John Derrick is FIVE!!!!

John Derrick is 5 years old!!!!! Wasn't he just a baby yesterday? Where has time gone? God has truely blessed me with a wonderful son.

I don't throw big birthday parties for my kids. I have a thing about birthday parties. I like to keep things simple and do something special for the kids. This year I let John Derrick have his best friend Cooper come and spend the night. They had so much fun. John Derrick was excited because this was his first time to have someone sleepover. Faith has had friends sleep over so he knew exactly what to do. We got out the air mattress and they put on their matching Batman pjs and watched a movie at bedtime.


I was going to take the boys to a bouncy place but John Derrick wanted to go bowling so I took them bowling. We were the only ones in the bowling alley that morning.

They had fun bowling but the video games caught their attention so after a few frames they wanted to play the video game. I made them finish the game and then they played the racing game.

This year Kevin picked out John Derrick's birthday present. We got him a Fisher Price Power Wheels. Since it has wheels, John Derrick loves it.

Here we are at my parent's house for our Thanksgiving dinner/birthday party.
John Derrick has really been watching Toy Story for the past couple of months so I made him a Toy Story birthday cake. I love making my kids birthday cakes. This one was fun because I used fondant for the first time.
Of course we can't forget the best big sister. See doesn't Faith looked thrilled to be there.

A Fabulous Fall

October has came and went and what an amazing October it has been. It has been quite a rainy October with lots of overcast skies but the leaves on the trees have been beautiful. The colors are so bright and vivid. I just can't get enough of them. I just wish we had trees in our yard.

October has become the start of the holiday season for me. It is the time of the year, that I start pulling decorations out of the the attic and we start planning for the "big one".

The first big event of October is our family hayride. For the past 7 or 8 years, my parents will plan a hayride and bonfire for the family. My dad gathers branches in his yard and piles them on his bonfire rock in their backyard and starts a bonfire. My mom gets together all the makings for for a feast, hot dogs and chips, graham crackers, chocolate and "mar-moes" for s'mores. The kids have a fun roasting their hot dogs using Granddaddy's special roasting sticks that he made years ago. After we get our fill of hot dogs and s'mores, the real fun begins. Granddaddy fills the back of this pick up truck with hay and we all pile in the back and Granddaddy takes us on our "hayride" around Mann Road and Berea Church Road. Every year we wonder if we are going to fit in the back because the kids just keep getting bigger every years but we have so much fun.
Faith seriously contemplating cooking her hot dog.
John Derrick and his adorable goofy grin.


Roasting his "mar-moe". The one part of the of the bonfire he couldn't wait for.

Here we are gathered around the bonfire. I almost was not able to make it this year. I had spent most of the day sick in bed but I could not miss this day because it is so much fun. I stayed in bed and when it was time to go, I felt good enough to get dressed and go sit and I was so glad I was able to.

Here is the pick up truck with the kids in the back.

The weekend before Halloween, we had a Family Fall Festival at the church. Our friends, Laura and Jeremy along with their little boy, Bradley came to visit us that weekend. We decorated our car with a 70's Disco theme. We had bright streamers, strobe lights and a disco ball. We even had disco music playing in the background. It was a lot of fun especially watching the kids come up to the car. They would just stare at the lights and wouldn't even think about getting candy.


Even Kevin got in on the fun by wearing an afro wig and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.

The kids loved being there and dressed up in their Halloween costumes.

One of our favorite things to do at Halloween is carving the pumpkins. We spent a fun evening cleaning out the pumpkins and making faces on the pumpkins.

Faith loves to pull out the "pumpkin guts" We saved the seeds and roasted them the next day. Yum!

John Derrick was not very adventurous this year and wouldn't stick his hands in the pumpkin. He did use a spoon but I did most of the work.

Faith's pumpkin was a cat on a broom.

John Derrick had a scary face pumpkin.

This year I made a new decoration for our yard. I found this idea in the Family Fun magazine. They are called "Ring around the Ghosties" On Halloween night, Kevin put a strobe light in the middle and they looked very "scary".

Since our neighborhood is a good place to trick or treat, I try to have a family Halloween party at our house. Marty and Penny and the kids come over and so to Grandmommy and Granddaddy. This year Grandmommy made a big pot of chili and brought it over for us to enjoy. I made the sweet treats along with John Derrick's help. He loves to bake.

These are the cookies that I made for Halloween. I also made some for Faith's Halloween party at school.


This year Faith was a gypsy. She decided she was too old to be a fairy this year and wanted to be something different. I thought that was great fun especially when she decided to be a gypsy. The skirt that she is wearing was my skirt from when I was her age. I found a shirt at the Goodwill store. It was the perfect shirt except that it was pink and the skirt was red but when we paired it with some of my scarves, it looked great. John Derrick of course wanted to be Batman again this year. I bought his costume. He was so cute, the costume was a little too big and his "muscles" kept riding up.

