Happy New Year 2010

Our friends, Jen & Tony hosted this years New Year's Party!

December 2009

Brycen grabbed my camera and was snapping pictures but unfortunately it was of everyone's legs. Not always everyone's best feature :-) Sooo here's daddy bending (waayyy) down!



Cookie decorating! Not one of my favorite events but I know the kids love doing it!


Getting Teacher gifts ready! Have to think about those teachers who do so much for our children throughout the year!


Apparently I am not fun to shop with?

Visiting the Summerville Santa. The line was long, the weather was cold but it was worth it! Here Brycen is smiling but in the actual picture, he is not so happy!


Christmas Eve at church. Brycen and the girls dancing to the sounds of Christmas Music!


Brycen and Daddy singing Christmas Carols - -

St. Nicolas has arrived and afterwards left goodies in everyone's shoes that lined the halls.

Lots of gifts from Aunt Sandi & Uncle Darrin! So thoughful!


Searching for clues Santa left............

Found the BIG gifts from Santa........ (American Girl Dolls and GEO Tracks)



Merry Christmas 2009

Busy Bee's Pumpkin Patch

Brycen at the Pumpkin Patch with his Busy Bees Preschool class

With his friend, Julius

Hayride with Mommy

Cheers to Connor
Then we get home and he found the mud!

Time for another year of preschool...

Well, it's time for another year of preschool at CLC. I've been working on putting my classroom back together all week. Finally finished, last minute of course, this afternoon and we had Parent Orientation tonight. All the parents seem great!! Tomorrow is meet-the-teacher and I cannot wait to meet all the kids. Last year was my first year as a lead teacher so I was nervous but this year I'm a pro and will be able to relax and truly enjoy the year.

When I got home, this martini glass and note was sitting on the kitchen island for me. In case you don't know, this is a Lolita hand painted glass. It is a Halloween glass that is called "Fright Night" and each glass has a drink recipe on the bottom. I've been wanting to start collecting these glasses so I'm curious how my husband knew?? I've told Morgan before so maybe she told Jerry? I would ask him but he has a friend over watching the Carolina game right now. It's not very often that Jerry surprises me so it makes me very happy!

This was the card that was with it. It says "I hope this is not has skary has your shcool year" Love, Daddy, Avery, Brycen and Morgan.

No, I did not spell those words wrong, that is how Morgan wrote it :-) It is very cute and sweet!!

Crafty Wednesday

It's not the best picture but this is a wedding card I made this morning for my cousin's wedding. Unfortunately we cannot go :-( The wedding is in Rhode Island and at the end of September. We would have to pull the kids out of school, both Jerry and I would have to take time off work, buy plane tickets and from what I hear you cannot find a hotel there for under $200. We just cannot swing all of that right now.

Here's two other cards I made recently:

I made this card for my friend's daughter, Abby, who watched our dogs for 2 weeks while the kids and I were out of town this summer.

This one was for my dad's birthday. It's so hard to made a card for a man but I thought this was a fun card.

1st Official Day of Potty Training!!!

I have "attempted" to potty train Brycen all summer with no luck. He has showed no interest in it what so ever up until about a month ago when he FINALLY started telling us that he had a poopy. I glimmer of hope I thought but then regression as I get a whiff of something and ask Brycen if he went poopy and he tells me "no". Upon researching further, by peeking in the back of his diaper, I discover he has indeed pooped his pants!!

