Happenings since my last post(read to the end for the exciting stuff)......

• The floors are done and the furnitrue is back in place. Took alittle while to find rugs that I liked but I finally did after alot of searching.
• Breanna started highschool, yes I cried after dropping her off the first morning! She is loving it though and all is going well.
• Zach started seventh grade and three weeks into it he is on girlfriend #2. He is loving school as well, just have to remind him that he does have to spend time studying!
• Jacob is doing great in second grade. When I went to his room meeting, his teacher told me that the guidance counselor was in their room that day talking to the children about safety, she asked them if they knew why they shouldn't stay home alone? My cute and wise Jacob raised his hand and answered,"Because we might have wild parties." Not quite the answer Mrs. Thomas was looking for, she looked at Mrs. Harrison who let her know he has two older siblings!!!!!!!!!! Out of the mouths of babes!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Zach started football practice, so Mon., Tues., and Thurs. evenings from 6:00-8:00 you know where we are! Games should be starting in another week!!!!!!
• Church programs are back in full force so we are busy on Wed. nights, Jacob is in Awana, Breanna is in highschool worship and Zach is in small groups. Don and I attend the worship service. We officially joined New Vision Baptist Chuch in August and we are loving it!!!
• I attended training to be a substitute teacher, so now I am waitng to be called to work. I will only be working at Jacob's school to stay on his schedule. I will let you know how that first day goes after I get called in to sub.
• I am really enjoying not having the stress of being a preschool director anymore. It is so nice to just have to focus on my family and not worry about 114 children and a staff of 27 women. I loved every minute of it and miss the children, families and preschool staff but it is so nice to not have to think about anything but my families needs.
• Don and I went to a marriage conference at church based on the book Love and Respect by Emmerson Eggrich. It was great and really eye opening about the differences in men and women and our needs!
• The weather is finally getting cooler, 90's but alot better than the 100's we had for several weeks! The kids actually wanted to go school shopping for blue jeans last week, or should I say Breanna did and I made the boys go too!
• We had family pictures taken outside at Cannonsburg, I'll let you know when they can be viewed on the photographers website.
• Sunday night we got together with friends, the Hochstetlers and Mallari's. We were at Kevin and Shellie's, ate pizza and the adults and teens watched Wild Hogs(great movie, just go buy it!!!!!!) The youger kids(which included Chase,Jacob,Owen, Jacob, Madison and Katie) were playing, watching a movie etc. All was well when the phone rang.... It was 911 calling to say they had received calls from this number and heard screaming in the background. Shellie assured the 911 operator that all was fine and it must have been our children(imagine that)!! We sent the Dad's down to have talks with their children who by the way had no idea how 911 was dialed. They admitted to playing on the phone but no one officially fessed up to dialing 911. We went back to watching our movie and the kids went back to playing, when upstairs one of them runs to let us know the POLICE are here!! This time we all go downstairs, Shellie meets the officer outside and explains the situation. Officer Henderson kindly agreed to have a littleTALK with the children!!!!! I wish I had my camera there, but it would have taken away from the moment. The kids were wide eyed, attentive and I never heard so many YES SIR's and NO SIR's in unison in my life. I think they all learned their lesson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Last but not least FSU football has begun! The game against Clemson was not the outcome we wanted but since Bobby Bowdens son is the head coach I can live with it. Don on the other hand doesn't look at it that way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• It was nice to see some comments from family, anyone else reading let me know by leaving a comment. More to come later.............

NEW FLOORS......................................

This is what has been going on in our house since last Wed. We moved all the furniture out of the kitchen, living room and dining room. Then we let the kids have fun writing all over the carpet with markers! Thursday morning the floor guys arrived and started the process of ripping up the carpet and linoleum and laying the hardwood!It looks so great, and hopefully they will be finished tonight!!!! I took the pictures of the progress on Friday, so now they are just about done with the kitchen and dining room and then they will have to go back and put all the molding on!!!!!!! Can't wait for everything to be back to normal!

I ADORE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a picture from my anniversary surprise to Gulf Shores two weeks ago! We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on 7-7-07! I did not expect anymore than a dinner out this year because Don's Mom passed away on May 29th. We had been back and forth to Florida twice in the last month and we were both physically and emotionally drained!


