The Not-so Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I am sure most of you are wondering how I have time to blog on this Thanksgiving holiday.  Well, it's because I have two sick babies and we aren't getting to participate in any of our normal Thanksgiving festivities!  Yesterday afternoon when Emma got up from her nap she was fine.  About an hour later...it all went down hill.  She came to me crying saying she needed some medicine.  I figured her nose must be running because we have been battling that for several weeks.  I thank mother nature for that one! :)  So, I got her some medicine and not even 5 minutes later she was telling me she was about to throw-up.  So, we ran to the bathroom and she did.  So, she laid on the couch while we ate supper and tried to keep Evan away from her.  We had already gotten our Christmas decorations down so we did start decorating the tree and she got up to help with that.   Justin took Evan and went to my moms to get some ginger ale for Emma to drink.  As soon as they got back, Evan was crying saying his stomach hurt and within a few seconds he was throwing up too.  On the bright side...if there was any to this situation...we didn't have to try to keep Evan away from Emma anymore in hopes of him not catching it.  However...do you know how difficult it is to deal with two kids throwing up at the same time??  Let me just tell you,,,it isn't fun!  I had Emma over the sink and Justin had Evan in the bath tub!  We rock as a parenting team and I am so thankful for his help!  So, that's about how our evening and night went!  Up and down with sick babies.  I made them a pallet on our floor right outside the bathroom.  Evan woke up at 5:15 this morning and didn't go back to sleep.  Thank goodness for Netflix and 106 Curious George episodes!!  That kept him occupied while Justin and I slept a little longer.  They both seem to be better this morning.  They have eaten and kept everything down.  And they actually wanted to take a nap..so they are just tired.  It breaks my heart to see them sick.  However it makes me so thankful that other than your typical virus or sinus infection that they are healthy kids.  We take that for granted so often.  I can't imagine how parents deal with a child that has a serious illness or something that isn't temporary!  So, our Thanksgiving plans may have been ruined but in the whole scheme of life...it will be okay! Our good health will return and my mom is sending us some plates for supper.  We will miss out on the family fellowship but not on her good cooking!!  And I still have plans for a little Black Friday shopping!  Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and be sure to Thank God for your good health!

We did make some cute little treats for our teachers at school on Tuesday night.  We also made some for our families!  

Emma wanted to help with the decorating!

Evan had to get a little help from momma!  He wanted to hand every ornament on the same branch!  But he didn't mind me telling him to move a few! :)

A weekend get-a-way!!

We are home!  Clothes are washing, kids are playing, supper is cooking and I am blogging.  It is a nasty rainy Sunday afternoon!  We had such a great weekend in the mountains.  A friend of our's aunt & uncle have a mountain house so they invited us to go with them.  We left about 3:30 Friday.  I am Here are a couple picture Justin and I took throughout the weekend!  

We ate at Hawg Wild BBQ.  They had a band playing and Emma & Colby had a lot of fun dancing with the band!  

We broke out the Hungry Hippo's game Colby gave E&E for their birthday.  They LOVED it!

Our Saturday morning view while breakfast cooked!

Who wouldn't want to wake up to this view every morning!  It was absolutely beautiful!  

The house from the front!

My pictures are out of order but I'm not rearranging them!  Saturday afternoon we went to find some waterfalls and these two were excited.  It took Evan a minute to warm up.  He fell asleep on the way over and it takes him a while to wake up!  

Family photo at the waterfall.  Notice the ice in the water below!  It was mid 50's at the top of this and easily 10 degrees cooler at the bottom! 

The boys decided to get a little closer look!

And you know priss tail had to join in!  I love her hair here!

Saturday morning...the guys went fishing and we played outside in the leaves for a while!

                   

What kids doesn't like to throw leaves up in the air or each other??

The one fish the guys caught before they had to leave!  They didn't have the correct license!

Another great view from the car! How awesome is God...the creator of all this??

