Family Camp!

{insert big, gigantic, long, sigh here} We had an awesome, awesome, awesome, week at family camp last week.  It was such a fun time!  It was so nice to have an entire week completely "unplugged" to spend with the kids and Randy.  We did all kinds of fun stuff like kayaking, archery, zip lines, pottery, horse back riding...I could go on and on.  We got home on Saturday and got to spend the weekend visiting with friends from NC who were passing through, so to say we are tired...well that would be a huge understatement.  It's all worth the exhaustion though for the great time we had at camp and the wonderful memories we made this weekend with friends.  I think tomorrow, we will sleep.  All day.  Okay, maybe not since I have preschoolers.  But a girl can dream, right?!

Here's a little slideshow of our week at camp!  Enjoy!

Silly-ness from WI

Randy made this short video a couple of weeks ago as an update for Discovery.  There were a couple of things coming up down there that Randy was a part of before we left and so he decided to send them an update in a fun way.  It's silly and most of the information on it will have no significance to any of you, but I still thought you might enjoy it and get a little laugh from it!

Silly.  Silly.  Silly.

our eyes are on You

I have some stuff to post this week, but I have been telling Noah "5 minutes till nap time" for at least 45 minutes...so there's no time for a full post at the moment.  I'll try and get them posted later.  for now though, I just wanted to share a new song with you that Randy and the band did at church yesterday.  It's been a favorite of our family for a few weeks now.  Can't wait to sing it with the worship team next week!  It's called "Exalted One" by the Elevation Worship band in Charlotte, NC.  It's like they took the words right out of my mouth. The words are so true for our little family right now.

Enjoy!

It's YOU!

Proverbs 2:1 (MSG)

1 Good friend, take heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life. 2 Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding. 3 That's right- if you make insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer, 4 Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt, 5 Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you'll have come upon the Knowledge of God.

6 And here's why: God gives out Wisdom free, is plain spoken in Knowledge and Understanding. 7 He's a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere. 8 He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones.

I was just reading this verse earlier and loved the reminder that God wants us to have His Wisdom.  He's ready to hand it out to us if only we would ask for it and be willing to listen for it!  So so SO often I get in the same rut of trying to handle everything myself and figure out all of the details.  When I can't make it work on my own then I start asking God to help.  I'm sure every time God is just shaking His head at me again.  I can imagine He may be thinking "when will she finally learn?!?"  I'd love to say I'm getting better, but I'm not.  Surrendering is hard for me.  Asking for Wisdom is hard for me.  Maybe because I know God will most likely pull me out of my comfort zone once again.  But it is the desire of my heart.  

"All I want in this world is more of YOU and less of ME"

Preschool Christmas Program!

Last week Ella and Noah had their Christmas program for preschool.  It was so sweet getting to see Noah join Ella up on stage this year!!! Ella was quite the performer this year! Noah on the other hand was just silly and spent most of the time just licking the banister in front of him LOL!  Here are a few pics and a little video to enjoy!

Ella's Gymnastics!

Ella had her last night of gymnastics again this week.  She has really been improving in her skills!  For right now, she is still doing her classes at the parks and rec for now because they have been doing an awesome job at teaching her the basic skills.  If she decides to stick with it, then we will move her to our local gym once she's mastered all the basic skills she needs.  I think she will still benefit from the class she has been taking for awhile though.  She has also been tossing around the idea of switching to dance so we will see.  For now, gymnastics is done until January so we will have some time to decide! :)

We like to MOVE it, move it!

If I could turn back time, I would sing this song with Ella at least ten more times!  Can't believe how big my girl is getting!  *tear*



This video is from almost two years ago and yet my house still looks the same in the background!  Boxes and boxes!  We are in full packing mode this week getting ready to move into our "new" house.  We haven't sold our house yet (still have an offer for bottom dollar), but we are going to hold out a bit longer and see if we have any more come in.  Until then, we are going to go ahead and get ready to move out.  Then we can get our house all emptied, clean it really well and see what happens.  If we don't have any offers then we will sell it for what we owe to the offer we already have on the table and wash our hands of it.  It's crazy right now, but very exciting, too!  I'm trusting that God has all the details of the house already figured out since he has arranged everything up until this point anyways!

Oh...and did I mention tomorrow's my BIRTHDAY!  Yipeeee! The Wee ones are SO excited about it being my ACTUAL Birthday!?!?  That they have made me excited, too!

