Yeah...well...what can I say?!

Yes, I am totally aware that I have not updated the blog in over a year. GO me! Amazing how fast time goes by. I am also aware that I made a promise to keep it up this time last year. I lied!!! I am going to do better starting....now! I obviously can't update you on a total year (not that many of you don't know what is going on with us anyway. Especially if you are on FACEBOOK!!! ) Here is a quick update on the kids...
Joshua
Joshua turns 8 in one month. Oh my! I can't believe I have an 8 year old. It seems like he was just a baby yesterday. Where did the time go? Joshua loves school and reading. I think I could leave him at the library each morning, pick him up at dinner and he would be just fine with that. I love my little book worm. Over the past year he has played baseball, tennis and basketball. We are back at baseball season and he seems to love it. He can hit that ball too!!! He has also been participating in Cub Scouts. He has a love/hate relationship with that one. Not sure how much longer he will do it.
Dylan
Oh boy. What do I say about Dylan?! He is getting closer to turning 5. He can't wait. He still has a few months but we talk about his birthday party everyday. No, we have not planned it yet. But he has it all laid out in his little head. Dylan should be going on 35. He pretty much can take care of himself. Don't even try to help him do ANYTHING!!!! You will be put in your place. You also never know what that kid is going to say next. Oh, and if you need your house cleaned, this is the boy for the job!
Gracie
Sweet Gracie. Our family was made complete with this precious girl. She is the best baby in the world. She will work you to the bone though. She doesn't stop for 2 seconds and is ALWAYS into something. She makes us smile and laugh all the time. We call her Miss Congeniality. She waves to everyone, even the dog. She will wave and smile until you notice her. She is finally starting to walk. I thought it was never going to happen!!! Everyday she walks a little more. It is so exciting to see. I love this age.

Another tooth gone

Joshua came home from school yesterday with one of his front teeth barely hanging on. So gross! It was our mission last night to get it out. After several failed attempts from Dad, I pulled the tooth out!!! So not me!!! Joshua got $1 from the tooth fairy and we matched it with another dollar since he was such a good sport! This was the 3rd tooth to come out. I should probably start saving for those braces now.

Wordless Wednesday

Well, the pictures were taken on Wednesday anyway...

Girl's Weekend

My mom, sister and I decided last weekend to take a short girl's trip to Nashville. We had a blast! We stayed at the Opryland hotel and did alot of shopping at the Opry Mills mall. My uncle and his wife even joined us for dinner. It was so much fun to be away with just the girls. I love my kids, but I was in need of some time away. Tim did an awesome job taking care of everything back at the house. He even took the kids to lunch and the park on Saturday all by himself. He did run into some neighbors at the park so they helped him out with Gracie. Hey, even I need some help when I am out with all 3 kiddos!! Thank you Tim for letting me get away for some needed girl time with my mom and sister. "The girls" have decided this should make the calendar every year! :)

The girl likes to eat....

Gracie is going on 13 weeks now. Most babies start cereal, veggies, and fruit at about 6 months. Well, not my kids!! Both of the boys were ready to eat well before then. Since they were such big babies I always had the doctor's approval to go ahead and start on cereal. Gracie is no exception to this. She has been ready to eat since day 1. It was the doctor's idea to start the cereal a few weeks ago. We have done that for a while so we decided to give her some bananas mixed in with her cereal last night. She loved it! She was laughing and cooing as she ate. At times she would fuss at me if I was not feeding it to her. She felt like such a big girl. And she is...She weighs over 15 lbs now. She is in equal proportion with her height so eat on!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

We kicked off our Valentine's Day celebration by decorating cookies on Saturday with our Sunday school class. We do this every year and of course the kids love it. They get to decorate heart shaped cookies with as much frosting, candy and sprinkles as they want. They put alot of time and work into their creations. I think they ate too many cookies as they decorated though, because they have not asked for one cookie since we got home. The cookies will probably hit the trash today! :)
When the kids got up Sunday morning they had a Valentine's Day surprise from Mom and Dad. The boys got candy and a color blast project and Gracie got a new toy for her highchair.
Valentine's night the boys went to sleep over with Gram and Grampie since there is no school Monday due to President's Day. Tim and I stayed at home with Gracie and had a date night in. It was tooo cold to go anywhere plus we felt lazy. I left Tim in charge of dinner. ( Brave, I know!) He did a great job! He got take out from O'Charley's. He got us both a pecan chicken salad, which we both LOVE, and 2 desserts! YUM! We ate,relaxed and watched the Olympics together. It was better than a night out!
Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

Valentine's outfit from Grandmommy!

Tim helping the kids decorate cookies

Valentine's Day surprises!

Alot has changed around here...

"Every good and perfect gift comes from above." James 1:17

It has been a LONG time since I last blogged. Our life has changed so much since then. I am sad that I did not keep all of the little moments that I have probably already forgotten about written down. However, I have lots of family and friends who have great memories so I am sure it is all out there somewhere.

As most everyone knows (since I talk about it ALL OF THE TIME) we adopted a baby girl! Her name is Gracie Lauren and she has brought so much joy to our lives in just the short 11 weeks she has been here. (OK, I am crying as I am typing this!) We love this little gift from GOD so much. I still don't know what we did to deserve such a blessing, but I am not going to keep looking for answers, I am just going to accept this precious gift. It is a long story about how she came to be. We have all that in paperwork, stories, emails, pictures and in our hearts to share with her one day when the time comes. She will know that she was ALWAYS loved, even before time. What an awesome story she already has written for her!!!

I can't catch up on everything that I have missed since I stopped blogging so I am just going to go forward from here.

I have to keep the blog private now so please sign in and check the blog out when you can. Feel free to leave comments as I print this blog and save it as a scrapbook for my kids.