Myrtle Beach

Here's some pictures from our trip. It was cold until the last day but we made do with mini golf and magi-quest. I had fun with my camera i got for my birthday. I really enjoy photography but don't do enough to get better with it. Enjoy.





i'll add more ot my facebook page if your interested.

Emily is 2!!

It was a pretty quiet birthday for our house. We just had our neighbor come over and I made a rocket cake for her from her favorite show in the world little einsteins!! It came out pretty good considering I had no idea what to do till that morning. Emily got a couple of littl things and she was excited about them all. Her big present is this weekend going to build a bear with all her cousins. She keeps talking about it, it should be lots of fun. She keeps saying, " yeah mor couzin builabewa birday". Hope you enjoy these couple of pics.

Christmas in review

Christmas Eve every year we make Gingerbread cookies. I don't remember a Christmas eve with out gingerbread in my whole life!! This has become one of our families traditions. Here is a group shot with the rolling pin.

Later that night My mom and sister Meagan and our friends the Cummings came over and we had some fabulous food. I still need your recipe for your monkey bread Roger!! The kids went to bed pretty easily. They really love the Cummings! They all have such good imaginations and come up with fun games when they play together. One night at dinner they all broke into I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" it was so cute and funny, not many kids know that song these day's but apparently all 7 of ours do! so cute!!

Yummm, that food was all so good!!



I caught pictures of there biggest presents. Natalie got and I-pod,


Bryson got the lego Imperial starship. When asked who it was from he couldn't read the cursive writing and says "I don't know, Barrack O-BAMA!! Classic, hilarious!!

And Madison got roller blades.

After a couple of presents Emily figured the whole thing out and went and picked up the biggest present she could carry and said "i wan dis one!!" it was so cute!! This is her in her thinking chair. She loves Blue's clues!


We didn't get a picture of me opening it (i screamed) but here are my kids playing LOOPIN' LOUIE!!!!! One of my all time favorite games!! I don't know where he found it but thanks dad!! I played this for about 3 hours with my kids Christmas day! It rocks!!

My rock star

I know that you aren't supposed to do this. I didn't tape it or ask her (name not authorized) to. I'm not sad she did though. I'm ecstatic to have it and she did so awesome, she was the star of the program.




I'm sorry i know i'm her mom but she is the cutest thing ever!

Oh Christmas Tree, oh christmas tree

Going to pick out the Christmas tree was always my FAVORITE part of Christmas. We would jump out of the van (all 7 of us) running through the evergreen maze in search of the"perfect tree". I always seemed to have a good eye for it and found the one we brought home on many occasions. I remember my dad pulling them out as we would point to them and looking straight up thinking there couldn't be anything more tall or glorious in the whole world. There was just so much magic surrounding this tree that would umbrella my presents in just a few short weeks. The excitement was almost to much to bare back then.

My kids now ooze this excitement and nothing starts off the Christmas season for me than reliving this through them. Madison's second Christmas, "tis-mas twee" was one of her few words. When Christmas was over and we put the tree outside she stood at the door and cried and cried "bye bye tis-mas twee." Last year Emily's first words were, "dat's pwetty" while pointing at the Christmas tree. There is just some sort of magic in that tree. Yes, i still Believe!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

One thing I have always wanted to do was go and cut down our own tree. The thought of it just seemed so romantic and exciting to me. Well Nathan and I found a place not to far from our house this year with the long needle pines (very hard to find here in the south) and I could hardly contain my excitement. The day was perfectly nippy with a cold December sky. The only thing that could have made it more magical would have been if it was snowing, but we live in Charlotte so let's be real here. We couldn't have asked for a better wintry day in this part of the country. The kids took off running through the Christmas tree forest (at least to them it felt like a forest). "What about this one!", "I like this one!" the kids are yelling. Madison screams at Nathan "Daddy I want a MON-STER TWEE!" (yup she still says twee, i know i should be concerned but it will be cute for another year or so). We all rounded a corner and I swear angels sang as we saw our tree-the perfect tree. A gorgeous color perfectly shaped - no holes and it was a !monster! standing at 9 feet tall. The funniest part was watching Nathan carry it out completely lost in it's branches to find out only 100 yards from the car that the man had a wagon to pull it out on. HA! He was pulling pine needles out of cracks and crevices for hours! Memories! I love this time of year!!

christmas pics

Awww, they still love their brother.

Emily is making a funny face.

Halloween!!

I lost my camera but finally found it this morning. Here are the pics from Halloween this year. Emily's favorite holiday for sure!! She is obsessed with candy so she figured out real quic that saying twi-o-twee meant candy in the bucket. She would follow with a quick teen-too (always the polite one around here) and hurried to the next door (or car) giving away candy.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Emily's first skunk!!

So as we were driving down the road two nights ago we came across a very freshly hit and extremely potent skunk. As we approach the smell Emily yells A MESS! The closer we get to the smell the more urgent her cry became...A MESS! A MESS! MOMMY MOMMY A MEEEEEESSSSSS!! A MEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!

As soon we were out of smells way her screams subsided. I laughed the rest of the way home!! sigh I love little kids.

Here is also a cute story about my little Madison:

She sung a solo at church today for the primary program. After we got home I was telling her how proud I was and how awesome she did even though she was scared. She said to me," I said a prayer and asked Jesus for help and he put his magic on me so i could remember all the words."

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Seriously one of the sweetest and proud moments/days of my life with her. It's nice to have days like these so full of joy and assurance that despite all my shortcomings, I might just be doing a good job. :)

SCREAMING LIKE LITTLE GIRLS!!!