Happy Father's Day!

Just wanted to wish a Happy Father's Day to all of the Daddy's out there!  Hope you all have a great day!  I'm so thankful for my Dad as well as my step dad!  I love you both very much and I'm thankful to have you in my life.

I'm especially thankful for my hubby Randy.  It's such a blessing to have such a wonderful Father for my children.  He's the best.  More than I ever could have wanted and it's a joy raising our children together!

So this video is for the best "Daddy" (Ella) and "Dad Dad"(Noah) any kid could ever want!  We love you so much and hope this silly video makes you smile. You know how hard it is to get the kids to "perform" so I know you'll appreciate the tiny clips I managed to scrape up!  XOXOXOX!

19 months...and 2 days!!

Soooo..I've always heard that you are more slack with the second child, but it hit me this week as my little Noey turned 19 months that I have barely blogged on any of his milestones, accomplishments, ect.  Poor guy!  We have definitely celebrated them all along the way, it's just very few have actually made it down i writing.  I'm going to try and be better about that agin for both of the kids.  Showing you their big moments again on here more often.

So Noah is 19 months and so wonderful to us! He is running around and climbing on everything.  His most favorite thing to do right now is pretend to play drums.  He has a little music set he got for his Birthday last Sumer and I can't tell you the number fo times during the day he comes running to me and says (like he's so old) "MOM! DRUM!" meaning that he would please like me to get it off the shelf ;).

He has been having a little bit of a stubborn streak. Or maybe just an "I'm so cute that somehow I became completely spoiled rotten and now my mom is back tracking trying to fix it....." streak.  Either way, right now Noah is working on not running away when I ask him to come here and we're also trying to add a "yes mommy" to that.  He's doing better, but he thinks it's so funny to run away and laugh like it's a game.  So I think we'll be working on this one for awhile now.  Also, working on not hitting when he's mad. Yes people, he is a hitter.  Not always us, but he will try to go hit a wall or the table or whatever is closest when he gets mad.  He's a stinker!  But on the positive side, he always uses "peassssss" when asking for a drink which is exciting.  Still loves to eat anything and everything.  Recently found a love for "reading" and being read to which makes me so super happy! He's just a joy.  Using lots of new words just these last few weeks, but the most consistent are "momma, daddy, sissy or ella, school, car, train, truck, peassss, bye bye, eat, drink, help, no, stuck, up, hold me....wow now that I'm writing them, there are way more then I even realized.  Alot of them sound similar, but he's using them in the right time.  I change my mind, I'm not going to sit and list them all lol!

He LOVES to sing, so I thought in honor of his 19 month old post I would share a video of him singing, "Say Say" by Kristian Stanfill.

Here is the original in case you haven't heard the song:



And here is Noah James singing his own version.  And there is a huge disclaimer....he is eating while singing..and I know that's rude and gross...but it's hard to get him to do it for the camera...so I had to. Please forgive me.  The cuteness is totally worth it. Promise. Also, he only knows the chorus.

Brother and Sister Love

Now that Noah is getting older, we have entered the world of sibling rivalry!  It has reminded me so much of when my sister and I were little.  We would fight so much and be so angry with each other..and then turn around and be best friends two minutes later!  Even though Ella and Noah has their moments..and the word "mine" is a common word in our house right now..they also have sweet moments where they enjoy each other so much.  The good moments always outweigh the bad and I'm thankful that for the most part, they really are best buddies.

This afternoon I could hear some loud yelling coming from the room and went to investigate...this is what I found..

Rain, Rain, Go, AWAY!

Wow.  We have had lots. of. rain. I means lots.  It started raining Sunday afternoon and has not stopped since!! Tropical Storm Nicole has completely drenched us!  Lots of roads are closed from flooding and there have been some bad accidents.  We have only left the house two times since Monday!  Needless to say, the kids are going stir crazy..and quite honestly...SO AM I!

Here are a couple of pics (again from the phone...no batteries yet..) The kids were playing in Ella's tent in the playroom having a great time together!

And a little video...of us being silly..and singing silly songs ;)



Oh..and poor Ella is only in a pull up because they were about to go to bed ;) Still having occasionally night accidents! She's just an undies flasher..the girl has no shame when she's dancing and playing around. I don't know how many times a day I say, "Ella put your dress down", "Ella legs down, honey..everyone can see your panties!" LOL

Gymnastics!