See people, Brycen is going to be 3 in October, technically he should be in my class at preschool since he won't be 3 until AFTER school starts but the awesome director of the school I work for knows that putting us together in the same class, is not a good idea. Therefore the only other solution is to move him up to the 3's. Rules of the 3's is that they need to be potty trained!!! I have stressed about this all summer to no prevail. Finally I thought to myself, the girls are in school all day, I don't go back to work until next week (officially the week after that), therefore, there is no reason we cannot commit and really work on getting him potty trained. We woke up this morning as we normally do :-) Brycen of course has a wet and poopy diaper as usual. I told him that we were going to put on Big Boy underwear but he could not pee pee in them because Diego would be sad (that's who was on the underwear). He complied. I made him sit on the potty every 30-45min or so, he went. We ran some errands and went out to lunch for about 2 1/2 hours and only 2 potty breaks, came home ate ice cream, more potty breaks, girls came home from school, dropped Morgan off at horseback riding lessons, ran to Publix, back home, back to pick Morgan up, went home, he fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when we got home, cooked dinner, ate dinner................all while staying dry!!! I was so happy and proud. Everytime he pees on the potty he looks at me and says, "that make you happy?" I tell him that I'm proud of him and he says "I proud of you too mommy". All day, only 1 accident and that didn't come until AFTER dinner and I forgot to make him go potty. I pray that tomorrow is as good of a day as today!!

Lunch by a 7yr old

Morgan asked if she could make lunch and I was being lazy and said sure.

The menu:
-boiled eggs
-pineapple chunks
-a pickle

In addition, she made Brycen a PB&J and Avery a Salami & cheese sandwhich. I see belly aches in our future. Not that I'm complaining because the only think I had to do was tell her how to boil the eggs, peel the eggs and open the can of pineapple. It is a glimpse into my future!

Pirate's Cove on Daniel Island

Yesterday, Brycen & I took Scott's girlfriend, Kaylee to a job interview on Daniel Island. We had some time to kill so we visited my friend Kerry at work. She is the director of Daniel Island Academy. She gave us a tour of her school, which was awesome and then gave us directions to an awesome park called Pirates Cove.

Brycen checking out the treasure map.

Walk the plank mate!~


Escaping the pirates off the front of the ship!~


Checking out the "inside" of the ship.


The lighthouse.

Climbing up the lighthouse.


At the top of the lighthouse........

and down the slide of the lighthouse.


Brycen LOVES the "big boy" swings at school. He was always excited when he was able to go on them when I worked lunch bunch. I guess he hasn't been on a swing all summer because he was actually scared when I pushed him.? Hopefully he'll get used to them again once school starts because he is on the BIG side of the playground now.


Pirate's Cove was and awesome, FUN park! We'll definitely have to go again!


After the park we drove back over to where Kaylee's interview was, which had the Marina behind it, and watched the boats being dry docked. It was pretty cool to watch.



Mommy and Brycen had an awesome day together but man he has some energy!! I was pooped when we got home!

Celebration Town Fun

Last Friday we met the Crosby's up at Celebration Town for some fun! We have not seen the Crosby's all summer so it was nice to catch up and reunite Brycen and Lily May.

Brycen cannot follow the rules to save his life! Apparently it's more fun if you go head first.

Lily May the sweet, cautious GIRL :-)

Little Miss Sassy! I'm not sure what she was upset about? It doesn't really matter because she's just so darn cute!

Snack time!!

Sweet Baby Aldrette (I hope I spelled her name right).


Big Hugs......saying goodbye.

Brycen getting some lovin' from Ms. Amy. It was a fun day and I wish we would have done it over the summer but life got in the way. Lily May and Brycen will be in the same class again this year so we'll be seeing lots of them the school year.......yeah!

Botany Bay Plantation

While we were at Edisto for a week we went to Botany Bay Plantation. Apparently it's a plantation that has been closed to the public up until last year. You can take tours of the grounds and/or marine life or you can go shelling on the beach. We decided to just go shelling. It's a little walk out to the beach but soooooo worth it! If you haven't been, I recommend you take a day trip. It is NOT a swimming beach, you could go swimming but I don't recommend it because it is so shelly & the waves crash right at the shore.

Jerry scooping up handfuls of shells trying to find conch shells.



Awesome trees on the beach and in the water......beautiful!

Definitely need to wear shoes. The beach is COVERED in shells. ONLY children are allowed to remove shells from the beach and are only allowed to remove 1 quart each, each day.

Brycen passed out! That boy can sleep anywhere. When he's tired, he is tired! I think he took a nap EVERYday on the beach while we were at Edisto. Oh what a life!