Happy B-Day Shane and Hunter!!!

December is always a busy month for us. Not only do we have to get ready for Christmas but Hunter's B-day is on the 20th and Shane's is on the 22nd. We have always separated their b-days and Christmas so it's more partying we have to plan. Allen and his Mom went to get her sister, Sally, in Alabama to bring her home for Christmas so she was able to come to the party. The kids did their own thing with their friends then on Sunday we had a family party for them. Isabella and Allen's Dad

Hunter

Shane trying on a new shirt.

Isabella and my Mom who goes by "Nana"

I wish you could tell better how long Isabella's hair has gotten.

Blowing out the candles

All in all it was a good day. Now we're gearing up for Christmas. I'll have more pictures to post of that later. I took Isabella to the doctor today to check on her tubes. One tube was clogged and a little infected so she got medicine and ear drops. She'll be fine. She goes back in 2 weeks to get rechecked. She's talking so much more and tries to repeat everything we say. Sometimes she just babbles and babbles with hand gestures and everything and I have no clue what she's saying but she's carrying on a whole conversation. I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I'll post more pics later.

It's been WAY too long!

I have been REALLY slacking on the blog. I don't have a lot of time even now to post pictures. I thought I would do something different for the season so the blog is AGAIN a work in progress. I will try to post this weekend with some pictures. Everyone is doing great. Just letting you all know we're ok, just busy.

Halloween

Me and Isabella at the church "Trunk or Treat" She was a little witch this year. She actually kept her hat on the WHOLE time. We only stayed out about 45 minutes then we went to eat mexican food. Let me just say, Isabella LOVES mexican food. She ate salsa, taco, beans, and rice.
They had a donkey for Joseph and Mary.

Isabella with Daddy

Isabella with Miss Tammy, our babysitter. That was our first stop.

Alex took Isabella to the house next to Tammy's. It was so sweet to watch them together. He's such a GREAT big brother.

Again with Miss Tammy

Tammy's daughter, Britton.

Alex and his Ninja pose.

Now, about the look of the blog. I really can't get it the way I want it. I'm still trying. If anyone knows how to change the widgets to get the header wider, let me know. Look for it to keep changing until I get it right!

Still experimenting

I'm still working on my header. I'm trying different things and trying to use different web sites. I'm trying to do it free but I may have to breakdown and buy a digital kit. I have a scrapbook program that has ALOT of stuff on it but it takes FOREVER to go through it all. It's mainly for scrapbook pages so I have to try to resize or add and delete elements from the templates. This really is alot of work. I can see why people charge so much for it. I guess if I knew what I was doing it would go alot faster.!

trying to do my own blog

You guys will have to bear with me. I'm trying to change my blog on my own but I only have patience to do a little at a time so it may take a little while. I'm still trying to figure it out so the things on the blog won't match for a little while. I hope it turns out because I had no idea how to save my original blog template before I changed the background. Keep checking back to see my progress.

My OWN Forever Day!

My Mom called me tonight and asked me if I knew what today was. I didn't and she informed me that 40 years ago today they put me in their car and brought me home. I was 4 months old. I knew it was sometime in October but I guess I never really cared which exact day it was. For those of you that don't remember, I am adopted. I have the MOST WONDERFUL family and I'm so glad things turned out the way they did. Some where in the archives I have my adoption story.

But now with Isabella having her Forever Day I guess it's kinda neat to think that I have one too. I just might have to start celebrating it from now on!

I just wanted to share that tidbit of information because it's not only our babies that have Forever Days--other people do too. If you know anyone else that is adopted, ask them when their day is and tell them "Congratulations!"

Love you more than words can say Mom and Dad!

Our trip to Florida

Well the kids were on fall break this week so we planned a trip to Florida. We did one of those cheap time share deals and went to Universal Studios instead of Magic Kingdom. We got a condo which was very nice and it was close to everything. We drove down instead of flying which turned out better than I thought. We left on Saturday morning with plans on staying the night somewhere in Georgia. I called my brother on the way and he booked us a room in Valdosta. By this time my sinuses were killing me. I don't know if it was a climate change or what. Anyway, we got up Sunday and headed to the condo. We unpacked and went to Wal Mart for groceries. Luckily it was not even a mile down the road.