It has been one screech filled week around this house. I know by the title you are probably automatically thinking of Natalie and Madison. I would be lying if I didn't admit to taking a HUGE part of the ear piercing screaming that has left my ears numb and my throat soar. Lets just start with the first toe curling experience:



HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Jenn and I and my girls went to see this opening night. We were there and in line about 20 min. early. Madison was all dressed up in her HSM cheerleader outfit. She turned every head in the house with "AWWWW's" and "soooo cutes" abounding. Then......the line moved.. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


So the movie starts and we are going through the previews. Zac Efron has a new movie coming out.


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!



A few minutes later the movie starts and of course it as an extreme close-up of Troy's face sweating and blue eyes gleaming. Forget about hearing anything for the next five minuets


EEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAHHHHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHH

HHEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHWWEEEEEEEEEEEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.(get the point)


My sister Jenn leans over to me and says that this wasn't what she expected it. I replied "Really? ....It's exactly what I expected." She just rolled her eyes playfully and replied "this is crazy" under her breathe. Well almost three hours and endless amounts of squealing later we made it safely home with great memories of the girls.




NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Take my little girls and age them about 20-25 years and you will have me and my sisters and friends Thursday night. (Although I must admit in fairness that my sisters and I took the cake on this one !!) My two friends Sheila and Alicia and then Jenn and Meagan and I all went to see NKOTB!!!! I was crazy OBSESSED with them when I was little. Joey was my Zac Efron. I WAS going to marry him one day. I drooled on his face on my pillowcase every night. I kissed his poster goodbye on my way to school in the morning. (I did say obsessed right?) I still actually have his and Jordan Knight's barbie dolls, my girls play with them all the time. Of course they don't know who they are, oh well.



So the night started with us driving around looking for cheap parking. I rolled down my window at a group of women walking towards the events center and screamed, "Oh-Oh-Oh-OHHHH-OH" to which they replied "OH-OH-OHHH-OH!!! It was so funny and just got me even more stoked for the night to begin.

When they came out I was 9 again.

(Combine all of the above screaming here.)

I was screaming, dancing, squealing, laughing, spinning in circles, yelling I love you Joey!! (I did mention obsessed earlier, just reemphasizing that.) At this point I lean over to Jenn and say "THIS IS CRAZY!!!!" a little excited! She didn't roll her eyes, I don't think she heard me... she was screaming too.

It was amazing! I didn't know that time could magically rewind itself 20 years but it did for me on Thursday. It was soooo much fun to be 9 again. The energy I had was something of a miracle. I had no worries of anything of adulthood from 8 till 12. It was just such a blast, I wish I could go again. The only part that sucked about it was walking out the doors and automatically being 20 years older.


Oh, and just to add one funny bit of info. All of the men's bathrooms were made women's bathrooms for the night. I found that to be hysterical!!

Farmer's Market

Let me just start by saying, YES, I do know that I'm a slacker. It's been way too long since I've posted on here and have absolutely no idea where my summer went and cannot believe I'm staring Halloween dead in the face. And i do mean dead!! HA! Get it halloween, dead, dead, halloween. (yeah i know lame joke, couldn't resist)

So, with that out of the way....

I took my kids to the Triad farmer's market in Greensboro this past weekend and had our nephew Caden meet us there. This is a bit of a tradition for my kids and I and couldn't not get Emily in on the action. They build little houses out of pumpkins which is perfectly adorable when they are little like her. I used to take Natalie when she was a baby. Ahh the memories.

We stopped to buy some peanuts from one of the local vendors. We of course had to go get some cotton candy ice cream from Hershey's ice cream shop, and then went to pick out our pumpkins. You have to love the prices of the farmers market we got a HUGE pumpkin and 4 little ones for the kids to paint for $18. Emily and Caden each got a bouncy ball out of the little qurter machines and spent a good 45 min throwing and chasing them around. We all had fun but were ready not to be freezing anymore so we said our goodbyes and got in the much warmer and far less windy cars.

Yay for blogging again. I'll try to better,

i promise. :)

Summer fun

We went out onto the lake with some friends. We all had a blast!! Madison and Bryson drove the boat. Bryson threw a couple of people around during his turn. He would go from 0 to 60 and then a dead stop, so...... the people who were standing payed for it. The girls had a lot of fun tubing. Bryson was a little afraid of this but had a lot of fun jumping off the boat into the water and swimming around. We fed some fish and had a picnic on one of the island beaches. It was a fun day!! Enjoy the pics. Hope everyone's having a great summer!!

OUR BIG NEWS!!!

Well, Nathan and I figured that it was about time to come clean with our big news. We've kept it quiet for sometime now... well, it's time you all knew:

Bryson is soooooooo excited! He has waited soooooo long for this. We even let Bryson pick out the names for him as long as it wasn't darth..........anything, really. And the name he came up with is ...drum roll please!

STRYDER DASH VLAZNY ...had you going didn't I....he he

(nathan may have helped a bit with his first name!)


We promised him when we found out Emily was a girl that we would get him a boy dog one day. They have all had goals they had to meet to show the capability that they were ready for this HUGE responsibility. They all rose to the challenge with great excitement! Stryder is 7 1/2 weeks, and is an Aussie. We are all looking forward to having long games of catch. Madison just wants to teach him lots of COOL TRICKS!! (I'm not really sure what they are.) I on the other hand am getting a wagon and am bound and determine to teach him to bring in my groceries!! You know you'll all be jealous when that happens. Not IF that happens but WHEN it happens. Anyway, here are some pics of us getting him and bringing him home!! Enjoy!!





LET'S GO PLAY!!!!!!


my do-dee