My Valentines

emma is such an awesome little girl. she has a huge heart, she never gets mad, she loves everyone and everything, and she's such a great and loving and forgiving big sister.

she is a huge help at home to me when tony is away. there's nothing i ask of her that she won't at least attempt to do and she'll forgive her brother any injustice no matter how large or how small.

i don't know what I did to deserve a child such as her, but i am so thankful everyday to God for choosing me as her mother.

she loves barbies, princesses, horses (and all other animals), the color pink, macaroni and cheese, and her family... most of all her brother.

i think my most favorite thing about her is that she promises she'll never leave me. she'll always live in this house with me and she'll be my baby forever. she promised. i'm holding her to it.

noah. mischievous, rotten, sweet and precious. he has such a temper, but he's so sweet about it that you can't get mad at him. he has his mommy wrapped around his little fingers and he knows it.

he loves his "tom banket" (thomas the train blanket) and he will not sleep without it and his sassy (pacifier). he loves trains, toy story, and nemo. he's all boy.

he won't go outside unless he has a hat on his head and he's prone to pointing his finger at you and telling you what for.

my favorite thing about him is that he loves his mommy best. ;)

tony. he's loyal, easygoing, sweet (most of the time), and he loves me. i know i'm a lucky girl to have him as my hubby. he makes big sacrifices for us and i know i'm lucky he's willing to do that for us.

my favorite thing about him is that he's completely the opposite of me. let's face it, i could not make it for 10 minutes being married to someone as high strung, independent, and opinionated as i am. i love him and he's perfect for me.

happy valentine's day.

Halloweenie!

This year, Emma is a beautiful purple fairy and Noah is a floppy puppy dog.

Taking pictures isn't really Noah's cup of tea at this stage in his life, so that's why he's giving me the stink eye.

These are precious though. He loves his new Owl Trick or Treat bag and he really likes his costume. I'm pretty sure Emma was over there making him giggle, hence the cute face. ;)

Emma's always up for a photo op and she looked as beautiful as ever. Still getting used to the short hair, though! :)

This Halloween, Tony was in Iraq working and Mimi was out of town, so Amber and I took the kids to the PH Church down the road to the Halloween carnival they have each year. The kids absolutely loved it! They jumped and slid on bouncy things and we had hots dogs, followed by trunk or treating. It's a really great thing they do for the kids over there and it's super fun without having to walk miles through a neighborhood.

Halloweenie, Halloweenie!!

This Halloween was very unique. My Granny went into the hospital yesterday with pneumonia in her right lung, so I knew we were going to go to the hospital to see her as part of our Halloween activities. So, because of this, I planned for us to start early. And then I thought... if we're going to go all the way into town, we'll just go over and see my other grandma, who is about the same distance from the hospital as it is to go back to our house, so that's what we did. We drove LOTS of miles or only an itty bitty bit of candy! :)

And while Noah took his afternoon nap, I got Emma all spiffied up (even make-up!!) and we went outside and had us a little impromptu photoshoot. It was fun and I think she looks SO beautiful!

Marley had to be in the middle of everything, of course.

It was approaching four o'clock, which was a good hour after I wanted to leave, so we went and woke up Noah. He looks pleased, don't ya think? LOL....

I wish I could post the super cute picture of him when he stood up, but he had again stripped himself of his pants and diaper and so I don't think he would appreciate a picture of his little man on the internet for the world to see. Trust me, though... it's the cutest picture EVER.

We got all ready and went to Mimi's first, as she was going on our multi-county Halloween adventure...

He is the cutest monkey I have ever seen!

Sweet boy... just wanna eat him!

And Mama took this of me and my babies. I LOVE it!!

Then we went to see Granny in the hospital. All the nurses and patients were just ooohing and ahhhing over them. It was so cute! :)

And of course, it made Granny's night to see her sweet little ones.

And I forgot to take pictures when we went to Mama Peggy's and Aunt Kathy's houses, but we really enjoyed seeing them as well. When we got home, they got all cozy in their Halloween pj's and settled in for some left-over pizza and a Halloween movie. It was such a long day, but we got to see lots of people we love and we drove many, many miles. I think next year, we're going to try to pick and neighborhood and do the normal trick-or-treating. :)

Busy, Busy Week

I'm sorry I've been so absent on here over the past couple of weeks. I think of you guys all the time. Literally. I miss hearing from you and I miss reading your blogs. Last week was so busy getting ready to go to Dallas to train with Amy and then this past week, I was so busy implementing what I learned from her that I have had absolutely no time to post on here. Well, I could've posted something, but I'm not usually great at short posts.



I have had an amazing week, though, I'm happy to report! I spent two afternoons/evenings with great friends ( Alison, Garrett, Jack, and Collins & Heather and Miles :). I'm so lucky to have friends like you guys in my life! Thanks for always being there. :) And not to mention that a friend that I've known half my life drove from Jacksonville on Tuesday for me to take pictures of her and her four boys. What an amazing time we had! We started our shoot on the Bullard Farm because they'd just baled up hay and the boys had a blast playing and being themselves out there. It was a great time and so wonderful to see her again and catch up. I'm pretty sure we hadn't seen each other since 9th grade!!! Life is good when you get the pleasure of being reunited with an old friend from the past like that. :)

And these boys.... AMAZING. I completely fell in love with them! I'll have more of their pictures on my GJP blog this week, so keep an eye out! :)

And tonight, we got to cook-out and spend the evening with my mom for the fourth! We thought we were going to be alone for this holiday, because my mom was at the beach, but she ended up missing us and coming home early. So, thankfully we were not alone this fourth of July.