Shane is eating the breakfast of champions and not thrilled I'm taking his picture. We ate breakfast in the condo every morning to save money. Feeding six people really adds up!

Even though it rained some EVERY day we were there we went to the pool for a little while. After about 15 minutes it started to thunder so we had to get out. Isabella like the baby pool though because it was really warm.


We went to Universal Studios and walked around and rode some rides. It started pouring rain so we stood under a ride until it slacked off enough to walk. This is us with the Donkey from the movie Shrek. Isabella didn't quite know what to think of him because he talked.


This is us with Princess Fiona and Shrek. By this time Isabella was crying but the lady playing Fiona was really good about it and tried to comfort her. Isabella ended up blowing her a kiss as we were leaving.
This is me with Doc from Back to the Future.
This is just a shot down one of the streets where cars from the movie American Graffiti were parked. They were pretty cool to look at. That's Allen and Alex in the picture.
This is me by the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo.
Isabella eating some french fries. She did so good on the rides that she could ride and strolling around in her stroller. She's such a good little girl. If you click on this picture on view it full size you can see that we got her EARS PIERCED! She was NOT happy about it but she's been great with it. She hasn't pulled at them once. We went to the Claires store down from the condo to get it done. I'll post a better close-up of her ears later.

4 out of 6 of us on the carousel. She loved it and I have video to post of it which I'll do later too.


The famous Cat in the Hat. Isabella gave him a "high five".
After it stopped raining we took a break to get dessert and coffee at the Hard Rock Cafe. Then we went over to Islands of Adventure which had more roller coasters. I'll scan the pictures we got from Hard Rock and the Hulk Rollercoaster and post them later. I didn't take many pictures the rest of the trip because we didn't do much except shop. I felt horrible and over the counter medicine was helping. I didn't sleep well and was really tired. I ended up going to the clinic on Thursday to get some antibiotics. It helped but I should've went on Monday! Me ,Shane , and Hunter went back to Universal for the Horror Night where the have a bunch of Haunted Houses and other scary stuff. It was pretty good but it rained off and on that night too. We only stayed about 4 hours because it was packed--shoulder to shoulder. We still had fun though.

We cut our vacation short one day and left on Friday instead of Saturday. Everyone had enough of the hot weather. Then we get back here and it's hot too. I was looking forward to about 75 degrees but no such luck. We drove straight thru instead of stopping half way. Isabella was doing fine and we were all ready to get home. We let Shane drive some going down and coming back and I must say that he did very well.

We are glad to be back in Kentucky and back to our same routine.

By the way, It's my friend Cynthia's birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! (I sent you an e-mail )

Fun at a picnic

Allen playing cornhole

You know, as much as I try, I can't get pictures in order on the blog. I haven't figured out how to drag them to where I want them either. I don't even know if you can do that or not.

Isabella and her big brother

Anyway, my Mom and Dad's church had their annual picnic and the kids had a ball. I learned some square dancing moves but no one got pictures of that. I was pretty good if I must say so.

Isabella was really intrigued by this baby.

Eating fruit for dessert

Isabella found out that she LOVES cotton candy

She couldn't get enough
blue mouth from cotton candy
Alex playing cornhole

Isabella LOVED this inflatable slide. I tried to bounce her the whole way down. That's why my hair looks like that. She laughed the whole way down.

Papaw and Isabellaout of order but another candy picture

She also loved this bouncy thing.

Alex putting on his velcro suit for the wall
Alex stuck to the wall

All in all it was a great afternoon. The weather was good, the food was great, and the kids are all tired. They should sleep very well.

On a side note about sleeping--I can't keep Isabella in her crib. She keeps climbing out and ends up sleeping in the floor. We had to turn her doorknob around so we could lock her in her room so she wouldn't roam the house in the middle of the night. I finally put a pillow and blanket down in the floor and we usually find her asleep on that in the mornings. I guess I'll make her crib into a toddler bed but I feel like she's to young for that. I'm just hoping if I do that and she gets out, maybe she'll get back in to go back to sleep. Who knows. I'm not ready for a toddler bed--it means she's growing up. My 3 boys never climbed out so this is all new to me. I'll keep you all updated on how that goes. Right now she's in the crib and hopefully she'll stay there because she's so tired.