Saturday, March 31, 2012

Keren's other birthday party.


We celebrated Keren's birthday again with just our side of the family at my mom's house the day after her turning the big 3-0. Keren & my dad usually do something for Lent, and this year Keren did no sugar. In substitution for the sugar, she had a cake made of fruit only. Haha!

Mom/KayKay serving the "cake" of fruit.

Blowing out the candles!

Uncle Jase & Aunt KerKer
Our family

After all the eating and celebrating with our literal fruit cake, we took the boys outside.

They jumped off the side of slides...

Ran around the yard...
Ebin pulled Micah in the wagon (which my sister & I used as kiddos!)
Micah tried his hand at pulling Ebin in the wagon...
Then they both decided they'd rather be pulled in the wagon together with their trucks. We sure do have some boys, don't we??
Little boys play so hard their hair starts to curl like their Mommy's hair.

Balls are always a favorite activity.
Then, of course, there was car driving and monster truck racing.
We had a great weekend celebrating my sister's birthday!

Sunday morning pictures.

I've seen lots of people document family moments on their blog using a weekly Sunday family photo while everyone is dressed up. It's starting to become a tradition. This particular week we even got the tripod out the night before so we could shoot some pictures in our backyard.
We love our church, and one of my highlights for the entire week is going to church. There is just something so calming to me to enter the doors, put my cares behind me, lay down my burdens at the cross, and love my Lord. It's an awesome feeling!
Happy Sunday! Hope you had a great weekend!

Micah & Ebin's Easter pictures.

Once again this year we had Crystal Brisco take Micah & Ebin's Easter pictures. It was a little more complicated than I think anyone anticipated. Ebin refused to have his pictures taken, and Micah runs all over the place. Funny memories and stories to tell for the future. These boys are so funny together. Anyway, my mom made their Easter outfits again (thanks, Mom!) so we had to show them off. It's really nice to document Easter outfits before Easter day. Then we can just relax and not worry so much about taking pictures with everybody. I don't have that much to say about the pictures, so I thought I'd let you just enjoy our cuties. (All photos taken by Crystal Brisco Photography.)




I will say this one is one of my favorite pictures! He was in love with those chicks!


This sums up Easter egg hunts this year. A lot of playing with the grass and no hunting of eggs.

At first, I thought Micah was halfway blinking in this picture. Two days later, his eye actually swelled shut full of gook! I think this was our sign he had an infection. =(
In typical Micah fashion (despite my ick factor of fingers with fowl), he's able to hold a bird while sucking on his fingers. My goodness that child loves his fingers!
Thanks, Crystal!

Friday, March 30, 2012

Aunt KerKer turns thirty!

Micah's Aunt KerKer, my younger sister Keren, turned 30 on March 30th! We had a weekend of birthday celebrations, and one was a surprise birthday party at a local Mexican restaurant.

I didn't get many pictures because my silly camera died. Ugh! I have been promised pictures which I will post later, or I may also resort to copying them from Facebook. =)

Here's Keren & her husband Jason. She was actually surprised!
She's recognizing all the faces of who came to celebrate her birthday.
The pretty birthday girl. We love you, Aunt KerKer!
My brother, my sister, and my mom (KayKay) stop for a photo op.

Mr. C had to sleep because he goes to work those crazy hours, and my dad was actually having a sleep study done that night. We missed them both, but they were there in spirit!
The most fun surprise of the night was probably Keren's best friend Erin driving down from Nashville to surprise her! I think her face is priceless in this photo.

The birthday girl and her best friend Erin. They met in elementary school at church somewhere around the second or third grade. How fun is that?

Happy birthday, Keren! We love you!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Since Natchez Trace...the circus!

Wow! I haven't been a very good blogger since spring break, and I do apologize. Life has just been zipping away, and I've been busy enjoying & living it. The weekend of March 23-25 my mother-in-law (or "Grandmommy" as Micah knows her) came up to spend the day watching Micah while I was at work. At the end of the day, she wanted to take Micah to Mississippi to visit with her & his Papaw. He has yet to be away from me an entire night, so this was quite the shock to my system. I reluctantly agreed only because it is a two hour trip, and I know Micah needs some time with his grandparents. The first night (Friday night), I had a hard time, and I called them crying at 9 PM wanting to come pick him up. Yes, I know how strange I am!
At any rate, Mr. C and I made Saturday a "date day" so that we could keep busy and actually have some much needed alone time since we never see each other. I spent my Saturday sipping a Coke at Dunkin Donuts on the patio and reading Water for Elephants followed by having my eyebrows waxed. I woke Mr. C up to go see The Hunger Games, and we ended the day by having dinner with some old friends at Swanky's Tacos an East Memphis favorite restaurant of mine. On Sunday, we went to church and met up with our in-laws at the circus where I was reunited with Micah after two long nights. I'm not sure he is leaving me again any time soon!


