long overdue! :)

Finally!  Here is an update on what the boys and I have been up to over the past several months!  :)

I love vacuuming. Call me weird. I don't know. I find it soothing actually.  :)  So one day we decided to vacuum and Big Brother was a great help!  :)

There was a fall festival in town the same weekend that the boys' family did a yard sale to raise money for the adoption so while mommy was busy we got Cake Leah to meet us and walked around and discovered many fun things to do!

One area was a play house area for toddlers with all kinds of little play houses for kids to run around and play in.  That's Annie on the right...haven't seen her on here in a little while!  :)  It was so good to hang out with Leah again!

Little Man turned one in October!  I gave him a scout dog and both he and Big Brother love.  Have you seen Scout before?  Excellent toy, I think.  :)  You program it so he says your child's name, favorite color, and favorite food.  And there is a purple dog named Violet for girls.  :)

Just being cute...  :)

Lots of crafts and fun games...

Got this idea from Pinterest of course.  It was so much fun to make!!  I was a little sad when I was done.  But then I was later talking to Anastasia and we realized that little felt animals like these are cute, fun to play with, and take up zero room....perfect for a loooong airplane ride when it's time to bring the boys home in a few months!  So now I have an excuse to make more!  :)

Aaand last but not least.....

...lots of walks to the park!  :)  Big Brother knows that we always text mommy a picture when we're about to go for a walk so he now will climb in the stroller, sit down and say "picture!!!".  Smart kid.  :}

santa dog

My aunt just text me this picture and I just had to share it with you!  I got her this little santa dog outfit as part of her Christmas present last year because I found it in the dollar section of Target and I thought it was funny.  Now I think it's actually pretty cute too!  :)

Merry Christmas 

from Abby the Santa dog!  :)

not always as planned

Ok, yes, I know, I have neglected my poor little blog for too long.  Yes, I know I'm still behind.  I am way overdue for an update on the boys for one thing!  I'll get there...eventually!  I take too many pictures with my iphone and then get weighed down trying to decide which ones to put on here...and it usually ends up being most of them...which takes a while... 

But anyhoo...

For now I wanted to be sure to put these pics up and write about this day...because it was most definitely a reminder that we may make all the plans we want...but really only God knows how things are going to turn out! Ha!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I headed down to the convention center downtown where they hold the annual Festival of Trees where Lauren dances every year.  She was awesome, as always, but due to joining a new dance studio with a new teacher who is very good at encouraging her and building her up, she had a new confidence in her dancing that was exciting to watch.  :)

Afterwards my friend Rebekah and her family were driving through town on their way home from spending Thanksgiving with family and so I grabbed Lauren and we headed to Starbucks to visit for a few minutes.  The times I get to see Rebekah is never long enough and never often enough, but we take any little snippits of time we can and have actually gotten to see each other quite a few times this past year. Yay! :)

After Rebekah and family got back on the road to head home, Lauren and I realized we had the rest of the day to spend together - something we hadn't done in a very long time!  Neither of us had eaten lunch yet so we stopped by the new Chick Fil A (if you live here and haven't been to the new one in Bearden...you should check it out! it's pretty awesome!).  We decided that our plans for the day would be to run by my house so Lauren could take a quick shower, then either go to a movie or go shopping, followed by dinner at a place I had been wanting her to try.  

Well, we got to my house and just before heading up to take a shower we decided to grab a couple pics of Lauren in her dance costume, so we both set our cell phones on the kitchen table, and I grabbed my camera and we stepped out on the deck...me in flip flops, and Lauren in, well, exactly what she's wearing in the above pictures.  Oh, did I mention the high that day was somewhere around 43?? Yeah.

So pictures done, we walked back up on the deck and pulled the sliding glass door to go back in since we were both getting chilly - her more so than me since I at least had jeans and a long sleeved shirt on.  But the door wouldn't open.  Somehow it had locked itself as we came out!!  We ran around to the garage door that we had just entered when getting home...locked.  All the doors were locked!  And my parents had left just before we got there to go see a movie!  (Not something they do very often...but of course they did that day!)

So the doors were locked, Lauren has not much on to keep her warm - not even shoes!, our cell phones were mocking us from the kitchen table, and the cat was looking at us like we were dumb. lol  Not sure what else to do, we headed over to our neighbors across the street to ask to use the phone.  Lauren asked if I even knew our neighbors.  I said I knew them just a tiny bit...but was about to get to know them a lot better!

