Has it really been that long??

   I can't believe it has actually been over a month since I have posted anything. I am going to use the excuse that I am crazy busy, and that's not just an excuse. It's really, honestly the truth! We are in complete renovation mode at the daycare. Have been since the beginning of December. We are finally seeing things that resemble walls going up, and its making a big difference. I can SEE it now. Every door, every space defined! It is SO exciting.
   Dad and Onye have been working on the plumbing and electric, and over the past weekend had a special helper. Elijah has found a new area of expertise! He went under the house to help Poppy pull the old pipes out to get ready for the new!! He absolutely loved it, and Dad said that Eli was way faster at it that he would have been. Ahhh, Making memories ;)
   I was reading my last post and wanted to mention that we decided to change the name. Instead of Kids & Co. we are now calling it Ready, Set, Grow. We finally have a logo to go with our name as well. IT'S AWESOME!! I know its been a lot of hard work, but it will be fantastic to see it completed. Things are coming together, and all in God's timing. (He has every little detail already planned out, you know!)

  Another thing that has kept us going strong over the past few weeks is basketball. Shaylin is playing again this year and she is loving it. She is much better this year as well. There is only one word to describe her progress. . . AGGRESSIVE!! She has definitely become more aggressive on the court. Stealing the ball, rebounding offensively and defensively, and shooting when she has the chance. (Not to mention she is making a lot of her shots!) I was even approached, by one of the coaches, this past weekend to discuss a traveling team. Not sure how I feel about that yet, but I'm glad she is having fun for now at least!! 

   Other than that. . . both kids are doing excellent in school and Chris and I couldn't be happier with them!

Testimony # 5 of 2011 :)

This season has been an extremely busy yet very exciting one. God is so faithful and He has blessed me, this time, by fulfilling a desire of mine that I have had for what seems like forever. On November 30th our family, my dad and Brenda, closed on a family venture we have named Kids & Co.!(My sister and I, with our families, are in the big middle and we are loving it.) Yes, that's right. . . we are opening a daycare.
As of right now we are in the beginning stages of renovations. Tearing walls out, removing old and planning for the new. God is giving us all goals and ideas as to how we do this for His purpose. It's exciting to see His thoughts and plans for us unfold as we step by step follow His lead. Though we have only just begun, we have seen evidence of His hands, from the start, on us while we move forward on this project. 
I can't wait to see what He has planned for us next!!

Psalm 128: 1-2

¹ How joyful are those who fear the Lord—
      all who follow his ways!
 ² You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.
      How joyful and prosperous you will be! 

Thanksgiving 2011

   This Thanksgiving was very different than the ones in the past. Our family had to got to travel. 

We went to see Chris's parents who live in Malvern. So on Wednesday, we left and went through Hot Springs. There we stopped and visited "Bathhouse Row." We toured the Fordyce Bathhouse/visitors center, and also saw many of the different hot springs fountains. I think we heard that the temperature of the springs stays a constant 127 degrees year round. While we were there we also looked around in the shops along the main street and just enjoyed being in a new place, together.

  Once we left downtown Hot Springs, we went to the UofA botanical gardens called Garvan Woodland Gardens. They were doing their Christmas light display, so we decided to go see. I am glad we did. The kids loved the lights and it put us all in a Christmas spirit.

 Thursday came and we had an interesting meal. Chris's parents oven went out, so we ended up cooking everything including the turkey and dressing on the bbq grill. The turkey turned out good and we all ate way to much in spite of the challenge of preparation. 

 That night after we put the kids to bed, Nana and Papa kept them, Chris and I went BLACK FRIDAY shopping. We ended up getting everything we went after plus some. Not to mention he and I always have a ton of fun. We actually enjoy shopping in the madness!      

 When Friday came and it was time for us to leave, we decided to go home by way of Little Rock. There we stopped at the River Market District and played around for a while, but we also visited the Old State House Museum. It was fun to learn a little bit of history. Before heading home we made one last stop at the Old Mill to take a few pictures. We had a good time, but we were glad to be home.

Here are a few pictures of our trips highlights. 

                              

A fountain in front of the Old State House Museum

This was the bridge that we crossed at the River Market

                                                                                 

Shay took this picture that's why she isn't in it.

                    

 

Busy Busy Busy

This past weekend was a doozy! We got much accomplished though, so that was a good thing.

   Starting it off with a bang, we decided to do a yard sale Friday and Saturday. That was good, we sold lots of "junk" and made a little cash. But most importantly, I got to spend time with my sister and my mom. It's always more fun to visit while you work!!
   Saturday, after we cleaned everything up from the sale, we had a moment of insanity and decided to go ahead and put up our Christmas tree. It usually goes up 2 weekends before Thanksgiving, so that wasn't anything new or different. However, I didn't realize how tired I was and how much work putting up the tree actually is. Well, we got it up that night, but that's all we did.
   So Sunday, after church, we went and grabbed lunch and came home and finished decorating the tree. It was fun and the kids had a good time helping. You know the saying "many hands make light work"? Well, I'm not sure that is completely accurate. I think more work was created by having help. But I didn't redo everything. All their help actually gave our tree a little character, if you know what I mean!! : ) 
   We ended the weekend by going to a special Sunday night service with Marty Blackwelder. It was good, and I'm glad we went. I love that God always gives us exactly what we need, when we come expecting!!
The kids are just trying to make it through this week to next weekend. I'm sure it has everything to do with the fact that they are getting out for the Thanksgiving holiday next week, and they have the whole week off!
   I love this time of year. . . I am just having to remind myself, quite frequently, to slow down and enjoy it!! But time with family is always worth it, and I can't wait to gather this holiday season with the ones I love.