Micah was either mesmorized by the circus or extremely wiggly wanting to run around with the circus performers. I don't think there was any in between moment. He especially loved anything that had to do with the animals. He just loves animals, and four words out of his vast vocabulary of 15 words have to do with dogs! (He says CopCop, puppup, puppy, and boc which means box because that's where they sleep every night. He hears me tell them to get in their box which comes out boc like a chicken sound. Oh, well.)
We did enjoy much needed conversation, making plans for our future (who knows if those will turn out that way!), talking about what the Lord is doing in our lives, and two date nights! I still missed Micah immensely. I didn't know what to do with a quiet house and all that time alone so I just kept busy out and about town.
We had a wonderful time at the circus! Thanks for taking us Grandmommy & Papaw!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Natchez Trace spring break day 2.

Hi, friends! Welcome to our last day of posting about our vacation. Hopefully the pictures haven't bored you, but I can't take any credit for most of them. I've gotten lots of facebook messages in comment from my real-life friends saying how beautiful the shots are in the posts. My husband was a commercial photographer in another life (loooonnnng story), and we have some awesome camera equipment. Plus he has a degree in photography. Yeah, pretty much makes our vacation photos look like professional magazines at times. =) You should see my pictures from a trip to Montana. At any rate, I loved "scheduling" blog posts this week. It made my week much easier. Hope you have enjoyed our little adventure into the woods.

We arrived at Natchez Trace on Thursday afternoon (3/15/12) to check into our cabin. On Friday (3/16/12), we rode the most northern part of the Natchez Trace Parkway, and on Saturday (3/17/12) we opted to stay around the park and explore things there for the day.
DSC_0433
One of the things we did was drive around just getting the layout of the park. After that, we took Micah on a walk hoping to lull him to sleep. (It didn't work. I don't think he napped the whole time we were gone. He's not a big napper when he's not at home.) We headed out through the woods near our cabin.

I want you to understand that I am in no way a "woodsy" girl. I hate the woods. I love to admire nature, but I have no desire to be a part of nature. (This means I refuse to really camp or sleep in tents on the ground.) As a compromise for my nature adoring husband, a "rustic" cabin was perfect for us. By rustic, I mean no tv, no phone, and no internet. I brought a lot of books, we had a lot of long "couple" talks at night, and I got to focus on my quiet time. It was heavenly. =)

I took this photo of the cabins, ours was the one in the middle.
DSCN0709
Directly across the lake from our cabin was this huge bridge that spanned the lake. We wanted to try to walk across the lake, so we headed down the path to the lake. Here is Mr. C rolling the stroller down that huge hill.
DSCN0710
When you get to the bottom, you see the first bridge separated by land to the second bridge. On the other side are paddle boats & a swimming "beach" for families.
DSCN0711
The view out on the lake as you walked down the bridge.
DSCN0713
I snapped a photo of our cabin from across the lake.
DSCN0714
Mr. C on the bridge with Micah.
DSCN0716
Enjoying the beautiful day!
DSC_0387
Me & Micah
DSC_0389

The woods out by our "house" for the weekend.
DSC_0358
The rest of Saturday we spent touring some Civil War battlefields including Parkers Crossroads, Tennessee.
DSC_0396
Civil War cannon (or replica, not sure which)
DSC_0398
This was the most interesting part of the tour to me. This was an old burial ground for Union soldiers buried by the fence after the war. The remains were moved back to the north, but one unidentified soldier's remains are still buried as a reminder of the war somewhere along this fence.
DSC_0407
An old civil war era home on the battlefield.
DSC_0408
The barn outside of the house.
DSC_0416

It was such a beautiful day. I mean, just look at God's handiwork. It was one of those days you want to bottle up and live forever!
IMG_0325
After the Civil War battlefield tours, we came back to enjoy a wonderful barbeque buffet at the park lodge followed by some reading and relaxing on our deck.
IMG_0324
We ended the weekend with a lovely night sky.
DSC_0429
I can't tell you how much I highly recommend checking out your local state parks! Our experience was absolutely amazing!