               

After our waterfall adventure...we shopped around downtown in Brevard for a while.  We found OP Taylor's, a huge toy store, and we stayed in there for quite a while.  This was a swing outside!

And the guys raced cars inside for a while!

And lastly...I had to share this picture.  Like I said it was mid-50's and we kept seeing icicles everywhere!  They were so pretty and makes you ready for winter!  We will be heading to the polar express in two weeks so it will be back to the mountains!  We had some other friends take their little boy and girl to the Polar Express this weekend and they loved it!  She's already given me tips about what we need to do!  We are excited for that!!  Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!  

My Three Year Olds....

Well, Emma & Evan's third birthday has come and gone.  We started our Wednesday with a birthday song!  I brought both of them in our bedroom and we sang "Happy Birthday".  Then my mom call to wish them a Happy Birthday too.  And they were off to school!  I had made them cupcakes the night before to enjoy at snack time with the other kids at school.  So, I picked them up at 2:45 and we headed to Jumping Jax.  It wasn't the same as the zoo but it worked.  We got there right at 3:30 when they opened and were the only ones in their for over an hour.  That was NICE!!  Emma & Evan played and played!  We grabbed a pizza on the way home.  My kids love some Pepsi so I let them have that with their pizza and then we cut into Emma's cake from their party.  We only cut Evan's the day of their party because I had cupcakes too, so we had plenty.  They then got a Facetime call from Katie and a call from Alison.  So, they had a pretty good day!  Thursday we headed to the doctor for our 3 year old check-ups.  Emma told me first thing Thursday she didn't want to go to the doctor.  As soon as we got in the room Evan said "I want to go home!"  So how big are my sweeties.  Emma weighs 33 lbs and Evan weighs 35lbs.  They are both 38 inches tall.  So, for weight Emma is in the 70th percentile, Evan is in the 72nd percentile, and for height they are both in the 71st percentile.  So, they are pretty proportional and a little bigger than average.  Emma's blood pressure was a little higher than it should have been put she was a little excited when they took it.  (If you want to call crying and saying she wanted to go home...excited) They took it at the end of the visit and it was much better.  Evan finally got his flu shot...so we should be good to go for another year.  So, what are they up too these days??  They can both count almost to 20 by themselves.  They know all their colors, shapes, & most of their letters.  We have a picture book with all the letters and animals that start with each letter.  Twice now Evan has told us every letter and the animal that is in the picture.  Emma can do it when she wants too.  She is just as smart as Evan you just have to catch her when she doesn't know you are watching.  One day during nap time she was laying in her bed singing a song about the months of the year.  I asked her to sing it for me and she never has again but I could definitely tell she was saying the months of the year.  They talk NON-STOP.  I think their favorite word in Momma!  They tend to say it hundreds of times a day! Just kidding...I love to hear it!! They love to read books and we try to read a new book every night along with our nightly bible story.  Emma is really into playing dress-up and playing with her baby dolls.  Ever since she got a princess dress at her party...she have worn it EVERYDAY and the heels and jewelry that goes with it!!  Evan is into everything.  He doesn't really have a favorite.  He is loving his better batter toy we got him for his birthday.  I have to share a couple of the action shots Justin's mom took after their party.  Since we didn't have batteries, Jason was pitching the ball to the boys.

Here is Evan all ready for his pitch!

And I love the look on his face here after he hit it.  Pure determination!!

Then, Justin finished getting the rest of the toy together and thought he needed to demonstrate for the boys how it is done.

But I don't think Evan needed a demonstration.  You can see the ball flying through the air.  I think this is the one that hit Emma!    

So, that is pretty much it for our three year update.  We are heading to the mountains this weekend so I'll let you know how that goes soon!  Have a great weekend!!

E&E are turning three so we had an Art Party!!

