Okay...let's take a trip back... to November.

I haven't blogged in so long because of being so busy with the Christmas play and then Christmas itself so I want to catch up in a number of blogs (as usual) and let's just say my New Year's resolution will be to keep up my blogs without "clumping" (my word for posting more than three posts at a time.) Ha!

So we had a really nice Thanksgiving at both my Mom & Dad's and also Joey's Aunt & Uncle's houses. It was a little weird because my sis and her family went to California to visit Jeremy's family. And Kellie wasn't able to make it to the Waller's Thanksgiving so I can say we were definitely missing our sisters (and Jer, Livi, & Jack.) Besides that though, we had a pretty good time.

We started at my parents, continued at Matt & Laura Waller's, and ended back at my parents where the boys went to see the new Bond movie and the kids and I had a relaxing evening hanging out with my Momma. :)

My Bros


Lunch



Me & Him.



My Momma & My Moll


Women in the Kitchen: Gramma Betty & Mom Waller


The Waller Brothers


Dinner


Us

Merry Christmas to all & to all a good night.......

Merry Christmas Everyone!!! Forgive me for taking so long to blog! I just have so much to catch up on, I just don't have time! I am sure you are all busy too!

Just wanted to say I hope that God blesses each of you greatly this Christmas and upcoming year! He has already blessed us so much with the gorgeous white Christmas!

For some of you I gave you Christmas cards and for most of you I still have them sitting here. Uugh. Give me time. At least they are blue and say "holidays." Let's see if we can get them out before New Years!

Anyway, love you all! I will be blogging soon!!!

Mark Your Calendars!!!

Hey Everybody!
Just wanted to invite you to our Christmas play at Grace Foursquare. Check out the details! It is a hip & modern twist on an old lesson we've all learned - "God's ways are not our own." Come watch this family as they laugh, love, & struggle through their Christmas. It's a great story of love, redemption including dancing, singing actors, and snow!
Erin

Just keep swimming....just keep swimming.......

That is what I am chanting to myself this morning. Keep at it, keep trying... breakthrough is coming.... don't give up.....He that is in me is stronger than (he that is in the world) ANYTHING......not in my own strength. Yep, things are kind of hard right now in SO many different areas. I am feeling a bit like I'm sinking, trying super hard to keep my head above water. I am not going to waste this blog post on a list of gripes & whines so i will leave it at that but....in all areas of my life... I will...just keep swimming....just keep swimming. Thanks for the reminder Nemo.

Extra Thankful Day

Today on Thanksgiving 2008, I am EXTRA thankful for:

*My Sweet Savior who stays by my side every second of every day loving me, guiding me, teaching me, & forgiving me. He is my all in all.

*My husband who is my best friend and a man I love and admire, always have & always will.

*My kiddos who are our greatest blessings received this far, loveable in all ways.

*My family who I am forever attached at the hip to. Love more than my life.

*My friends, both new & old so treasured to me each in their very own way.

*My church family that joins me in this journey.

*My fellow Mom bloggers who keep me inspired & help me realize I am not alone.

*All other things good in my life (yet nothing compares with those above)

Resisting the Urge....

I am trying so hard to resist the urge to put away all of our harvest decorations and pull out the Christmas ones. Resisting the urge to put on my Christmas music. REsisting changing my blog, myspace, facebook, etc. Resisting the urge to do anything Christmas... just yet. Tomorrow is a whole different story though!!! I just love Christmas time and I am so ready for it. I am ready to celebrate the birth of my SAvior! I am ready for red & green but.....I am gonna wait one more day. I'm so close. I might as well. Anyone with me? Tomorrow, actually today (it's 12:45am) I will focus on Thanksgiving. I will take some time to post my "Extra Thankful Day" post tomorrow and then........Christmas here I come!!! However, I am plugging my ears and closing my eyes to anything Black Friday cause it's KILLING ME! I love shopping and I love a bargain but there will be none of that for me this year! I am actually totally okay and happy with that.......as long as I don't hear about any of those awesome deals & money savers!!! I am such a sucker for good prices!!!

