Letter to tooth fairy...

We got home from a party tonight and I went in to check on Abby and the tooth fairy. I found this taped to her tooth pillow...Have you ever seen anything cuter? I had told her today that I was sad for her to lose her first tooth because it meant she was getting to be a big girl. Apparently, my sweet little one interpreted that as I want/need to keep her tooth! (what does one do with a tooth?)

Anyway, love the note-too thoughtful!!

A big day for Abby!

Notice anything missing from this precious face?Abby lost her first tooth this morning!! She is almost 6 1/2 and has been more than ready to lose that first tooth! She was very brave and tough and already has the tooth under her pillow!! Everytime I look at her I can't get over how different she looks!!!

Christmas Fun!!!

The annual gingerbread house!!Nathan's first time to participate- he ate more than he decorated!!

ta da....

Making Christmas cookies! (we did not include Mr. N on this activity- he was napping!)

We tried to take advantage of the holidays to have some different families over and enjoy time together w/out the craziness of a school schedule. We forgot to take a lot of pictures of our sweet friends, but we did get one this night- they were playing so sweetly together!

Collier, who is your wildest, craziest friend?

After the Christmas Eve Service
Merry Christmas!

If you leave me alone for one minute....

I will color all over my face with a brown marker!!!Nathan continues to keep us busy but the joy he brings is indescribable!! He is definitely his own person! Two funny stories about him from recent- last Friday I took Abby to the mall and she asked if she could sit on Santa's lap. When it was our turn, Abby hopped on and with Nathan tightly clinging to my neck, I stood over to the side. Nathan asked me what Abby was doing and I told him that she was talking to Santa about what she'd like for Christmas. All of a sudden he shouted " SANTA- Geo Trax!!" he wanted to get his request in, but he was not about to sit on his lap.

Yesterday we were driving to the zoo and Nathan was flipping through a board book. All of a sudden he yelled out "Mommy, I'm on chapter 3!" Apparently, he wants to be like his sister who loves to read and frequently calls out her current chapter or place in the book!

St. Jude's Marathon, Dec. 5, 2009

Can I get a "Go Jay Byrd, Go Jay Byrd!!"

Jay ran his first 1/2 marathon this past Saturday in Memphis. He finished in 2 hours, 9 minutes and a few seconds!! Very exciting!

Here we are with his parents after he ran...

lookin a little pasty right after the run!

typical family shot for us- we have 3 like this and in each one, someone isn't looking!

We had a great time cheering him on and watching him cross the finish line! He did great! It was FREEZING- 29 degrees at start time, but he quickly warmed up, it was just those of us not running who felt cold! While we were waiting for him to come in we got to see the winner of the full marathon- he broke a record, finishing 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 16 minutes (he came in before Jay but his time was longer than Jay's due to the delayed release of running corrals). Anyway, it was so exciting.

Way to go, babe! We are SO proud of you!!

Happy Wednesday!!!

My sweet little boy after we had breakfast for dinner, which for him means LOTS of jelly! This is his "hat" that he made at school today at his turkey party!

More Halloween weekend fun!!

Mimi and Gramps came in on Halloween so they could trick or treat with the kids. They spent the weekend with us and then went to Grandparent's Day with Abby on Monday.

Jacob and Gramps always spend a lot of time in they yard!

this weekend, Gramps helped Jacob with his drop-kicks!

he got pretty good at it!

this is a Mimi sandwich

Nathan thought the sticky pumpkin seeds were really funny for some reason!

headed to Grandparent's Day

Mimi and Gramps and their favorite grandkids!!

(at least the girls were ready for this shot!)

Dear Mimi and Gramps, we had so much fun with you- hope to see you soon!

Trick or Treating!!

A mermaid (with a turtleneck!) and Handy Mannyan unhappy giraffe- that is sort of a growl/scowl on his face. Once the candy started coming, he was a happy giraffe!

3 trick or treaters

Jacob and Andrew!

our friends!

Pumpkin carving!!!

Abby's favorite part of Halloween is carving the pumpkin. This year we were planning to go to the pumpkin patch as a family on Halloween morning to select our big pumpkin. The plan was to carve it that afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather was freezing and rainy so we didn't make it to the patch. Jay and Abby set out to find the perfect pumpkin elsewhere (aka Walmart). They searched high and low for over an hour at 5 different places- everywhere was totally out of pumpkins. They finally found a pumpkin at a specialty market and it happened to be a beautiful white pumpkin!! let the carving begin...

cleaning out the inside

more cleaning and lots of conversation about how the pumpkin is a lot like us on the inside- yucky and in need of being cleaned out!!

the finished rabbit, I mean pumpkin!!

I think because it's white and has those BIG teeth it looks so much like a rabbit!! The kids were thrilled with it!

Fall fun!!

On Monday I went with Abby's class to Old Baker's Farm. We rode out to the pumpkin patch, picked cotton, saw some new baby animals, ate lunch in the barn, and played in the hay maze. It was a great field trip!

Abby's 1st grade class

feeding a baby cow a bottle

some of her friends! (both of these little girls were in her class last year, too!)

Abby and Joshua

Abby and some of her sweet friends on the tractor ride...

Abby in the barn where we ate lunch

Monday also happened to be my birthday so that night we went to dinner and came home to celebrate! Jay and the kids made me a cake!

can you tell who was most excited about the cake?

Wednesday, Jacob had a fairy tale parade for K4. (we didn't have any costumes that were necessarily fairy tale, so he went as a football player!!)

Jacob and Andrew parading...

Jacob's class

Love all these fall activities. Still to come this week- a birthday party at the pumpkin patch and trick or treating!!!

Giveaway

My friend, Becky, over at Blue Hutch is doing a giveaway of the Jesus Storybook Bible. If you don't have this, you need to visit her blog and add your name to the entry (all you need to do is leave a comment). It takes all of the Old Testament stories and shows how they relate to Jesus and His coming. They are so beautifully written that I often choke up and cry as I'm reading them to my kids. I HIGHLY recommend this Bible for your family devotions!! Good luck!

Botanical Gardens

It has rained here a lot lately and we've been going a little stir-crazy! We finally had a pretty morning last week one day so I took the boys over to the Botanical Gardens. They had a great time running along the paths and over the bridges. I didn't get a lot of pictures because they were so glad to be outside they didn't stand still for very long, but here are a few sweet ones I did capture...

Jacob crossing the natural rock bridge. I had to be quick b/c Nathan was up next and he's not so trustworthy!

brothers on the bridge...

Jacob checking out the massive goldfish in the Japanese pond!

we also saw some huge turtles swimming around and sunning on the rocks!

he does smile!!

we'll have to go back when it's not so wet and take Miss A with us!

Super Dad!!

This year's super dad award most definitely goes to my sweet husband!! He kept our 3 precious little ones for 4 days last week/weekend so I could get away to the beach with 5 of my dear friends! I won't bore you with the details of our perfect weather, massages, sleeping in late, nice dinners out, etc... Instead, I'll show you some precious pictures superdad took while he was holding down the fort! He was certainly an all-star juggling carpools, and dr. appts, fixing lunches and abby's hair, and he even took them to the zoo and to samford to explore!!

definitely one of the #1 reasons he's superdad is because he took my 3 little ones in to feed the lorikeets at the zoo. I always pick up the pace around this exhibit b/c I CANNOT stand to have those birds crawling around on me!!

apparently Abby loves to have 3 birds all over her!

Jacob, not so sure!

on the zoo train!

next stop, Samford for lunch in the food court and the largest icees I've ever seen!

Thank you for being such an all-star and letting me get away! Thanks to Mimi who also helped out for a couple of days!!