                                         Have a Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll!!

It's Halloween!

This year, our church did their "Fall Festival" on Sunday morning instead of during the children's service. It worked out well, and both of my kids had a blast! We went simple for costumes. Elijah wanted to be a Transformer, and Shaylin wanted to be a Punk Rocker. Eli's was an easy purchase this year, but Shay's costume was a bit more creative. There were 80's rocker outfits to purchase as well, but to put it nicely, not too many of them were age appropriate for my 8 year old!! So we turned to her closet and came up with a masterpiece!!  

Both of them were very happy at how everything turned out, and so was I!! I love it when things come together with little or no stress!! It's great!                     HAPPY FALL YA'LL!!

Shay's 8th Birthday

So it seems the last few weeks have just flown by for our family. We have been catching ourselves coming and going. I like being busy, don't get me wrong, but I think its about time for a break!!

A couple of weekends ago, October 14th and 15th to be exact, we had Shaylin's birthday party sleepover. It was great. She chose a "spa" theme, and we ran with it. We handed out invites that looked like salon gift certificates. They turned out cute if I do say so myself. Shay invited a few of her closest friends and we planned dinner, manicures, pedicures, and facials. Not to mention all of the fun and giggles that were unplanned. : ) The night went well and I think all of the girls had a really good time. Here are a few of our pictures!!

The Birthday Girl with her cake. She wanted lime green and zebra stripes!!

This was the center piece that Shay made for the table. She made the flowers out of coffee filters and plastic straws. So creative!

We ate pizza for dinner!! Shaylin had the table already set before the girls got there.

The name of our "Spa"!

Aunt D and her "almost professional" manicures!!

Gabbie getting a facial!

Chara getting a facial.

Giving Maggie and Teja their pedicures.

The Gang - Maggie, Teja, Gabbie, Chara, and Shaylin

 All in all it was a fun night. A great group of friends and a good time.

One Eventful Weekend

Our weekend was full of fun and amazing things, not to mention a few mishaps. 

We started it off by being blessed with new furniture!! Yes, its true. Our old, sad, red furniture found its way to a hole in the middle of a field, known to our family as "The Pit." I was not sad to see it go though. As the old one was ushered out. . . we welcomed a new black leather set in. Well, new to us anyways, and might I add in much better shape. We really are enjoying it too. Thanks Dad and Brenda. You guys are amazing.

On Saturday, we went with my parents to my dad's company picnic. It's hosted every year at Columbus Acres, in Ft. Smith. Not only do we eat lunch there, but while the adults enjoy playing bingo and trying to win prizes, the kids get to enjoy all sorts of fun things. There are bounce arounds, a rock climbing wall, bungee jumping thingies, paint ball shoots, face painting and a balloon artist. Not to mention the fun carnival games where they win countless little stuffed animals. (Those seem to always make their way to the trash can soon after coming home with us, but shhhhh. . . don't tell my kids.) It's always a day full, but always a good time.

Then Sunday came. It started out great. . . we went to Navigate and attended service at LWRV like we always do. Went to eat with Onye and Tiff afterwards, pretty normal as well. Then we decided to cut a tree down that was in our back yard. That idea was super, as we haven't really cared for the said tree since we have lived here.  However, little did we know that carrying out the task was going to prove harder than we had discussed. :-)
We got the tree cut, but somehow miscalculated the strength it was going to take to get it to fall in the desired direction. So it ended up falling on our neighbors privacy fence. Luckily the fence was already in a damaged state from the storms/tornadoes back in the spring. However, they did have dogs so we did have to patch the fence until it can be replaced at a later date.  But that was just the first ooops. I had pulled Chris's pickup into the back yard to load the tree limbs so they could be hauled to "The Pit." Once they were set and ready to go, I somehow again miscalculated and drove the truck through the gate wrong and scratched the fender on the brick of the house. (WOW. That is SO not like me either. I'm still getting over that one.) So that was the second ooops.  Ok, so I was aggravated at the fact that I scratched the truck, even though it is "just a truck." But in the midst of that and trying to pick up the rest of the mess that comes with cutting down a tree, I wasn't paying attention and stepped down onto one of the old fence boards with a nasty yucky nail in it. Not just the board, I stepped smack dab onto the nail. So yep, you guessed it. . . on to the Dr to get a tetanus shot. Whoopie. (I didn't know exactly how far the nail had gone into my foot, as it had to go through my tennis shoe first, but I did know it bled a lot, and it hurt!!) After seeing him, I'm not sure which hurt worse. . . my foot, or my arm?? 
After returning home, everything got better. We ended up taking the tree parts to the pit and watching them burn in a huge fire, right along with the nasty red furniture!! It was fun getting to watch it all go up in a blaze. I guess it was momentarily therapeutic!! lol But we ended the night by roasting hot dogs and marshmallows at Onye's, letting the kids drive his tractor, and shooting off a few fireworks left over from the 4th!!

Thankfully a good ending to a not so good day!

But over all, another wonderful weekend.