Note: This is my 7th and last post this evening. Had to catch up again. Take a moment to check 'em out!

Turkey Cupcakes

THe kids and I made these cute cupcakes for the Thanksgiving dinners we are attending tomorrow. I think they turned out pretty cute. We made the cupcakes with two ingredients!!! I remember Brittany talking about Courtney True making these pumpkin cupcakes and they were good and healthier because the pumpkin replaces the oil & eggs! We added walnuts to the one can of pumpkin & yellow cake mix. For the frosting we used store bought cream cheese frosting and added cinnamon & sugar. To top it all off we created these cute turkeys out of ginger cookies, oreos, chocolate chips, m'n'm's, peanut halves, & green gel icing. Hope they taste good!

Pre-Thanksgiving Activities

Kellie (Joey's sis) came into town last Sunday for an early Thanksgiving & introduction of her boyfriend Marcus to the extended family. It was good to see her and of course Joey's parents put on quite the event. Aunt Terri led the kiddos in a fire dance, Cousins Holly & Marze made everyone pilgrim outfits. Check out the crazy games we played, everyone had a fun time. I may steal some ideas for our upcoming Christmas events!!!

Grandma Waller's Birthday

Baking Grandma's Birthday Cake (We made the chocolate sheet cake from ThePioneerWomanCooks.com) It was pretty good but since the frosting had a texture, the sugar sprinkles on top did not work well together in your mouth. Oh, well. You live you learn.







We had fun with Wii! (Grandpa bought one on the way over!)



Happy Birthday to you......

All "tatted" up (as Daddy would say)

Yep that's Sleeping Beauty!

Happy Birthday Livi Boo!

Last week we celebrated my Olivia Grace's 3rd birthday. It is such a joy to be her Auntie. She is loveable, talented, strong, & beautiful with a smile that could melt you in a second & curls that you would kill for! I love watching her change & grow into the little girl that she is becoming. She is just precious to me! I am also so thankful that God blessed Joey and I with our own nearly 3-year-old who with Olivia, have built-in best friends!


Such cute ones of Mommy & the Birthday girl!






Check out Jack's new smile!!! (So Cute!!!)




The princess herself...



A scooter ride...



And a little dance...

(*tear*) They grow up so fast.........

Jones and Mollie are changing and maturing so fast! They are so strong at riding their bikes now and it is great watching the joy they experience with their new found independence. Last week they each had their first sleepover! Can you believe it? It was a little tough for me to let go but I am glad I did. This was the first time they have ever been away from Joey or I overnight. Jones had a sleepover party at his best friend Logan's. He had soooooo much fun! And Mollie stayed the night with her best friend & cousin Livi! Thank you Drew, Annie, Jer, & Britt for taking good care of our kiddos. I hope it was fun!

Do you ever wanna take a bath with your laptop?

Oh, I just love reading other Mom blogs. It has got to be one of my favorite things to do. You can find triumph, irritations, commonalities (is that a word?), and most of all INSPIRATION!!! I am telling you ladies- I really believe we can change the world!

Anyway so here I am super sick with one heck of a bad cold including congestion and sore throat. For those that know me well, you know this is one of the WORST times in my life to be sick! I have so much going on which is probably half the reason I am sick! Doggone it! Why do I always do this to myself. Anyway, at the same time I am having the time of my life- raising my two little ones, loving my friends, family, & God, and directing a play I had the priviledge of writing. Come on now, this is the stuff dreams are made of. Let's just ignore the severe financial crisis that so defines us right now and the part-time job I just can't seem to find.

Stephanie came over today and had me try her Neti Pot. I must admit I was nervous and there were a couple times I gagged on the solution as it went down my throat by accident, along with an episode of sinus rush headache like when water goes up your nose in a pool. However I ended up feeling like it did atleast clear some of the congestion so I went and purchased my own today so....we'll see.

Back to the point. Right now I am cold, tired, sick, & goosebumpy and all I want to do is take my laptop to the tub for a good soak & read. But I won't chance it. I will stick with Cookie magazine.

Busy, busy, busy!