The kids of course had a great time trick or treating in the neighborhood. John Derrick is a bit lazy and he wanted to quit after we went around the block. So we brought him back to the house while Faith kept going with her cousins. I don't think John Derrick missed a thing. He had more fun giving out the candy to the kids.

So now we have way too much candy at the house. I'll leave it out for about a week and what is left over, I will probably throw away or put up in the freezer for treat through out the year.

It is November and a busy month is coming and it is going to be fun!!

Family Movie Night

I am not a junk food fanatic. Neither am I a health food nut. I have too many other things to worry about without having to worry about what the label says. I don't buy organic foods because it is too expensive. I don't like buying that many prepared foods because they are expensive. I like buying ingredients and cooking meals. I also do not deep fry foods because deep frying is so messy and I really like quick clean ups after I eat. I personally like a variety of vegetables and fruits but certain members of my family thinks that the only vegetables that should be eaten are corn, green beans and potatoes and the occasional bite of broccoli (and only if it is covered with cheese).

I said all that so I wouldn't feel so bad about our junk food binge this weekend (and most weekends). About a year or so ago, I declared that Friday nights are family nights. We actually don't have that hectic of a schedule compared to some but Kevin travels for his job one night a week and week nights have homework, baths and bedtime schedules. On Friday night, I plan a easy meal and it is usually pizza. Sometimes I will cook something but it might be pigs in blankety and rotel dip, stromboli or some other kind of finger food. We have a Netflix account and we get a family friendly movie and watch the movie while we eat our dinner. That is our family movie night. It is my favorite night of the week.

We have been a little distracted for the past few weekends so we haven't had a Family Movie Night in awhile. I was happy that this Friday night was free of distractions so I planned a good old fashion junk food night. I bought a pizza AND cheese bread from Papa Murphey's. I love Papa Murphey's pizza. You buy the pizza and you have to cook it at home. The pizza is delicious and very affordable. Much cheaper then most of the bigger pizza chains and you get the eat the pizza hot out of the oven.

Our movie was the 1975 Disney classic Escape to Witch Mountain. I wasn't sure if the kids would enjoy the movie but I wanted to watch it before we watch the recent release of Race to Witch Mountain. The acting was not very good and the special effects were pretty bad but we loved the movie. The kids watched the whole thing and we had some good laughs. The next movie on our Netflix list is the 1978 Return From Witch Mountain and we are looking forward to seeing it.

This morning I had to continue our junk food binge. I woke up way too early and really wanted some donuts. When Faith woke up at 7:30, we got dressed quickly and quietly and snuck out and bought Dunkin Donuts and some chocolate milk (which we did bring home for all of us to enjoy). So our Saturday morning started out with yummy donuts which are definitely NOT good for your waistline.

It is a beautiful day for the month of August. The temperature is suppose to stay in the 80's today. This evening we are getting together with the rest of the family to celebrate Grandmommy's birthday. We will be eating at Wasabi Hibatchi Grilll (more yummy food that I will eat too much of) and then we will go back to their house for cake and ice cream (Publix's cake that is too good).

Now, I need to get up and get dressed and go enjoy this beautiful Saturday!!!!!

In the Good Old Summertime

What a summer! It is the first day of school today and Faith started FOURTH Grade!!!! She is in Mrs. Christian's class this year. She had been originally assigned to another teacher but when we got to school this morning, she had been moved to another class. I think she will be okay with this because she had wanted Mrs. Christian in the first place. I hope it didn't make her too nervous to be expecting one teacher and end up with another teacher. Did I mention she was in FOURTH grade. It was just yesterday that she went to kindergarten, see...
This will be her last year at Coles Ferry Elementary. Next year she will go to Castle Heights Upper Elementary but John Derrick will start Kindergarten at Coles Ferry. I am already getting weepy eyed about John Derrick going to school. Kids just grow up way too fast. I miss my babies. I am already forgetting what it was like to hold them in my arms. Kevin and I are done having babies so I have to be content to watch my beautiful children grow and mature and try to enjoy every moment that I can.

Like I said, this has been a crazy summer. Summer break has always had a wild effect on the kids. I have always tried to keep the kids busy so we are not sitting around watching TV all summer long. We would do the library summer reading program, go swimming, go to the movies, do VBS, and try to go on a picnic. It always seemed so chaotic and when school would start there would be a since of peace for a few weeks while Faith settled into a school routine and John Derrick would enjoy a few weeks of doing nothing before he started back to Mother's Day Out.