My mom wanted some pictures taken of her, because she never gets pictures and she likes updating her sites she's on, just as we do, so I snapped a few pics of her tonight after we cooked out. All I have to say is that LORD.. I hope I look like her when I'm her age. I mean, seriously. She's turning 50 this year and you would never, ever know it! I'm going to post a bunch of her on my blog this week sometime, but those of you on my Facebook have already seen a couple of them. Here are a few of my favorites so far...

All I have to say is... LORD, I am SO thankful that half of my DNA came from HER!!! :)

Hope you all had a happy fourth, friends, I"ll try not to go another WEEK without posting! What a slacker I am. I'm sure a few of you are on the verge of putting my blog in time-out. :)

A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That...

I am so behind on Tony's Father's Day present. It will be mailed out tomorrow, but that means that he won't be getting it til next Wednesday. :( So sorry, Tony, you know I'm always late for everything. But my Mother's Day present was late by weeks, so we're even. :) Anyway, I could not decide what to get to send him over there, so Emma and I came up with a project and last night we worked on it til almost 1am. We're night owls around here.

This is her making her daddy's card....

An old friend came to visit us today. Traci and I taught sixth grade together back before/when I was pregnant with Emma and we've kind of lost touch since I quit teaching, but thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook and Blogspot, we've reconnected!! :) This is her gorgeous little girl, Anna Dove. Omgosh, she is just edible. Her and Noah played so sweet together all day today! We just loved having them here. And we actually managed some girl talk above the kid's loudness. :)

And Jessica's sweet little penny, Isaak carries around an adorable, soft, fuzzy, fleece blanket all the time, so the last time I saw her, I asked her how she made it. Well, she told me and I've been dying to do it ever since! So, tonight, I made this Thomas the Train blanket for Noah. It's so perfect for him! As soon as I was done making it, I went into his room and snuggled him all up inside it.

And, Jessica, I totally messed up a few times, but I think it looks okay for my first try.. right? Does it? Did I do it right? I'm making a bigger one for Emma when I get done writing this blog, so text me if it looks like I did something wrong. :) Oh, and if you weren't the one who told me how to make it, I would make one for Penny for his birthday, but since his mama's the master... I'll leave that to you! :)

p.s. Mindy, is this creative enough for me to post about it on Apron Girls? You know I'm stressin about living up to those amazing standards you girls have set on there. I don't feel worthy at all. ;)


p.s.s I am skipping the treadmill tonight. I'm not trying to get slack already, but my knees are still poppin and my right foot has been sore today too, so I don't want to push it too hard and get hurt. Then who would chase my babies? I'll get back on top of it tomorrow..

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Hope everyone remembers what today is all about!

I took this picture for my friend, Alison. These flags are displayed downtown at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum. It's so sad to know that each flag represents someone who sacrificed their life for our freedom.

Ten Days {...at the beach}

Our beach trip went by way too fast. There was so much going on every single day. It was such a great time! We got there Friday, May 1st and Johnny and Maura (Tony's brother and his fiance) got there just minutes after we did. They spent the whole weekend with us and we really had a great time together! Friday night, I did Johnny and Maura's engagement pictures. Here's one of them and the rest of them (well, mostly the rest) are posted on my photography blog.

Saturday was too chilly to stay out on the beach, so instead, we just hung out with Johnny and Maura, then around five, Maura and I headed out to find a great spot and take her bridal portraits. I had so much fun doing them and it was quite stressful at the same time. Something happened to my BEST lens while we were out shooting and I almost had a breakdown. I switched to a different lens and everything was fine, and then when we returned home, it was working fine. It was extremely muggy in the location we chose and I'm thinking that had something to do with my lens malfunctioning? I don't know, but it really freaked me out a little. Oh, and Maura's bridals are beautiful, but I can't share them until after the wedding, because Johnny would surely sneak on for a peek. ;)

And Saturday night, Johnny cooked us an amazing meal of shrimp, salmon, chicken, and rice pilaf. It was really great. Here's Uncle Johnny and (soon to be) Aunt Maura with Noah and Emma...

Sunday was GORGEOUS!!! We spent the whole day on the beach! There was a group of kite boarders out, because it was super windy and I took about two hundred pictures of them doing their thing. I'm pretty sure they thought I worked for the paper or something, because one of them kept showing off right in front of me and smiling for my camera. It was so funny! :)

But what was hands down the funniest thing ever was this... When we first got onto the beach, the wind was blowing SO HARD that Emma's beach ball took off at top speed down the beach. It was hilarious!!! Tony chased it and chased it and chased it until we could no longer see him at all. MILES he ran down the beach chasing this $1 beach ball!!! hahahahahaha.... Okay, here's a picture of him returning from his impromptu run...

