my previous post you'll know why I had NONE. This stinks!! Will try to post pics soon.

Emily and I had a little fun this evening taking "You've been Booed" baggies to her friends around the island. Halloween just would not be Halloween without the classic set of vampire teeth. Now all our little friends can sport a pair of their own. HA!

Happy Halloweeny!!

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life..."

Or so I was told by my doc this morning. I refuse to let this get me down so here we go. Apparently I am borderline (only borderline) diabetic. Diabetes does run through my family. I have now been officially fair warned. According to the doctor the sirens are going off and if I stay on the path I'm on I will be Diabetic with all the problems that are related. What to do?? DIET!! Surprised?? With diet I should be able to muffle the problem and with life style change I should never have to face Diabetes. I am not a good dieter. I do know how to do it, I just don't want to. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't want to but I am the queen of comfort foods and I know that what is easy is not always best, and I like easy way too much. This really stinks...I am supposed to be concentrating on my mom right now and her journey with breast cancer. Please pray for my perseverance. I don't want to leave this world a minute before God intends (I pray that is a veeeerrrryyy long time). But I also don't want to live my life catering to a disease that I was given a chance to correct. Lord, please let me persevere.

There I said it, it's out, and now I will MOVE ON. For today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Thanksgiving blogs...

Hey everyone in blog land...since November is the month that contains that wonderful, turkey, casserole and desert fill day called Thanksgiving, how about a Thanksgiving challenge. Please join me the whole month of November by including one thing you are thankful for in each of your daily blogs. By November 30th you will have identified thirty things (although I am sure there is even more) that you are thankful for. What a list you will have created if you ever need to remind yourself. Just blog as usual but make a special note of that days "Thanksgiving" somewhere in your blog. Ask your blogging friends to ask their blogging friends to ask their bloggin friends and so on, to join in. I'm sure we will all be inspired as well as blessed.

Quiet around here...

Things have been a little quiet around here the last couple of days, thankfully so. Emily got a Nintendo DS she had been saving for. She did it herself. I even made her take her little bag of savings to Target and count the money out and pay for it herself. Took a little while (lots of change) and the cashier was really patient. He knew this was a learning experience for her. It was really exciting for me. I was very proud of her as she was proud of herself too. The darn thing didn't come with even one game so I still got suckered into buying a game and those aren't cheap. She deserved it though. Felt funny, we don't really buy a lot of play stuff outside of birthdays and Christmas. Her birthday is in June so it has always just worked out that way. Every six months she gets treated like royalty. HA! Don't get me wrong she needs for nothing in between. Of course little girl's are easy anyway. A new fingernail polish, even if it came from the Dollar Tree every now and then makes her happy. No she doesn't have cell phones and expensive ipods like her peers, but she is a happy little girl.

Brooke got new pajamas...Dora, Cinderella, Cupcakes. She is sooooo cute trying to say what is on her jammies. Dora is pretty clear, but the others will need some practice. She is just as proud of her new jammies as Emily is her game.

When Life gives you lemons, make LEMONADE.

Okay...I love cliche's. They are usually relevant to a situation as this one is for us. My sweet mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer a couple of months ago. She was able to have the mass removed and there was no sign of more in her nodes or other tissue tested. Thank you Jesus, she is cancer free. However, she still has to go on with the recommended chemo and radiation treatments to prevent recurrence. This STINKS!! Yesterday was probably her toughest day yet. She has not been in any pain (other than a surgery site...expected). Her pain has been in the decision making through all of this. It just merely hurts your feelings to have to go through something like this. Again, thanks to Jesus we made it through the day yesterday and she will be just fine. She said, "I had my pity party and now it is time to move on." She is and always has been amazing to me. Anytime I have ever been down or have ever had uncertainty about anything, she has always given great advice. She has always encouraged me to press on, "you can't change the past, you can change the future." No, she can't change or know whether or not she will face cancer again. However, this is her way of telling me we are not going to dwell on this but be in control of how we handle it. MOVE ON!!! She will, she always has.

So...we made lemonade. Emily and Maggie had an old fashion lemonade stand (thanks for the pic Julie). They are donating the money they earned along with my little contribution (surprise...they really didn't have a whole lot of traffic) to Breast Cancer Research as this is Breast Cancer Awareness month. This is Emily's way of contributing to her Granny's situation. Although not a lot of traffic, they stuck with it. They had a great time making the poster's and putting them up around the island.

Please keep my sweet mother in your prayers.

Oh the RACES we will go...

Bo and I went to the dirt track races in Baker, FL last night. Still tasting red mud...mmmmm. We had a great time though. A couple of friends of ours were racing. It was neat to watch Bo enjoy a race for a change. Usually he is in a car, racing himself, and I hardly see him the whole night. This track had a band, inflatables (for the kids), everyone was having a great time.

E and M's lemonade stand was great. They did not have a lot of traffic, so boredom came fast. But they hung in there. They enjoyed the lemonade and snacks themselves for sure. They had a great time making the posters the night before and putting them up around the island. The wind was really cool when they got started. Maybe we should have had Hot Chocolate instead.