The week before our anniversary, we went out to dinner with our dear friends Kevin and Shellie(they also celebrate their anniv. in July, 18 years for them) and that is where the surprise took place! The men insisted we order dessert, even though that is something we rarely do. Shellie and I each agreed to share a piece of cheesecake with our sweet husbands!

When the waitress brought out the yummy dessert, their was a card for each of us. The inside poem said : Roses are red, and carnations are pink. I'd like to take you away; what do you think? They had also printed pictures of the condo we would be staying in for our long weekend away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were quite surprised that our two husbands had planned this little trip, told us in such a creative way and they had arranged where all the children(there are 7 between our two families) would be staying ! All that we had to do, was count the days until we left!!!!!!!

Now you know one reason why, I ADORE THIS MAN!!!

Thanks for 17 years Babe! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are a few more pictures from our Gulf Shores Getaway!!! We had such a relaxing time spending our days on the beach, but I think we enjoyed ourselves and laughed more as we took these pictures in the evenings! There is nothing better than a few days away with good friends!

Thanks Kevin and Shellie for the company, we had a great time and look forward to this being the first of many of the four of us and our four day anniversary getaway!

Out and About.............................

Today I spent the day with my two teenagers(Zach is technically still a preteen, he is 12 but in 6 months it is official) shopping at the mall! We had a great time looking for new clothes for school. Zach actually got more today then Breanna, which is usually not the case( don't get me wrong she would have bought alot more if I had allowed)! Breanna would have loved to have bought like 4 pair of shoes but I held her to 1 pair of shoes, a jacket, 2 belts and a pair of shorts! Zach bought 2 pair of shorts and 3 shirts, which are really going to be worn immediatly as he is growing like a weed and shorts that we bought 3 months ago are already too small!!!!!!!

As you can see in the picture, Zach is just a tad bit taller than Breanna and he is loving it!!!!! They are only 22 months apart and he has been waiting for the day that he would one day be taller than his older sister and it is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The day that he is taller than me is just around the corner as you can see in the picure below,this will be a sad day for me, just one more obvious fact that he is growing up!!!!

They are always so good to pose for Mom!

I wonder when he will be taller than me?

If you are wondering where Jacob was, the answer is school. He started on Monday, July 23rd. Breanna and Zach start on Aug. 13th. We have two school systems in our town(I won't even go there) the city only has elementary schools and also has some of those schools on an alternative schedule(go for 9 weeks and off for 2 weeks, we get 7 weeks in the sumer). We actully like this schedule but, all the middle and high schools are owned by the county and they all are on a traditional calendar! So that puts us on 2 different school schedules, fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We did miss our best buddy(this is actually one of our nicknames for Jacob) today while we were out, but he was having fun in school! Today was ice cream sundae day for his class , yum yum!!!!!!!!!!!

My big second grader posing for the traditional 1st day of school picture!!

The weekend is hours away, yeah! Have a great one and I will share more later, who knows what the weekend holds!

Kathy

AND SO IT BEGINS..................................

After reading the blogs of others for months and getting a few friends to start their own blogs, I am finally writing my first post ON MY OWN BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so not a computer savvy person, but I am a scrapbooker and since all my family lives somewhere other than here ,I thought this would be a good way to keep them up to date with our lives! I am also starting this blog for myself to record what is going on in my busy life as a wife and mother of three! Since I never seem to sit down and journal, I am hoping that this will become my journal so to speak and help me to remember all the everyday happenings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The days seem to pass quickly as I have become so aware over the last several months!My daughter will be starting Highschool in just a few short weeks! Breanna is the oldest of my three children, and it seems like yesterday that she was born, then toddling around and then starting kindergarten, but how did we get to HIGHSCHOOL???????????? I also have two boys, Zach is 12 going into seventh grade and Jacob(my baby) is 7 and is in second grade!

It still feels like I should be the mother of two elementary school children and an infant, but somehow time has gone by and I am here, with my beautiful teenager and handsome middle and elementary school age boys! The title of this blog is what I strive to do, EMBRACE THE EVERYDAY, because the everyday seems to go by too fast and I want to make sure I am present for what each day holds!!!!!!!!!

This is Zach, Breanna and Jacob in May before Breanna's guitar recital!!!!!!!! I have to say they are quite cute!!!!!!!!!!! I will post again soon!

Kathy