Saturday

Well, the weekend is here and I hope that you all have a wonderful time! I am missing Marlee - yes, I am missing my TEENAGED DAUGHTER with all of her drama!!! :) But I am glad that she is gone! I am glad because she is at Acquire the Fire with the church youth group! I am excited for her. She called me this morning to let me know she was having a good time, but she was not feeling very well last night. I have had a virus all week and Sydnee now has it and Marlee is feeling some of the same symptoms. Unfortunately it spreads like wildfire in a close family who hugs all the time! :) But anyway, Marlee is having a good time in spite of feeling badly. Larry and I took Kalee out to lunch today and we went to Sweet Tomatoes. Larry LOVES that place. It is ok to me and Kalee enjoyed the mac and cheese and soup. She was not too big on salads today. It is often hard to believe that I can leave Drae to babysit and things are always fine. It is hard to believe that the little boy that came to us so "damaged" as some say is now so trustworthy! God is good and He gets all the credit for that! Drae has become an amazing pre-teen! We are very proud of him!
We have been blessed by a neighbor. He asked us if we would like to move our horses to his pasture. He said we would have to repair the fence and all, but that they could move over there and graze to cut out hay bill down! We were extremely excited and took him up on his offer. Larry and Bryce took about 3 days this week and repaired the fence and the horses were walked across the street yesterday and must have thought they were in Heaven with green grass about ankle high!!! Then we brought them back home last night. That is our plan to let them graze there during the day and bring them home at night for their nightly feeding and to sleep! We feel blessed that he has done this for us!
Update on Keara and Brianna: they are adjusting well to their new mommy and daddy! They have done great in school this past week. Their mommy - Patrice - emails me daily and calls fairly often as well. We feel blessed in that area, too. I mean they could just shut us out, but they have chosen to maintain relationship with us and that is just awesome!!! So keep them in your prayers - it is working - all is going well!
Kourtnee started her job full time this week. She missed Sydnee - of course - but she knows she is in good hands :). Meme and Pappy adore her! She likes her job. She is teaching 3 year olds. She is still waiting on a job with the school system so keep that in your prayers. Sydnee is growing like a weed as they say!!! She was 10lbs and 10 ounces today!!!! She is getting so big so fast!!! She is smiling more and more everyday and cooing so much now!!!! Love this age!
TJ and Drae won first place in First in Fitness! TJ won the 100 yard dash and Drae won the Shuttle run. So in April they will compete in the county wide competition! we are very proud of both of them!!!
Kalee is getting taller by the day and I swear she is going to be like Drae and be taller than me by her teens!!! Geesh!! Although, I am short so that doesn't say too much :)! She is doing very well in school and getting better all the time with Claire (her pony). All 3 kids are planning to audition for the talent show after Spring Break - I will be sure to let you all know how that goes.
Kristofer hasn't changed much. He is actually getting much better about his fit throwing and we are hoping he is outgrowing that stage! (Thank GOD!!) :) He is so cute with Sydnee. He loves her to pieces!! He rides in the barrel races now. He rides Superman his pony - Kristofer Reeves on Superman - kinda catchy huh :)!!
Well, Larry and I are good - enjoying are family and especially our grandbaby and grandson, too last weekend! I think I fall more in love with him everytime I see him with Sydnee!!! That is one of the reasons I fell in love with him - his love for children and how he is with them! I love my man! I love my family!!!!
Have a blessed weekend!!!!

Sunday - Baptism

Today something wonderful happened! TJ and Kalee got Baptised! Their daddy did the baptism at church. It was great! The church gets cake and balloons and all that stuff and they have a Spiritual Birthday Party after service. It was a very nice day! After church we went to the parade and Marlee rode Tacoma. This was her first time to ride a horse in a parade and she did very well and had a blast! There are some not so wonderful things going on in our lives right now. Would love to have prayers from believers. God knows what the issues are so just ask HIM to help us out right now. Thanks! Have a blessed Monday, tomorrow!