Sean was home with his five year old daughter, Callie, and graciously let us in, let me use his cell phone, and let Lauren borrow one of his sweatshirts.  I realized that I should call my brother...but didn't have his number memorized, so I called Michael who had it in his phone and gave to me.  However, it turns out he had Daniel's old cell phone number!!  Of course.  So we called Lauren's mom, who had the correct one.  Daniel was no help as he had no key to mom and dad's house and didn't know what else to do.  :-p  So I then called Leah, who was out shopping and came to our rescue!  We went with her to grocery shop while killing time for my parents to get out of the theater.  Then Leah dropped us off at Panera Bread (mom and dad's favorite place to eat...!) to wait for them.  Thirty five minutes later (the movie had gone longer than they thought it would) they showed up to find two very hungry girls who were glad to get a hot meal and finally go home and shower and change into warm clothes!!

Not the day we had planned.  Nor would we hope to repeat it again! However, I was thankful to get to spend that time with my little sister and not alone!  :}

We'll try again soon, Lauren, and this time maybe we'll make it to a movie instead of waiting for my parents to get out of one!  lol!  :)

i'm behind....again...

Hi.  I am still alive over here.  I have been absent from my blog for a little while because, well, all my new pictures have either been on my phone or in my camera and when you take as many pictures as I tend to...all of a sudden your computer freaks out on you and you realize this is what your computer space looks like:

SO! my poor computer would not let me put anymore photos on it until I cleared some space...which took a while to get around to doing...which would be why it's been forever and a day since I blogged anything.  Which also means I have a ton to catch up on!  :-p

So while I work on getting caught up on this and my photography blog...I'll leave you with a little hello from my Superman from a few weeks ago:  

Cutie patootie.   :}

happy halloween :)

On Tuesday, my kids and I continued a tradition that I claimed when I left - taking them to Boo at the Zoo.  They just love the fun of dressing up and getting candy. :)  Who wouldn't?!

This year we had a dracula (again), a fifties girl, and a native american indian.

It was so so cold though that we had to wear coats over our outfits - or under our cape as the case may be...  :)

Every year there is a booth where children can have their picture taken. Last year however, the background was different than just blue. Oh well.  And as you can tell, the lighting was just fantastic! lol

Love it when he holds my hand. :)

Our friend Leah came with us too! My kids hadn't seen her in quite a while and it's always fun to go with a friend.  They rode the carousel, which is also tradition, but I didn't get any pictures of that this year.  That is a favorite because it goes backwards for Boo at the Zoo!  :)  

Time with my kiddos is never long enough!  :\

Then, the next day...

I got to take my little Superman on our first outing!  We went to see mommy at her office and help show him off in his adorable little costume (picture coming).  We even ate lunch at Cafe 4 on Market Square which I had never been to before...but I will most definitely be going back!  Yum!

Then we got home and his bib was soaked...so I looked for another orange one and found...

...this!  Which cracked me up!  :)

Then we had to model his costume for you...

He makes one pretty cute dinosaur...or dragon...whichever you think this costume is...some of us couldn't quite decide...  :}  

Happy Halloween!

girls' weekend!

This past weekend I escaped to Nashville with a few of my girlfriends.  We were missing two other girls who should have been there with us, but we did have a blast!

We left Friday afternoon, which just happened to be my birthday. :}  Shannon, Sybil, and I stopped at the outlet mall in Lebanon, TN for a few minutes before continuing on down to the Green Hills area to meet Rebekah and my college friend, Erin, for dinner at...

...the Cheesecake Factory!!  One of my most favorite restaurants ever! :)

After that, Erin headed home since she was off to a zip line with friends the next day and the four of us headed to our hotel to just hang out and chat for the evening. 

Leah helped make a surprise for each of us that came in very handy later in the weekend - personalized headbands and towels! 

Saturday morning we headed down to Franklin to explore it's super cute downtown area, eat lunch, and grab a cupcake at Ivy Cake - the same place from which Carrie Underwood ordered cupcakes for her wedding. :)

(sending Lauren a quick pic...)  :)

We found one shop in particular that Rebekah and I especially liked called Philanthropy.  (click to view their website and learn more about them)  They are a Christian company that donates 10% of every sale to 6 different charities. Their store is so cute and Rebekah and I talked for quite a few minutes to the girl greeting people as they walked in the door.  I mean...ask us one question on our favorite topic of orphans and adoption...and we might not stop!  :}  She and I each got a pair of adorable gloves (Rebekah! we should have gotten a picture of us in them....oh well!), and Sybil found a coat that she should have bought...!  ;)  

 Next we were off to the "dragon park" (not it's official name...but you can see why it's called that!)

It was built in the 80's and is just soo neat!

Check out some of the details below... :

Cool, huh? 