Ella had her first gymnastics class last Wednesday night and she had a blast!! She will be going twice a week for the next 8 weeks and she is already looking forward to her next class.  I didn't take the camera in this time because I figured I would take a majority of the pics at the end when they have parent's night.  Still, I couldn't resist at least taking a couple off of my phone to share! It was just SO cute!

Watermelon Festival

Last weekend, Randy took the kiddos to the Watermelon Festival Parade.  This is one of my favorite things, but I was working and missed out! Boo!  I was glad that the kids still had the opportunity to go and thankfully my sweet hubby took some pics to share! 

This one cracks me up.  Noah is hanging out with our friend Kim and apparently he borrowed a new hat!  Daddy says he had his own  baseball hat with him, but this hat must have been cooler! I think it probably belonged to Elizabeth (pictured in the background).

We also got to see some friends from church riding in the parade!! 

I hope you like this video as much as I did...I love these sweet girls so much!  Aren't they the cutest?!?

Now that I have been working on the "watermelon" post...I am singing over and over in my head.."If you drink don't drive, do the watermelon crawl!"

Happy Birthday Noah!

To my sweet baby boy!  We love you so much.  I can't even believe you are ONE today.  Was this all really one year ago??
So here goes...

At one..you're not walking yet, but you love to cruise around and get into everything.  You have learned how to really stretch and get to the things we don't want you to touch.  You laugh so much.  You think sissy and I are oh-so funny and that makes us feel like a million bucks.  You love to talk and so far can say da-da, mama, ella, that, this, quack-quack, uh-oh, moh (more), you actually try to say everything we do, but most of your other "words" all sound the same! You love to eat (still) and love to play outside.  Still loveeee dogs.  You are happiest when you're in the water..a little fishy!  You can sign for "more", "please", "drink", and "all done" and we're almost there with "eat".  You love playing the "uh-oh" game where you drop things over and over and watch mommy pick them up, you have THE BEST smile that's can really light up a room.  I could just go on and on! We are so thankful to be your mommy and daddy!  We love you to pieces!!!

Father's Day and such..

Is it already Wednesday?!?! I had full intentions of posting something on Father's Day, but I'm just now getting to it! We did have a great Father's Day though! Noah made his first trip to church and we also went to a little BBQ at some friend's house. It made for a pretty busy day for little Noah who hasn't been out much, but he did great (and I was thankful to be out of the house!)

Randy enjoyed having his first Father's Day as a Daddy of 2!
He got Tiger Woods Golf for the Wii so he's been busy testing that out for the last few days! And don't worry, he hasn't been slacking on his Daddy Duties! He is quick to turn it off and help (but maybe it's because he knows I still have the receipt lol)

We were kinda in a hurry, but we snapped a couple of pics before heading to church on Sunday...


Here are a few from the BBQ, too! Ella is getting more and more comfortable in the water each time we take her. She let Randy let go of her a few times while she had her floaties on, but she still hasn't quite figured out how to keep her head out of the water...

Noah and his little friend Elizabeth :-)

As for Noah, he is doing great for the most part. His reflux has gotten worse (just when I thought it was going away). He is just so uncomfortable when he eats and awhile afterward. I feel so bad for him. We are trying all kinds of tricks to help him through, but something that works one feeding might not do anything the next. Also, keep little Noah in your prayers because at his last Pedi visit they found that he has a heart murmur. At first they told me they would just keep and eye on it and check it again at his 2 month visit, but she had trouble feeling his femoral artery between his legs so she wants to see us back again on Monday. She told me that it could have been hard to feel it because by that time Noah was really mad and crying pretty loud. So hopefully, when we go back on Monday she will feel it just fine and it will eventually go away on it's own. If she can't feel it on Monday or has any reason to still be concerned, we will be referred to a cardiologist. From my understanding, most of the time heart murmurs just go away on their own within the first year. There is also a pretty routine surgery that they do if there is a problem. Although I'm glad to hear that it's "not a big deal", it still feels like one to us. We just hate to see our little guy go through surgery or have something that has to be constantly checked. So pray for us! Hopefully we will get good news on Monday!

As you can imagine, we're all pretty tired these days! Naps are becoming a favorite past time for us all!! :-)Here is Nurse Ella pretending to give Noah some more Gripe Water for his tummy!!



And last, but not least! On Monday night we had dinner over at the Wallace's house. It was so yummy and we had a great time! Here are the pics from that and be sure to check out the video at the end..I saved the best video for last!!