Wow...this weekend was a packed full one!  Four birthday parties and a baby dedication all on the same weekend was CRAZY but we made it too every party!  Friday night we were up until 11:00...my mom included...getting everything set up for Emma & Evan's party!  Remember how cold they were predicting the weather to be??  We couldn't set up everything outside and expect people to stay out there in the cold so we decided to set up in the garage.  Let me just tell you we have worked for weeks to get that garage cleaned out!  Not that it didn't need it though!  This just gave me a reason to make Justin get rid of some junk! Justin has a friend that has a heater so we tested it out Friday night.  We closed the garage door and turned in on and it warmed up quite a bit in there!  So, we had a plan in case the predicted cold weather did arrived.  Saturday morning at 10:00, I had to be in Greenwood to pick up E&E's cakes so we stopped by Emma Price's party and then on our way back home we stopped by Lillianna's party!  We ended up back home by 11:30 to finish getting ready for our party!  It turned out to be a lot warmer than we had originally thought so we left the garage door open and didn't turn on the heater until later in the afternoon.  So, I am not going to go into every little detail instead I am just going to share some pictures!  I think it all went really well.  Emma & Evan had a blast!  They have talked and talked about their painting party!  Their happiness made all my hard work well worth it!

                    

My three year olds!!  I can't believe these past three years have gone as fast as they have!

Ready for the painters.  I taped the first initial of everyone's name on the canvas.  It was crazy because at the end of the party everyone's painting was purple.  I don't know what happened to all the other colors they painted with!

We had a lot of fun making the drop cloths to cover some of our stuff!  I probably heard 500 times "Momma I do it" from Evan.  He was SO excited to help with this project!  Sunday morning when we left for church he wanted to know where the paint went.  He wanted to leave these up permanently! :)

The aprons took forever!  Every time I would get a name on the apron Justin would tell me it was exactly straight!  I thought they ended up cute!  Most all the kids wore theirs!  I think Patton & Brantley were the only ones who didn't!

We had fun making these too.  One night while watching TV Justin helped me tie all the ribbons around the crayons!  And yes...they were done like two months in advance!  :)

I think their little cakes turned out so cute!  Ginger Farmer did a great job!

My sweet boy!

My sweet girl!

And our little family!!

I know lots of people think I am crazy to do parties like this for them but I LOVE it!!  I say all the time I wish I could make a job out of planning parties!  So that is it for this year's party!!   We will be celebrating E&E's actual birthday on Wednesday.  We had planned to take the day off and take them to the zoo but once again it is supposed to be freezing cold so we are just going to wait and hopefully make it back down after they put up the Christmas lights. The passes Justin's mom gave us last Christmas are good through sometime in 2015 so why not go??  We have out three year old check-ups on Thursday.  Friday, we are heading to the mountains with some friends for the weekend!  Next week is Thanksgiving, Black Friday, the Clemson/Carolina game, and we will hopefully have our family pictures we rescheduled.  And that's just the beginning of our busy holiday season!! We are loving it though!! :)  Look for a three year update coming soon!! 

What a sad day...

