Me and My 3 Weeks!

For the past three weeks, sickness has invaded my home. Nothing major, but isn't it amazing how much some thing like a cold can affect you? During this time, I've had aches, chills, earache, headache, laryngitis (my least favorite part because I love to sing!) cough, runny nose, stuffy nose....You name it! Poor little Landon has been very sick too and TERRIBLY whiny and attached to me. His diagnosis at Care First was an ear infection and pharyngitis (I had never heard of that before!) and getting his antibiotics down him has proved to be one of the greater parenting challenges we've encountered. LOL. Jameson seemed to sail through it all amazingly UNTIL about 2 days ago when we woke up very sick with a fever, horrible cough and laryngitis. He was pitiful. Tears were dripping off of his face while he tried to tell me his voice was gone. That's when I caved and drove us BACK to Care First where they diagnosed me and Jameson with "SinoBronchial Infections." I've missed two nights of our Revival going on this week :( but I'm excited that it's going on through tomorrow so I can make up for not being there! I'm happy to say that I think we're FINALLY on the mend. We still have a couple of days left of antibiotics and I'm hoping we'll be completely well by Christmas! Landon is acting more like his old self again, thank God! Jameson is taking his medicine like a champ and I'm on the third day of my Z-pack. Anthony also caught it but seems to handle it better than the three of us. (which is good since he's the bread winner!) I am SO thankful for our good health. I realize how precious it is and don't want to ever take it for granted. 

Here's an "amazing" picture taken at our Church Christmas dinner. (They are both smiling and looking in the same direction, their eyes are open all the way, their clothes are still clean after they ate and they're not doing weird things with their hands.) LOL! You Mothers know how amazing this is.

Count down to Christmas- 17 DAYS!!! Who has their shopping done??? I'm done with most of mine. The majority of what I have left to buy is gift cards. Jameson is extremely excited and reminds Mom every time he sees her that she has Christmas gifts for him. LOL. We went Black Friday shopping as a family this year. (Disclaimer: This was my husband's idea! lol) We got $30 in gift cards at Belk so we were pumped about that! Then they had men's dress clothes buy one get TWO free so we ended up getting THREE dress shirts for Anthony for $10 plus tax out of our pocket! I also got Leapsters for $20 and PJ's for $4 at Wal-Mart for the boys. I'm super excited about their "big" gift we put on Lay-a-way at a toy store in our mall. It's a huge 27 piece wooden fire/police station that Jameson has been drooling over in the "One Step Ahead" catalogs but thinks they aren't getting it due to the price. LOL! I cannot wait to see his face on Christmas!

Stay healthy, ya'll! 

I'm going to fill out Christmas cards,

Michelle

Spontaneous Shopping Spree! (Thanks, Mom! :)

Last Saturday while hanging around the house, I got an iMessage from my Mom that said, "You need to go to Crazy 8 today." They had 25% off the entire store and that included all their clearance. Lilianna was in dire need of clothing and she RACKED up! Mom bought her 18 adorable items that day and got awesome deals on all of it! Anthony had been in the woods deer hunting all day so I called him to see if he wanted to go to Bowlingreen with us. He whispered back that he didn't want to go :( but told me to go on without him. So the boys and I hit the road at about 6:00 pm. It seems like a late start, but since it takes an hour to get there AND they are an hour behind us, we arrived at around 6:00 pm their time. That gave us three hours to eat dinner and shop- plenty of time! We ate pizza and pasta from Sbarro in the food court and then the boys had a blast riding the big carousel. Then, with full tummies and the carousel ride out of the way, we went into Crazy 8, where we spent the remaining hour and a half. The boys sat on the little bench in the back of the store and watched the Crazy 8 kid's TV the entire time (and boy am I thankful for that thing!!! LOL) except for when I was trying clothes on them. The girls that work there were wonderful. I was thrilled with my little haul and got great deals. I was especially excited to find Jameson a nice dress coat (which he needed) for 47% off! I went a little crazy when I found Landon's owl shirt, too. lol:) Here's what I left with:

Grey pea coat for Jameson: $23.60 (reg. $44.95)
Jeans for Jameson: $9.74
Jeans for Landon: $9.75
Tie shirts for J&L: $4.49 each  (I'm super excited about these for Christmas!:)
Button-up plaid shirts for J&L: $8.99 each
Owl shirt for Landon: $5.24
Polo for Jameson: $5.24
Fish shirt for Landon: $5.24  

 Sorry the picture of Landon is blurry! I didn't want to leave him out so I included it any way.