BIG HAIR...

Do you remember BIG HAIR? Well, I had it. Dee Dee, my BFF since middle school, posted this pic on Facebook this week. Isn't she beautiful? Was then and is now. We were on cloud nine in this pic. This was about 14 years ago, I think. I'm sure she will correct me if I am wrong. I remember this day like it was yesterday. Weddings are so much fun.

Back to the hair. What she doesn't realize is she has started something...Bo wants me to have curly, BIG hair again soooo bad. He has begged me to get a perm ever since I straightened it ten years ago. He goes through my mom' s house and literally caresses (spelling??) the pics she has of me in high school. How sick is that...HA!. I am tempted to curl it again. I don't know about BIG but the curls would be fun. It would literally take me a full hour to get dressed back in the day. No matter how hard I tried to cut corners, it just took time and the right combination of STUDIO GEL and RAVE #3 to get that hair up there and to stay. This used to drive my family crazy. It was a "bad hair day" when you couldn't get it to lift as high as the day before, hee hee. Realize this is an up-do in th pic. There is a lot of hair you can't see in the pic. Anyhoo...amazingly I now manage to get myself, a husband and two girls ready in about thirty to thirty five minutes when I have to. MUST BE THE HAIR...HA!

TGIF...

Thank goodness it's Friday. No school tomorrow. Today was cool and peaceful though. I am looking forward to being home this weekend. We have been out of town every weekend since the 1st of September...crazy huh? We are gearing up for an old fashioned Lemonade stand tomorrow. Emily and one of her little friends Maggie are going to sale Lemonade and donate the proceeds to Breast Cancer Research in honor of my mother who was diagnosed with Breast Cancer recently. I know it won't be a lot of money but this is Emily's way of contributing to her Granny's situation. She is excited. I remember those days.

To catch you up...

Bo and I met just before my graduating from high school. His brother introduced us..."and that was all she wrote". We have been together for 17 years, married for twelve blissful years. Okay...reality is, as every marriage goes, there have been ups and downs. However, we are truly "Enjoying The Ride". We are the epitome of "opposites attract". That's what keeps us going I guess. I think both of us are sticking around not just because of that little thing called LOVE, but also just to see what is going to happen next. He is very hobby savvy, I am a busy bee myself. But somehow it works for us. I love him and could not imagine life without him. I truly think it would be a boring life...HA!

After 3 years of bliss our first addition came along, Miss Emily. She has been a joy to have as a daughter. A couple of things about Emily...she is tender headed (oh the school mornings when it is time to brush her hair), but most of all, thankfully, she has a tender heart. She loves to take up time with people. I got to witness this tonight. A little girl in her class fell on the playground and broke her arm. Emily could not wait to go see her and take her a "happy". While we were there she wanted to do everything for M. It was really sweet.

Seven years later (Lord what was I thinking) we added our latest addition, Miss Brooke. We thought Emily would be our one and only, but she completed us for definite sure. A couple of things about Brooke...she is full of life (the curious one...no fear) and she loves her "Sissy" . We just thought Emily kept us on our toes...Brooke has her own agenda.

We all enjoy surrounding ourselves with people. We are not home bodies, although sometimes I wish we were. We cherish our relationships with family and friends. It is my prayer that my girls grow up to be women who have a strong sense of who they are as individuals. I want them to build long lasting relationships and know that they come from a "RICH" family. We are definitely not rich with money, rather we are rich in love (that analogy was shown to me recently by a cousin of mine...thanks Kermit). Our family ties are strong and unbreakable. Emily accepted Christ as her Savior last year. She loves the Lord and doesn't mind sharing it. I pray Brooke will come to know Christ at an early age as well. I know it is in God's hands. But speaking from experience, it was much easier growing up with Christ. I accepted Christ at an early age and could not imagine how life would have been without that accountability. Don't get me wrong, I was not perfect (I'm sorry if that let's you down...I know all of your mouths are dropping with surprise, HA HA). However, I had a foundation that was real and it definitely kept me grounded.


Okay, okay...I am through rambling or I guess I should call it "blogging". I didn't mean to bore you, I just wanted to record a few thoughts to look back on. I don't know why I am explaining that...that is what blogging is for, right? Enough is enough...goodnight! Hee Hee!!

I Have Arrived...

Well, here I am. I have wanted to do this for quite some time but did not know what in the world I could ever post. I have been greatly inspired by my neighbor's blog. Her name is Julie and she has a beautiful blog (see link "The Boles Beach Bunch" to the right) which I admit I have blogstalked...HA. She is quite the creative one...oh I wish I was. Her blog along with a couple of others have intrigued me. What greater gift is there to give your children, grandchildren and so on, but a compilation of your thoughts about them and events in your life that will have molded them into the people they will have become. Anyhoo...here's to my sweet Emily and Brooke. I thank God everyday he gave you both to me and your daddy. It is my prayer that you will look back on this blog one day and truly know that in your hearts.