I hadn't planned to blog again before the party this weekend but I find myself heartbroken tonight for the Leopard family.  Today while at work, we got a text from Justin's aunt that we needed to be praying for her nephew and his family.  She specifically mentioned that we needed to be praying for BJ's family.  Of course, my mind started wondering what that was about and of course I looked on Facebook real quick.  Just three minutes earlier,  Malone, BJ's daughter, had posted about how thankful she was for her aunt who served our country.  This was a typical post considering it is Veteran's day.  So, I thought nothing can be too wrong and went on about my business.  A few minutes later I get a call from Justin asking me if I had heard anything about BJ and he fills me in on what's going on.  BJ worked in insurance at the County Bank.  Of course banks were closed today but they were all there today for some kind of training.  When they broke for lunch, BJ went into her office and took her life.  I can't help but cry as I type this.  I can't help but hurt for her three kids and husband who are sitting at home tonight wondering what in the world just happened! I just finished looking at all the post people are making on BJ's Facebook page.  So many people are shocked that such a beautiful sweet person could do this.  Many have talked about how she would be missed.  Did she not know how many people in this world loved her??  Did she not think her kids still needed her??  I can not grasp how someone can be so desperate and feel this is their only way out!  I just saw her a couple weeks ago at a family function and she carried on like nothing was wrong.  Just 8 days ago, her mom and sisters posted pictures on Facebook where they were all laughing looking like they were having the best time.  Oh how the mask we wear can truly hide what we are feeling inside.  If she has only talked to one person this day could have had such a different outcome.  If just one of those people posting on Facebook had told her how much they loved her...would she have realized her worth??   My heart breaks for Johnny!  Not only is he dealing with the loss of his wife but I can't imagine all the things he is trying to figure out in his head.  How does he continue to care for Austin and Malone??  How does he tell Peyton, he needs to continue on with college??  How do you make your kids go back to school, when everyone in town knows what's going on??  How is he going to be the sole care giver of these three teenage kids.  Probably the hardest years he will ever face as a parent...he is now left to face these alone!  Who is going to help Malone in her pageants??  I just don't understand how anyone can make a decision like this.  Her husband is now a widow, her kids are now motherless, her family is missing a member, her friends are missing a friend, County Bank is missing an employee...the list goes on and on as to who all suicide affects!  If you take nothing else from my ramblings tonight... please take the time to tell those you love just how much you love them.  Be kind to a stranger who is obviously having a bad day, and look to God for guidance on who you need to be praying for!  We never know what kind of battles people are facing!  Please keep the Leopard family in your prayers!! 

A rough week for Evan...

Of my two kids...Evan isn't usually the one that gets hurt.  Don't get me wrong...he does lots of crazy things but he thinks everything through before he does it.  Emma on the other hand just flies by the seat of her pants.  If she sees it and thinks it's fun...she is going to do it with little thought.  When I cam home Wednesday afternoon, this is what I saw...

And believe it or not...it was MUCH worse in person.  I have never seen a knot on someone's head that big!  Justin and Evan were wrestling on the bed (Let me just add...momma had told them NOT to do this) and he fell and hit the foot board.  I of course made Justin call the doctor to be sure he didn't have a concussion or anything like that.  She told us symptoms to watch for and to check him every couple hours during the night.  Don't worry...he slept with me so I could be sure he was alright.  Justin said he cried very little.  Only because he didn't want to keep the ice on it Justin fixed, so he kept telling Justin he was alright.  Thursday, when I got home something about Evan's left eye didn't look right.  So, I examined him closer and yes...he had a black eye!  I guess we were so worried about the knot on his head that we didn't even notice he had hit his eye too.  So, he was going to be a sight for family pictures we had planned for Saturday.  Then, Friday we were outside playing and Evan started crying to come inside.  That is not like him.  So, we came in and he laid on the couch watching TV.  I felt his forehead and it was warm.  I just thought he was hot from playing outside.  A little while later, I felt him again and he was burning up.  Yep...he had a fever.  So not only did my sweet boy look horrible...he felt horrible too.  So, we called off family pictures for Saturday morning and headed to the doctor.  We got him an antibiotic and he is already feeling better.  His fever was gone by last night and he was back to his normal playing self.  The black eye is much better and the knot on his forehead is gone.  The bruise is still there though.  So...it was a ROUGH week for my sweet Evan.  We are getting ready to CELEBRATE two sweeties birthdays this coming weekend.  You would know an arctic blast is predicted for this week.  I am not panicking though!  I prayed about it weeks ago and it is going to be a gorgeous day for painting outside!  We do have the garage cleaned out though...just in case! :)  Last week when I started looking at the weather it was going to be raining and 50 degrees.  Just now it has changed to sunny and 55 degrees.  Not to bad if it would just be a couple degrees warmer!  We will take sunny and 55 though!  We have a lot of other things going on this weekend as well.  Lillianna and Emma Price's birthday parties are Saturday morning as well.  They are both from 10:00-12:00 so I don't think we are going to be able to make either.  I can't do that and still have everything set up for our party by 1:00.  Emma Price has the exact birthday as E&E.  I think that is cool!  Sunday is Laney's dedication and lunch at Katie's and then Adrian's 1st birthday party is Sunday afternoon!  It is crazy that she is already a year old!  So, be sure to come back for a birthday party update!  Have a great week!