And here's my most precious little love muffin in his beach get-up...

Omgosh, I could eat him... how many times have I told you that???

And Tony and Emma spent the whole day building a sand castle... This girl loves the beach so much. She would stay out from sun up to sun down every day if we would let her. Such a sweetheart...

Building sand castles is such hard work...

Then, Monday we headed to Wilmington because #1... I really wanted to eat at The Waffle House and the closest one is 30 minutes away in Wilmington. Since we were driving all the day there, we thought... Hey! Maybe we'll head over to Fort Fisher and go to the Aquarium. So, that's what we did and somehow, we passed the road to the Aquarium and suddenly were upon a ferry. We had no idea where this ferry went, but we knew Emma would LOVE it! And as chance would have it, the ferry was leaving like 30 seconds from the time we pulled, up so we paid the $5 fee and onto the ferry we went.. the last car! :) That's when we found out this was the ferry to Southport. We didn't know what that was or where that was, but that was where we were going!

When we first got out of our car, this cool blackbird was on the back netting of the boat! He was so cool! See how he's looking at me?!? I quit taking his picture, because I thought he might attack me if I kept snapping..

Here's Noah and Daddy on the boat.... Let me tell you a funny story about this picture... the next night was cinco de mayo... Tony and I made strawberry margaritas... you'll read about that in a minute... and during the drinking of the margaritas, we started looking at these pictures from the day before... well, you know.. I had a little margarita in me, so I photoshopped Noah's hair onto Tony's head... pahahahahahahahaa!!! Okay... you had to be there, but seriously, we were close to peeing on ourselves after I did that... oh, and plus, I made his teeth like super duper glowing white and I made his skin look like a mask. It was the funniest crap EVER!!!! I wish I woulda saved it, but the funnier I made him look, the less and less funny he thought it was, so to save the marriage, I deleted the photo.. ;) However, you can picture it and you KNOW it's funny!

Tony took this of me and my babies. Hair's a little messy, my hand's over Emma's head like a claw and Noah's not looking, but other than that... it's perfect, dontcha think? Oh, and my boobs are hanging out. Sorry for that. ;)

Pretty, pretty princess on the ferry. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. That was the point. We knew she would think it was the coolest thing ever.


Just a pretty bird in the water by the boat.. probably hoping we would throw him some food... we didn't.

And Southport is the coolest little town EVER!!!! Pretty much no chain stores there, it's all little mom and pop stores. Loved it so much!! And THIS one was my VERY favorite!
Emma got to see her favorite old man in the world. Emma's one of those kids that sings Christmas Carols year round.. every day... loves Santa.. talks about him daily..
The Christmas House had a cool gazebo attached to it that had this cool train going around the top of it.. Emma loved it..

My fam-a-lam..

And here's Cinco De Mayo... do you know we bought that blender just so we could make strawberry margaritas? It's fabulous too, it's like a bar blender. Makes super smooth, perfect drinks. Oh, and it also does pancake batter quite well. I used it for that Thursday morning...

Tony said I make the BEST margaritas. I do. You should come over and try them sometime.

Emma's margarita was VERY virgin. Please refrain from calling dss. Thanks.

Noah wanted some of the action, but instead he got a bottle of milk and went to bed.
Here's WEdnesday morning. We were determined to find that Aquarium and boy did we!
I do not know how we missed the aquarium sign. It was so blatantly obvious. The only thing I can think is that God knew we were just supposed to take the ferry to Southport on Monday, so he temporarily made the sign invisible? It could totally happen. Right?

Okay, so this is a cool, pretty duck in a pond at the start of our aquarium visit.

Emma was so stinkin happy to be here. She loved every second of it.

This is at the part of the aquarium where you can touch the shell fish and anemones. I'm pretty sure this guy had a crush on Tony. Look how he's looking at him. Freaky. And Emma's holding a conch of some sort...

Noah very much wanted to be a part of this touching action. He was very happy when we let hiim out of the confines of his stroller and allowed him to splash in the water.

Emma the crab

Such a little daredevil he is!!! Emma was absolutely terrified of this alligator! Noah.. no way! He could not wait to get as close as possible. By the way, this guy's a statue in case you're questioning my parenting at the moment...

Then when she saw her brother's enthusiasm, she got a little closer, but still... not too close...
Thursday, my dad and brother came down and they stayed with us until Sunday. It was nice to have them. They fished most of the time so we didn't really see a whole lot of them, but still, they were there and we enjoyed them. Here's my dad and Noah having a conversation on the beach on Saturday.
I have a few more pictures I'm going to upload and share with you, but for the moment, this is it! :) Sorry it took me so long to get these up. The internet service at the beach is horribly sucky, so I just did not have the patience to wait thirty minutes for five pictures to upload down there. I'll share more with you later. :)


p.s. Yes, Jessica, I meant to say Holy Crow below. Everyone says Holy Cow and somewhere, sometime I heard Holy Crow and decided I liked it, so now it's mine. You can borrow it if you'd like. ;)