Sydney and Samuel's 3rd Birthday!!

It's hard to believe that just three short years ago Sydney and Samuel made their entrance to this world! A few hours old...

Now look at them today!!!
These two have such different personalities that are changing everyday.


All the cousins enjoying a bite to eat together...
Sydney being silly under the table with Ben (who you can't see, way in the back corner)!

Uncle Chris entertaining Colin, who would probably rather crawl around on the floor with the others :)

Everyone playing before opening presents, notice the love birds in the bottom left corner ;) I caught them! Alexander could hardly contain himself!! He did so good with none of the presents being his, next time they are all for him!! He is definitely ready for his birthday party in a few weeks!!!
Time to open presents!! Samuel got some new skates!

Sydney got a huge princess castle/nursery!

{you think these will fit??} :)


Fireman Sam getting his umbrella ready.

Sydney showing off her new princess dress... which she LOVED!

Time to sing "Happy Birthday" and blow out the candles, then enjoy some yummy cake!!



Happy Birthday Sydney and Samuel, we love you!

Are YOU Smarter Than A Kindergartner?

Allison and I were looking through the attic at our house for some old pictures and came across this...

My aunt saved all the articles from the newspaper that we were in and I love that we found this one from when I was in Kindergarten. For some reason I don't remember much from when I was little... :(

It was so funny to read some of the answers that we came up with...


Most of you know that I am not a very creative person, so imagine my shock when I read this!!

Where in the world did I come up with that!!! I think it's hilarious and a pretty smart answer! Where do YOU think the Easter Bunny lives and gets his eggs???

If I come across any more, I will try to post them.

Spring in Tennessee

Here is my synopsis of a normal spring in Tennessee...

April's crazy weather brings powerful tornadoes,

(hail outside our house during Good Friday storms)

May brings buckets and buckets of rain, (this picture was found on the internet, but happens a lot on campus where I work)

Brings June flowers, 85-90+ degree weather (with 90%+ humidity), and afternoon thunderstorms.



I wrote this post a month or two ago and forgot to post it so now it's the end of July, when it is usually mid to upper 90's(or hotter), and we are having unseasonably cool weather (70-80's) and relatively low humidity! We better enjoy it while it lasts... August is just around the corner!! Despite our crazy weather, I still enjoy each of our distinct seasons!

These are a few of my favorite things!

Of course I couldn't pick just one!!! After browsing pictures on my computer for a while, I finally just picked the one of each of my nieces and nephews that jumped out at me most, old or recent...

This is Josh last October:

Here is Jade on Memorial Day of this year, it took her a while to finally get situated on that float!

This is Ben enjoying a ice cream pop on 4th of July this year, pretty much every picture of Ben is my favorite because it is so hard to get any!

This is Grace two years ago on Memorial Day, she and Ben had a blast in that little pool!!

Sydney REALLY enjoyed her ice cream pop too!

This is Samuel wearing Chris' Titan's Santa hat on his first Christmas, this is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures!!

This is also one of my favorite pictures of Alexander, it's from a visit to Mimi and Paps' house back when he still lived in NC.

This is a picture of Colin from about a month ago when he was four months old... all smiles :)


Aren't these the CUTEST kids you've ever seen!!! :)

I HEART My Wedding Dress!!

I L.O.V.E. my wedding dress!!! Chris and I have been married three and a half years and I joke with my him all the time about wanting to wear my dress again... of course not because I want to get married again, but because I love it so much!! When I started looking for my dress I knew I wanted something simple but not boring, and I think I found the perfect combination for me!!! It's a shame we spend so much on our wedding dress but only get to wear it once :( Another great thing about my dress was that it needed ZERO altering, how's that for some luck!!

Here is a view of the back as I am going to see Chris for the first time on our wedding day!

You can see a little of the detail on the back here, it laced up and had just the right amount of beading on the back!

This is probably my favorite picture from our wedding, not really sure why but I just love it! This was right after the ceremony.

Some of the bead work on the front... which I also loved!

It also had just the right amount of bead work going down the front of the left side.


Away we go!!


I hope you all like your wedding dress as much as I like mine!! Head on over to Kelly's Korner to check out some more beautiful wedding dresses!

FINALLY...

a trip to the lake!

My mom, dad, Allison, Jade, and I want to the lake last weekend! It was the first time I had been in several years and I was so excited to finally get to go (despite the overcast weather and chilly water!!) All of these pictures are with my cell phone so they are horrible quality, but later this summer we plan on taking a better camera.

The only good way to get in the water when it is cold is to just go for it and jump in... Dad's got pretty nice form:

Jade had fun playing on the knee board, she would swim out and make granny pull her in.

It's hard to tell but that is dad skiing, I think he was sore the next day!

That's me, I knew I would be sore if I did too much so I took it easy!

Allison found this bottle of Tylenol on the boat...

Good thing none of us got a headache, it expired in December of 1996!!


Allison and Jade relaxing on the front of the boat.

This is Jade trying to keep her hair from flying all over the place when we were on our way back to the marina.

Allison, Jade, and I almost back to the marina after a fun day at the lake!

Hopefully we will make it back a few more times this summer so Jade can learn to ski and knee board.