So I have been a busy busy bee lately but still taking it alright. Kind of in stride. God is blessing me with balance although there have been some pretty tough and overwhelming days. Last week my whole family was sick and that made things really hard. But......the play is going great! It is a lot of fun seeing it all come together. Amazing and surreal really. We were able to practice on the stage this week and it was so great!

Hmmm.....what else is going on. Well, Bible study ended yesterday and I bawled like a baby. It was a good message plus I am going to miss it plus I am going to miss Debi Sweeney!!! I just love her! I can still see her at church but still, it's not the same.

I hosted a meeting last night for Women's Events and we started Retreat Planning! It's exciting and we got the new building! I can't believe it's almost that time again!

My kiddos are growing and changing everyday. We are dealing with quite a few issues right now with Jones and his behavior at school which is pretty difficult. Kind of "taking the wind out of my sails" so to speak. But we are not giving up and we will keep working on finding what works and helping him through. He is such a good boy most of the time, a great helper, loving, and so smart and I refuse to have him labeled as "trouble." He isn't yet, but pretty close. I have been reading RaisingGodlyTomatoes.blogspot.com which is giving me some great advice like "tomato staking" which is keeping your children close to you all the time (although I don't think all the techniques are for our family.)

So if you are reading this, feel free to pray for our family and if you have any prayer needs, leave me a comment. I would love to pray for you!

Well, that's what's up with me. Can you believe my little girl will be three in just a few short weeks?!

Well I beat my record.

I don't know why I do this. Make sure to check out my posts when you have a chance. This is my 15th tonight! I need to go to bed. For those faithful readers. Sorry!!! Most of them are pictures though! I haven't had time in so long so I just had to get caught up! I think I want to do one of those Blurb books so I didn't want to forget anything!

My body, My Digestive System

This is the title to a book in a series I am reading to Jones as he learns about the body inside & out. Well unfortunately it mentioned the (uugh I don't even want to say it)...anus...eeww and Jones says "What's that?" I explained that it was the hole in your bottom. He then laughed and said "Butt hole" hahahaha. I said "NO, hahaha, we don't need to be saying that or talking about that. Well what do you know? A couple hours later I got a call from Jones' PRINCIPAL!!! She had Jones with her who had to explain to me that he called another child that! UUGH. I explained everything to the teacher but HOW EMBARRASSING! Jones had to deal with us when he got home!

Curious... What keeps your kids busy?

We were organizing our toy bins yesterday and picking toys that we can give away and it just hit me that I am very curious to what other families play with. Do you see anything similar? Do you have any ideas? I did not take a picture of our downstairs small toy basket or our craft closet. And excuse the book mess!!! We are without a proper book case right now.

Dress-up center & the baby box. These are probably the most played with items by Mollie except her little Fun 2 Learn laptop.



The table they play with when they play with the kitchen. (Picture is dim cause the lights were off.)



The kitchen is finally starting to be a big draw for Mollie. It took awhile for her imagination to catch up. They love this but they love it most when an adult plays with them. (Sorry it's dim, I took it with the lights off)



Another favorite toy. They love to jump on the bed before I catch them. (And yes, I took all these pics when my kids were sleeping!)



Help!



Jones' closet with guys, cars, Nerf guns, games, all the stuff he loves.



Well, you wouldn't know it, but this is THE most coveted toy in the house. It is the first place Mollie & Livi escape to. They can reach Jones music and fan so they turn it on and climb in his bed and pretend it's naptime. Weird I know but I think they like the independence of doing it all themselves. Plus it's JOnes room and he is soooo cool cause he's six!



Okay so normally in that corner instead of a chair is a little table and chair where Jones plays legos which is one of the greatest inventions ever! He can play for hours!



Jones enjoys caring for his animals. This is how I find them when I turn out his light at night.



The "ottoman" stuff is played with off & on. Mostly on Saturdays when their cousins are here to play with them. It's unfortunate that five minutes after this was cleaned it looked like a gigantic junk drawer!



In this pic, they play with the band stuff and the vet center but not much else. I just can't part with this adorable cube though.



They love their chairs they got from Gpa & Gma last year. They use them to watch movies, play games, build forts, and as a jungle gym!