My Little Hunter

My hubby's softball team started play-offs tonight...so our house is quiet.  Emma & Evan are already in bed and I have a few minutes to blog!  I am not exactly sure how Justin's team made it to play-offs...because they won like one game all season.  Regardless...he enjoys playing and I really don't mind it.   Most of their games are at like 9:00 so E&E are ready for bed before he even leaves.  Back to the main reason for this post.  When Emma & Evan were tiny Justin said he was taking Evan hunting when he was 2 years old.  I told him then he was crazy that my baby wasn't going to the woods that soon.  Well...I lost that bet.  Two weeks ago...Evan went on his first hunting trip.  He was so excited.  Justin brought Emma to me at work and we did a little shopping while the guys headed to the woods.  They got to the woods about 5:45 or so and stayed until almost 7:00.  I was a little nervous but I have to realize if I want him doing things like this later in life...he has to be introduced to it early!  Justin even admitted it went much better than he expected.  Evan sat in the stand and even whispered when he wanted to say things.  However...they didn't see any deer.  Justin was hoping at least a doe or something would come out for him to see...but that didn't happen.  So, these are the pictures Justin took from the afternoon.

                   

Walking to the deer stand and he looks so grown.  Sniff Sniff!! :(

A quick selfie!

Evan climbing up,  This picture makes me nervous.  I am so glad I wasn't around for this.  I know I am way too overprotective...but he could have fallen!  This is the type of events where bubble wrap would come in handy! :)

Checking out the box stand!

Another selfie in the stand!

So, that was their trip.  Justin already has plans to take him again.  Evan may grow up and hate hunting and I've already told Justin we will support him in whatever he chooses to like...but this sweet boys Daddy is going to be heart broken if he doesn't like hunting.  But...I don't see that happening.  A love for hunting is in his blood! :)  I am so grateful Justin wants to spend time with our sweeties!  And I can't leave my sweet Emma out!  

I have to share a picture of the two of them from Sunday!  My sweet girl loves her boots and wants to wear them everyday!  I know these two belong to me...but I think they are the cutest little almost three-years ever! I can't believe they will be three in about two weeks!  Life is passing by so quickly and we are trying to make the best of the time we have with them!  Happy Tuesday!

Halloween Part #2 & a November surprise...

Well, Halloween is officially over.  There were lots of opportunities to celebrate the occasion around town this past week.  Monday night was the event held at Lander that always draws crowds, Wednesday was the trunk or treat at Temple, Thursday was the Boo Bash downtown, and then Friday was actually Halloween.  We didn't participate in any of those other than trick or treating on Friday night but I hope we can do one next year...maybe! :)  Work has been super busy.  With almost 50% of the people I work with being 50 and over...we have had a lot of people out sickness, surgeries, & taking care of parents.  There are only 5 of us in accounting.  My boss's 96 year old mom, who still lives at home, fell and broke her hip a week ago Thursday, had surgery last Friday, & was moved to NHC this past Tuesday for rehab.  So, Mrs. Gail hasn't been in hardly any the past week and a half.  Patsy, another "accounting" girl, ended up taking her mom, who is 90 & also still lived at home,  to the hospital that same night that Mrs. Gail took her mom.  Patsy's mom had pneumonia, a UTI, and is now being treated for dementia.  She is being transferred to a nursing home in Lauren's this coming week...so Patsy has been in and out over the past week and a half too.  Robin has been out on vacation, and just this week Noni had shoulder surgery and will be out at least two more weeks.  So, that just leaves me (& Robin because she's back from vacation) to do most of the work. So, we didn't get to do as many Halloween events as we thought we might get too...but it's okay.  Life always happens and changes your plans.  Anyway...back to Halloween.  I had plans to get my mom to pick E&E up from school on Friday at 12 so they could nap at home and not be cranky Halloween night.  They take naps at school, but lets be honest...2 hours isn't enough for my Evan!  However, their party at school was after nap time and my mom had already helped keep them enough this past week that I decided to let them stay for the party.  We even made brownies for the party and treats for all their classmates.  I made the brownies after they went to bed Thursday but they helped me & Justin make their classmates treats.  They LOVE to help you do anything.  I try to include them when I can because I think it helps them feel important.  So, here are a few pictures of our treat making process.