This summer had the same wild effect on the kids except we did not do much this summer. We only made it to the library a few times this summer. I only went swimming once with the kids. We didn't get to see one free movie and the kids went to VBS but I didn't help this year. I spent most of my summer recovering from two different surgeries. The kids did get to spend a lot of time with Grandmommy and Granddaddy and several different babysitters while I went to doctor's appointments. I did have a lot of good feeling days this summer but I just didn't try to do anything and unfortantly the kids watched a lot of TV and played on the computer most of the time. I think I slept in almost every single days except those days that I went to the doctor. There were days that I would wake up at would wake up at 8:30 in the morning, feed the kids breakfast, waste the WHOLE morning doing nothing, take a shower around 10:30, and then feed the kids lunch just to sit around and do nothing some more. What a waste of time. Poor kids, I was beginning to think that they liked when I went to the doctor just so they could go somewhere.

Well, we did do a couple of things this summer. We went to the beach. John Derrick got to sleep over at a friend's house for the first time. Faith got to sleep over a few times at friend's house. We went to the lake for the fourth of July. We went to a Nashville Sounds Game for Kevin's Father's Day present. We took a Saturday and discovered a place in Kentucky called Kentucky Down Under. We got to feed exotic birds and pet a kangeroo. It was a really neat place and the kids had a lot of fun. I took the kids one day to the Discovery Museum in Murfreesboro just to get out of the house for the day. So while we wasted most of summer doing nothing, we did do a few fun things. Next summer will be different, that is a promise.
Pe.tting one of the kangeroos at Kentucky Down Under. This is a male kangeroo. We saw a mommy kangeroo with a baby in her pouch. I was not able to get a picture of her but it was so neat to see.
The picture of Kevin and I that Faith took.
Kevin and John Derrick feeding a bird at Kentucky Down Under.


Faith making a bowl out of cloth and glue at the Discovery Museum.
John Derrick and his tongue sticking out. He was really concentrating at what he was doing at the Discovery Museum.
This was John Derrick's favorite thing at the Discovery Museum. He could change the tires and muffler and add "fluids" to the car. His tongue was stuck out most of the time while he was "working" on the car.
Although the Discovery Museum is geared toward slightly younger kids, Faith had a lot of fun. I am glad that she doesn't think she is "too cool" for things like this. It helps keep her little just a little longer.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks...

Father's Day snuck up on me this year. I was not able to get out and go shopping and I just did not have to energy to think of something. This sounds horrible but Kevin understood and did not expect anything for Father's Day. I was not going to let that happen. I wanted to do something special for Kevin but like I said I just could not think of anything.

The week before Father's Day, Kevin was out of town and I asked the kids what they wanted to get Daddy. Faith came up with the best idea. She suggested going to a baseball game. She really meant to go see a Chicago Cubs game. Well, Chicago was a little too far away and Atlanta had already played Chicago so we could not go there. So we decided to go to a Nashville Sounds game. The last time we went to a Sounds game was back in 2005 when Faith was 5 years old and John Derrick was a baby in fact, he did not even go to the game.

We went to the game and it was HOT but exciting. The Sounds played Oklahoma City. We won 11 to 3. We ate all the junk food that you are suppose to eat at baseball games like hot dogs, peanuts, cotton candy and Cokes. After the games, there were fireworks and they allowed kids to come out and run the bases. Both Faith and John Derrick ran. John Derrick was too funny because his shorts were a little big in the waist and he was running hard and hitching up his shorts at the same time.

John Derrick was determined to have cotton candy at the game. We walked in and that was all he wanted. He kept asking when the cotton candy man was going to get there. Finally the man showed up and he got his cotton candy. Notice his sweaty hair. It was very hot and humid at the game.
Here's Faith when she was 5 years old eating cotton candy at her first Nashville Sounds game. Below is Faith this time at age 9 eating her cotton candy. Boy she has grown up so much.

Prayer Request

Please keep my cousin Laura Beth's little girl, Carolina in your prayers. She is being treated for Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) which is a bleeding condition in which the blood doesn’t clot as it should.

You can read about Carolina on Laura Beth's Blog, high on life

A Funny Quote

I just had to share something John Derrick said to me this morning. He can say some of the funniest things. This morning he came to me and told me, "I love tomorrow. Right now it is today and not tomorrow."

He told me that because he is going through the "I don't wanna take a bath" phase. We have been completely off routine since I have not been able to do much and he is taking full advantage of that. Last night all of us were completely exhausted. The kids had been away all day playing with a friend, I had visitors most of the afternoon, and I found out that I would need more surgery so we were completely drained. When he started fussing about taking a bath, we gave in and told him that he would have to take a bath tomorrow. That cheered him up and he was fine.

Now he is going to convince us that he can wait to tomorrow to take a bath instead of today...