Twofer Tuesday

Number one - kids say the funniest things: Tonight Larry and I went out to dinner - not a restaurant, but fast food and not alone with Shelby and Kristofer. Shelby is my 2 year old niece and of course Kristofer is our 4 year old son. Shelby said the funniest thing tonight. We were going to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken / Taco Bell. You know the ones that have both together. Well, anyway, as we approached Shelby started yelling, "That's Chicken bell - it's chicken bell we are going to chicken bell". Larry and I were cracking up, but hey it really makes since! K.F. Chicken / Taco Bell - equals Chicken Bell! They so need to change their name!!!! Too cute!!!! Dinner was fun! Shelby is such a cute little riot!!!!
Number two - My morning was blessed with the arrival of Shelby as usual and then Keara - missed her so much over the Holiday weekend and then little miss Brianna came in. I was very happy to see her! When Stacey told me she was starting to get picked up today for school, I took it to mean that she was getting picked up by the bus at her daycare, but she meant she would be picked up here every morning! I was very happy about that. Now I get to see both girls for a while every morning and get to give a hug and kiss each morning! I truly love these girls just like they are already ours! i just pray that things work out that way!
Another nice thing - ok this is 3 I know! We had lunch with Kourtnee and Craig today! That was a nice little get together with just the 4 of us plus Shelby! All in all a nice day - weather wise, too. Oh and a big thing! we found out that a little country gas station and bait store less than 3 miles from our house sells HORSE FEED and a good feed, too, and a whole lot cheaper!!!! So we save on feed, and save tons on gas! we had been driving about 20 plus miles to get our feed!!!!! Pays to stop at little stores to get gas even if they are about 3 cents more than everyone else! :) Glad we did today and glad that Larry saw the feed sign!!! Cannot believe we have never noticed it before, but we usually just pass right by that store.
Hope you all had a great day and an wonderful night!

A change in my weekly blogs

I want to change. I want Friday to Fun and Free Friday - you choose what to blog about. I also want to change Saturday to another free choice. Sorry I have no idea what to call it. :)
Ok, anyway, now that I have taken care of that business, I have a great picture for you. Also, I get to tell the secret surprise early. We got Marlee's blessing early not tomorrow, but we got it today! She was blessed with a new quarter horse! She is an 8 year old gray mare. She is so pretty! Hey how about Surprise Saturday - for the name of the weekly blog! Surprise us with what you choose to blog about. That works for me. :)! Anyway, I am rambling because I am not feeling well and my thoughts are running together! So just check out the picture and I will tell you more about Mystic Rain later - that is the new horse's name! Marlee and I named her!
Good night all - have a great Sunday!

Thanksgiving Night - Thankful Thursday

Well today at dinner as always we held hands in a circle and went around and said what we were thankful for. Most of us said family and togetherness and for this great country we live in - the reason we celebrate this day. It was a nice day. Even the weather was nice. We were all in shorts and t-shirts! Wild for November in North Carolina. We had so much food as always! The kids did so much of the cooking this year it was great! It is nice to pass on the torch - so to speak! Even Drae got into the cooking action. I make a Corn Bread Casserole that he just loves and this year I gave him the recipe - told him we have to make more than it calls for so he has to multiply everything by 4. He did it and TJ helped a little and it turned out great!!! Kourtnee baked a turkey because Larry fries a turkey and some like it baked and some fried. So she made that and mashed potatoes - Real with the skin on! Then she made her famous Baked Squash casserole and Sweet Pot. Cass. They were awesome as always! Only this year she made all of these things at her own house and brought them over!!! Angela made banana pudding, something my mom has always made, but as of today Angela took over that tradition - everyone loved her desert! Alex baked cookies and they brought the rolls. Marlee made the Broccoli rice casserole all by herself and helped out with pretty much everything else. She and Kalee made the stuffing all alone! Even Kris was helping = he was out trash boy taking trash to the can for us as we opened packages and cans, etc. Definitely a family affair. After dinner we went outside and "played" we rode the horses and played ball and other stuff - fun, fun! I think a good time was had by all. Later after Kourtnee took Alex, Angela and Aiden home, she and Craig came back over, we ate some more food and then cleaned it all up and the kids and Grandpa, Uncle RObert and Craig watched The Incredibles, while Larry was on the computer. Vicky, Grandma, Kourtnee and I were all in my room talking and looking at stuff on the laptop - pictures and things for Sydnee. Then Kourtnee was pushing on her stomach by her ribs and I asked if Sydnee was movin ( I have not gotten to feel her move yet - she always stops) and Kourtnee said she was just up by her ribs and putting pressure on her ribs. So I put my hand on her stomach and pressed and could feel her little body! It was so awesome and then she moved!!!!! I was so excited and then Larry jumped up and came over to the bed and was feeling her belly. He could feel her, but she didn't move until he took his hand off and then we all SAW her move across Kourtnee's belly and we all laughed and "screamed" with excitement! It was very cool! It is going to be hard to wait for her these next 2 months! She is already so loved!!!! If you have Myspace and are on my friends list you will be able to see pictures soon of our day, if not email me or comment here that you wnat to see them and I will email them to you. I may put one up on here later - if I can choose one! :)
Happy Thanksgivng to you all!