Daddy showing Emma & Evan how to put the sprinkles on!

                         

They took turns helping us decorate our frosted pretzels!

And the finished product!!

They looked cute and were yummy too!  So, after I picked them up from school Friday and ran a few errands, we got home about 4:15 and dressed quickly to head out trick or treating!  We went by my uncles' house first but he wasn't home yet so we headed over to the The Brown's & Wideman's.  Next, we had hoped to stop by Janice's house but they weren't home as we passed by.  Then we headed over to the Bridges household and out to see Justin's mom.   Again our plans were to go to the thing First Baptist in 96 was having but by the time we left Justin's mom's it was 6:20 and we had to be at Katie's at like 7:15.  So, we came back through 96 and went to visit my uncle...he was home by now.  We ended up getting to Katie's right on time.  We had a great time eating, throwing the Frisbee & football, and making smores. 

We got home about 10:00 and E&E were both OUT in no time.  They actually both slept in their own beds all night without making a peep!  They were so exhausted!!  Justin's alarm clock went off at like 5:00 Saturday morning because he had plans to go deer hunting.  It was raining so he just turned it off and decided not to go.  About 6:00 he was still awake debating whether or not to go. I asked him to go check on them since we hadn't heard anything out of them.  He starts calling me from the other side of the house and I immediately panic thinking something is wrong.  I can probably count on my hand the nights that we have slept all night with no interruptions.  So, my mind immediately started thinking something had happened to them.  Boy was I wrong...they were still snoozing away but the back deck and ground was COVERED with SNOW!!  What in the world!!  It was 80 degrees last weekend and we were wearing shorts and this weekend it is snowing!  It was absolutely beautiful!  But it was also 6:00 and my babies were still sleeping...so I told Justin I would just see it later and went back to bed!  We finally got up about 8:30 and realized our power was off and it stayed off until about 6:00 Saturday night.  We didn't get out and play in the snow because E&E have both been sick with coughs and runny noses...so we didn't want to chance that turning into anything else.  Besides most of the snow was gone by midday.  Since our power was still out Saturday afternoon and Justin & Matt were going hunting...we headed over to Katie's after nap time for a movie.  Katie had been wanting to see the movie Frozen and of course E&E were up for it since she mentioned she would give them popcorn & M&M's!  They did good and watched the majority of the movie.  Once Laney got up from her nap though...movie time was pretty much over!  Laney is way more fun that watching a movie!  Katie is already planning our next movie outing and it's going to be Toy Story next time.  She wants them to see that movie so bad! We had a fun relaxing afternoon though!  Once we got home, the power was back on, and life was back to normal.  Thanks goodness for that extra hour of sleep we got Saturday night.  Being stuck inside with two- years olds with no power and snow outside made for a long day!  :)  Anyway...hope you all enjoyed the snow and if the experts are right...there will be plenty more of that to come this winter.  Lets just keep praying not on Nov. 15th though!  :)  Have a great Sunday!!