November Giveaway

Click here to enter a giveaway for a new blog header! This lady does fantabulous work! Check her out!

SKA1

A few weeks ago, our church Chilhowee Hills Baptist, along with many other churches in the area participated in Serving Knoxville As One (SKA1). Matt and his dad cooked and served food at the Angelic Ministries. Ben and I decorated and delivered cookies to area fire stations and the Volunteer Rescue Squad. Katie was not old enough to participate and my dear friend Rhonda and her husband Randy got stuck watching all the little the hooligans graciously volunteered to stay in the nursery at church for 4+ hours while the others went out all over Knoxville. Her daughter Faith came into the gym to help us decorate, but Ben couldn't talk her into going with us to the fire stations. Oh well...I think she had fun anyway!

The kids really thought the fun part would be the decorating of the cookies.

The fun part?
Here was the fun part!

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures taken by Rhonda of Rhonda Thompson Photography. Not only is Rhonda a great photographer, she's also a great friend of mine...one of my best buds, to be exact! Too bad I don't get to see her very often!

Right now, she is offering a Christmas Session Special for an unbelievable price of $50. $50!!!! Click on either of the two links in this post and they will take you directly to her website. From there, you can get her contact information, look at more of her awesome work and drool over the photos all the while wishing they were yours! And guess what...you too can have beautiful family pictures to be treasured forever!

Fall 2009

Here are a few more pictures from our photo session with Rhonda. If you would like to book a Christmas photo session on Dec. 5th for only $50, go to her website (by clicking on her name above) for all the details and to view more of her work. She is truly amazing!

Toot Toot!

Katie got some new jammies that came with a tutu! How fun! Just the thing for a ballerina-in-training! I'm not sure why, my family always calls a tutu a "toot toot." It was probably something I (or someone else) said as a kid and it was so cute that 25+ years later others are still saying it. So, I'm carrying on the tradition...here's Katie in her toot toot. Sorry the pictures are so dark. It was dark in my living room while she was prancing around!

Sneak peek!

My dear, sweet, awesome, rockin', cool, photographer friend Rhonda (click on her name to go to her photography site) took our pictures last night. She was kind enough to give me a preview. Isn't she a wonderful photographer? Don't you want some pictures of your kids, wedding, husband, dogs, or whatever else the heck you want pictures of? (Did I just end a sentence in a preposition? What am I coming to? Oops...did it again!) Check her out. She's a great friend of mine and I promise, you won't be disappointed! Oh, and to beat it all, she's having a contest on her blog right now. Don't make me repeat myself. CHECK HER OUT!!! Oops, just did, didn't I? Whew...it's been a long day.

Aren't my kids cute? I swear...they are my kids!

Oink, Oink!

Ben was fine, he was fine, he was fine, he was sick. The H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus happened that quickly! Seriously. We ended up at Children's Hospital 2 weeks ago because he wasn't breathing well. Since he had lots of breathing problems as a small child, I'm a pro at handling breathing treatments (plus, I had to do my fair share as a child). But, since I wanted to get Tamiflu right away, the ER was our best bet. I'm so glad we got him started on Tamiflu within the first 24 hours of the sickness. I believe it made the world of difference for him...believe it or not! He's much better now, but still has an occasional cough. At the first sign of the flu, get your kids or yourself to the doctor. It might just save your life!

This is what Ben looked like for about 4 days. He was lethargic, coughing, feverish, puney, irritable, sleepy...well, you get the picture. I felt so badly for him. And, if I can say it without sounding like a bad mommy, I felt bad for myself, too. I missed lots of work and didn't go out of the house for days.

Pretty Faces?

Tragedy

I received an email late last night from my friend, Leslie. She told me that her brother Clay's wife passed away last night. As some of you might know, Clay was my first "real" boyfriend and it saddens me so much for him. He and Cassi just had their 3rd child last week. The doctors believe that she died as a result of a blood clot or something else relating to her c-section. Please be in prayer for this family. Not only are they dealing with the stresses of having a newborn, but they are now grieving the loss of their mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend.

I am heartbroken beyond words and have cried tears for the baby that will never know his mother, the girls that might only have a few memories of her and the husband that will never forget her and must now face the challenge of raising three children without their mother.

If you build it, they will come...

...to the corn maze, that is! A few weeks ago, Matt and I took Ben to visit the Oakes Farm Corn Maze. It was a little muddy, but we had a blast anyway. We didn't figure out until we were almost finished with the maze that the map which looks like a paper maze that you see in coloring books, etc. was a little different than normal. There are 2 entrances and 2 exits, one for each maze. The map only looked like there were 3 entrances/exits. After looking a little further, we were supposed to be following the lines, not the blank spaces like you would do on those childhood paper mazes. Oh well. It certainly made for an interesting time going back and forth. I believe it would have been a little more challenging had it not rained so much. All the grass was tramped down in the direction you were supposed to go, so you could really just follow the stomped grass. Nonetheless, Ben seemed to enjoy himself! And for the record, I did too!

We're going to meet Rhonda on Monday to have our family pictures made at Oakes Farm. Check back for some of those in the next week or so!

Here are a few of the pictures I took when we were there.