It's Been A While!

It's been too long since I posted any thing! Since I've fallen in love with my new BFF, the iPhone, my laptop is often neglected along with my blog. I don't have too much to blog about but I never posted pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch (a MONTH ago) and I better do that while it's still Fall and before there's snow on the ground!

I was very discouraged with the outcome of the election and for a couple of days, dwelt too long on it and let fear start to creep in. It's scary to think of what we and especially our children will face in these final days! But coming into God's house the Friday evening after the election and feeling His wonderful spirit from the very first song gave me that encouragement and comfort I needed. I don't have to fear the future when the one who holds it is also holding ME! 

My brother and his wife were married 9 years ago today but they are spending their anniversary apart. Josh is a supervisor for Vectren, a natural gas company. He's been in New York helping Hurricane Sandy victims for a week now and is supposed to return home Sunday. My Uncle Scott is also in New York with his Church group helping to feed victims and do what they can for the needy. (Amazingly, ten weeks after his kidney transplant!) He feels so grateful for what he's been given and wants to give back! Please pray for Josh and Scott's protection and for God to use them.

I'm excited about the approaching holidays but baffled by how fast another year has flown by! I'm looking forward to that delicious Thanksgiving meal, precious time with family, and those Black Friday sales!!! : ) I've bought a few Christmas gifts already but still have quite a few people to cross of my list. I was peeking at Wal-Mart's ad today along with a few others online. I've thought about getting a new pre-lit tree this year. I've really enjoyed decorating the house for Fall and I'm equally excited to put it all away and replace it with CHRISTMAS decor!!!! 

Five paragraphs later, I'm realizing that I had more to blog about than I thought! Ha! Hope it wasn't too boring for you. Here are a few pictures of a fun trip to Mink & Walters Pumpkin Patch. It's a wonderful place and best of all, FREE! (Thanks to my friend Angie for posting the idea!) The boys had SO much fun that we went back again another day with Mom & Lili. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Ya'll,

Michelle

 

Simple Fall Craft

The boys and I took a walk around our yard today and collected leaves in Ziplock baggies. At one point during our hike around the pond, Jameson asks me out of the blue, "Are you nuts?" Ha Ha! Landon would pick up an ordinary, brown crunchy leaf and exclaim, "Look at this!!" before putting it in his bag. Then we came inside where they dumped their leaves out on the table (yikes!) then glued them to their color choice of construction paper. I had to help Landon but Jameson made his on his own. It was super fun and Mom had to make one too. ; ) I love the Fall and I'm taking in all of her beautiful colors while she's still here!

Michelle

Family Pictures by "Pop's Potos"

So, last week I picked out all of our outfits for Dad to take pictures of us in after Church (even though I knew the forecast for outdoor pictures wasn't good.) I was wearing a favorite black and white dress of mine, Anthony was wearing a brand new black plaid shirt, and the boys had black plaid western shirts, jeans and boots on. However, the weather really didn't care about all of that! Just as predicted, it was extremely windy and rainy and "non-picturey".... Ha Ha! We got a few snapshots on the porch but that's it.

Yesterday the weather decided to be absolutely perfect and gorgeous. We were all wearing the same color, so I figured, "Why not?" It just took a few minutes for my Dad to get these! (He's pretty awesome like that;)  Thanks, Pop! I love them. =)

 

Fall Photographs by Pop

Here are a couple of pictures that Dad took of the boys today! 

I love them and I'm looking forward to getting some family shots soon!

Autumn Days Gone By....

Pictures are so precious to me! I love looking at them and seeing how much the boys have changed and grown. These were taken two years ago, Fall 2010.

And this one is from last year, Fall 2011.

This is from our family vacation to TN last year, Fall 2011. We had so much fun!

Dad is going to be taking some Fall pictures of us soon and I can't wait! 

I'll post them after they're taken and edited!