Tuesday, November 29, 2011

He's back!

Guess who's back???
 Scout the Window!!! He arrived a few nights ago and the kids were beyond excited! 
 As you can tell from Ry's face above!! They don't actually believe that he goes back to the North Pole every night but they like to pretend that he does. Our kids don't believe in Santa. They know not to tell other kids that do believe but it's just something that we choose not to lie to them about. That's not to say we don't do fun things that are centered around Santa we just let them know that it's just for fun and that he's not actually a real person. Ryan is really big on not lying to them which I guess is why we decided not to tell them he was real. I always explain it as we love Cinderella and Buzz Lightyear and like to play with them and pretend they are real but we know they aren't real people. 

 Tanner is starting to write so good! He did this all by himself!
 Previous years we just hid Scout the Window in different places every day. This year though we decided to take it a step further. Now Scout the Window gets into mischief every night. Saying that they love this would be the understatement of the year! It's the highlight of their day! 

The first night Scout made snow angels on the counter out of flour. 

 Last night he rolled the Christmas Tree! Tanner said he should get a spanking because that was being wasteful! I love that kid! 

We are glad to have you back Scout the Window!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We have had a rough few weeks and days leading up to Thanksgiving so it was nice to just sit back and remember that we have so much to be thankful for. 
Tanner was attached to Wesley all day. 
My 2 favorite girls! I read a quote the other day that said "Grandma's House-The place where cousins go to become best friends." I loved that and thought it was so true in our family. 
 Ryan spent the night at our house Thursday night to keep the kids so Ryan and I could go Black Friday shopping. We left at 6:00 Thursday night and shopped all night. I pulled in to work at 7:45 straight from the mall. I got dressed at work then worked all day...It was a LONG day!

 The kids table...Lol!


 Evan and I are so much alike it's scary! 

This was us trying to get a family picture...Lindsey took like 50 and I got one decent one out of all of those. Why can't we ever have Picture Perfect Christmas card photos?? 
Happy Thanksgiving from our Family to yours!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Paw Paw

I try to stay away from posting about sad/difficult things on my blog. I try to get it upbeat and happy but at the end of the day it is somewhere for me to record my thoughts and have something to go back and look at. 

We found out a few weeks ago that my Paw Paw has Lung Cancer. He had been sick for a few weeks and had been going back and forth between numerous doctors when we got the diagnosis. Those of you that know me know that lung cancer hits home really hard for me. 

When I got the call...well actually the text it was from Whitney and I was in Target. When I saw the words Lung Cancer come across my screen my heart dropped. I hate Lung Cancer more than anything in this world. When I hear the words I think back to my dad and how terrible that was. The difference between my dads and paw paw is that we caught Paw Paw's early. He started chemo last week and thankfully is doing really well with it. He's tired and worn out but he hasn't got sick. 
We celebrated his birthday this past Saturday and this picture was from his party.  


So let's get ready to fight Paw Paw we are going to kick this cancer's you know what!! You are so strong and we are so proud of you!! So if you are reading this our family would covet your prayers. We know that God is in control and we also know that Paw Paw is one tough guy!! We love you Paw Paw and we are here to help you!!

Monday, November 14, 2011

School

Oh how I miss Ryleigh being at ABC Kindergarten. There's nothing like that one on one feeling you get at a small school. I am however so thankful that Tanner is still there and in Mrs. Carter's class. He LOVES Mrs. Carter! He has been doing pretty good in school. He has a short attention span and gets bored easily. He got his report card the other day and got all S's which means satisfactory. I try SOOOOOO hard not to compare Ry and Tan but when them being so close in age it's hard not to and I feel bad that he is going to have to work harder in school than Ry. It comes so easy for her and that makes him frustrated. 

They had the annual umbrella parade the week before Halloween. When I asked Tan how he wanted his decorated he wanted a spider/halloween theme which made it easy for me. He loved his umbrella! 


I wish I could same the same about loving Ry's school as I do about Tanner's. It's been a big adjustment for me. She does great there and loves it. I on the other hand don't. I miss being able to text her teacher in the middle of the day and she writing me right back. I miss the small town feeling we had at ABC. I miss the feeling of knowing that she was LOVED at ABC. The p love them there and Turner just isn't the same. I don't know if it's a public/private thing or if it's just because ABC is small. I'm hoping it's because it's just small. I wouldn't mind sending her to private school but St Pauls and UMS are just way to far of a drive and I'm not a fan of Faith. So it looks like we are going to have to stick it out at Turner. I'm hoping next year will be better and that part of the problem is her teacher being out on maternity leave. She left 3 weeks into the school year and isn't back yet so we have a sub. One of my friend's mom is a teacher there and what has made me not go crazy. She calls me and lets me know when things are happening and what's going on. 

Regardless of my feelings of Ryleigh being in "real school" she has done amazingly well!! We got her first ever real report card and she made ALL A's!!!! Not only did she make all A's but her lowest grade was a 99! That's almost perfect. I'm so proud of her!! She is so smart (sometimes to much for her own good!) 

The other day the had book character parade day. Ry had a lot of fun! They got to dress up like a character from a book and then they had a parade around the whole school. MGM's band and cheerleaders where there too! 
They also had honors day last week and Ryleigh got an award for all A's and being a good citizen! We are so proud of her! 

She is also Miss Popular and has given our phone number to her whole class. We've gotten numerous phone calls from all of her friends this week. I have no idea how I am going to survive the teenage years! 

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I may have a heart attack!

It's no secret that Ryan is a little crazy when it comes to buying teh kids whatever they want. I try t keep him in check...like saying no to the cell phone Ryleigh has been begging for since she was 4. I've also said no to the golf cart he's been wanting to get Tanner but nothing could prepare me for what he recently bought Tanner....

A Snake!

Yes, you read that right we have a real live snake living in our house. 
There aren't many things I'm scraed of in this world but a snake would be top of the list! They just aren't meant to be pets. I told Ryan they are from the devil...I mean it's even in the bible. The devil was the snake in the Garden of Eden. There's proof right there that we don't need one in our house. 

We have had to come up with a few "snake rules."
1. Bring the snake anywhere within 10 feet of Mom and it's being thrown straight into the woods. Period. 
2. Put the snake down anywhere in the house and it's going straight in the woods. Period. 
3. Scare anyone with the snake and it's going straight in the woods. Period. 

When I told Tanner the rules he said, "Mom, how are you going to throw it in the woods if you won't even touch it?" 

So now I'm going to take a minute to recap the animals we have owned in Tanner's short little life: Dog, cat, bunnies, rooster, hen, frog, lizard and other misc bugs. So let's add a Snake to the list...The ony reason I'm allowing it in our house is beacuse it makes this little boy so happy and really, who could say no to a smile like this one....



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Wedding

A few weekends ago we were involved in one of the prettiest wedding I had ever seen! My best friend Lindsay's sister got married and she had asked Ry and Tan to be her flower girl and ring bearer. They did so good! They are professionals at it now! I'm not going to write a lot because it's been a crazy busy week but here are some of the pictures I took. They were all taken with my iPhone so the quality isn't great. 





Beautiful Bride!



They rented a trolley for us to ride to the church and then back to the reception back. It was so cool and the kids loved it! Tanner kept calling it a train.

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Wyatt