What's even cooler is the fact that behind the dragon is a completely handicap accessible playground!  So Rebekah's Isaac can come play here and do everything his siblings do. :)

I'm guessing Big Brother and Little Man may end up getting to come play here some in the next couple years possibly since Little Monkey may need some procedures done at the nearby hospital.

Shannon's husband and kids came and met us at the playground late that afternoon so they could see Catherine, Shannon's sister, who had joined us Saturday morning.

After the playground we headed over to Opry Mills mall to eat dinner at the Aquarium Restaurant.  We thought we were there to see the fish...turns out...

...we sat right next to Dave Ramsey and his wife!  Pretty cool!

Although, I did feel a little guilty that I wasn't paying with cash. lol

And no, I don't know if he paid with cash or not.....  :}

I did not feel guilty giving Rebekah my phone for a better view and using Jonathan as a decoy photo subject!  lol

Back to the hotel where Sybil tries on her outfit for the next day as we prepared to... 

Here we are all white and clean at the beginning...!

...run in The Color Run 5k!  Shannon and I had been talking about a girls weekend way back in the spring. A few days later, Shannon said she had found the perfect thing to do for our girls' weekend - run a 5k! To which I said...HA! that does not sound like my kind of girls' weekend!  Which is when she told me to go watch the video of something called The Color Run.

Yup.

If there was ever a 5k that would look fun enough to convince me to actually be excited about...she found it!

Everyone knows how much I love color. 

This 5k is referred to as the happiest 5k on the planet and was so fun and family friendly!  So the rule was...wear white! But other than a white tshirt, you could wear whatever you wanted.  And people did!  It was so fun to see all kinds of ideas for the next one...  :}  We had picked out fun animal hats to wear (in the above picture) and were very thankful for them as we walked up with goosebumps all over that morning!

See those white flags...waaaaay at the front (top left)?  That was the start line! There were thousands of people there - strollers, little kids, grownups...everything!

This was the view behind us.  Pretty Nashville skyline! :)

And then we were off!  (hahaha...ok...like 50 minutes from the time it started! They sent groups every 5 minutes and it took that long for us to move up that far in the line.)  I took my cell phone in a ziplock bag so I could a) listen to music (gotta have music!) and b) take pictures!  Here's what going through a color station looks like:

There was a color station every kilometer, plus a color festival at the end (video coming!).  Each station had a literal TON of color - so there were literally 5 tons of color for the run!  That was a lot of color!  The powder is made of food grade cornstarch so walking through the cloud of color, you did get it in your mouth but it was more like a sprinkle of flour in your mouth and you could tell it was edible.

So after all that color...this is what we looked like...!

Bahahaha!!!  I have no idea how Rebekah and I got the most color on our faces!  We look just lovely don't we??  

Here's a close up of a few of our faces...

Sybil with just a colorful sprinkle (again...HOW??!), Rebekah looking like a hobo with color from the nose down, ...and me looking like a total mess with color mostly from the nose up!  :-p

My hands, front and back.  I had worn bracelets on my left hand (in the right picture) during the race and this is what my wrist looked like when I took them off.

My car got covered in pink!

On my driver's window, Rebekah wrote "will run for color".  :)  It was a quote from a bumper sticker they were selling. :}

After we got back to our cars we headed straight to take a shower right over to Opry Mills again to eat lunch!  Ack!   First we had Catherine's boyfriend, Brian take a few more pictures.  He was the only one allowed to touch my "real" camera since he was the only one who was completely colorless! :)

Lol, Rebekah and I always complain that we never remember to take a picture together...now we have one...and we look like this!! HA!  Figures.  :}

Thankfully we had a 45 minute wait and while Dave and Catherine's boyfriend, Brian waited outside with the kiddos, the rest of us girls made a beeline for the nearest restroom in the mall armed with two packs of baby wipes and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed! 

That came from one part of my arm!!  We had color EVERYWHERE!!!!  It went through our shirts - my stomach was orange and blue! And that night I cleaned my ears with q-tips (you know...the same ears that I kept headphones in the entire time...)  and they were completely pink!  

Anyways, we ended up walking around the mall half colorful which was fine when we had our color run shirts and number bibs on...when I changed my shirt though, people just looked at me wondering if I ever take showers!

I was sad to leave everyone and head home although I couldn't WAIT to climb into a shower and melt the color away! :}  (The fun was totally worth it though, don't get me wrong!)  We had a fantastic weekend, and as long as the Color Run comes back to Nashville, I think we just found a new tradition! Except that next year we're bringing everyone we know to join us for the fun!  

Wanna come?? :)

Oh yeah.  One more thing happened that afternoon too...but I'll share that later.  :)