By This We Know Love...and to be grateful for what we have!

Enjoying my hot cup of Starbucks Christmas blend and Kellen and I are adding this years new additions to our beautiful tree. He recognizes the figures on this ornament right away and begins singing 'Jesus Loves Me'... This will be my favorite ornament of the year; not to mention what a wonderful way to start Thanksgiving day!

#ByThisWeKnowLove

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As you can see here we opted to give his golden locks a recent cut. Hair cuts bring on way too many comments about how grown up they look or how big they are getting.. Seeing as how this is my only baby I am not a fan of these comments! yes, yes, they must grow up, i get it. lets not talk about it.

:)

He loves his Momma's macaroni n cheese and will still eat about anything as long as it is dipped in ranch.. he calls ketchup sausa and his mimi and lily has him mixing all the sauces up together.. no idea. ha

he pronounces worm = warm and girl is still grill... my personal favorite is how he says the character 'Woody' from Toy Story.. he pronounces it 'hoyty'. this entertains me and I have him say it over and over..melts my heart!

Since we traded our suv for the car we havent replaced his tv (yet) and so my iPhone has become his mode of amusement for the car rides.. A few weeks back he heard Jon telling me that he really liked the song 'Hard To Love' when it came on the radio.. well he picked it up as his favorite song and requests to watch it on video on my phone every day.. The best part about this is that he knows all of the words and sings along with such intentment and realness.... 'harbin love harbin love, dont make it eeeeasy.' oh how these little words captivate my heart! :)

If anyone asks him how old he is he tells them 'six' .. and then giggles like he thinks he has really pulled a fast one on them and they are believing he is six years old.. hilarious. i always follow it up with he's two.. and then he will add the 'im two and a half'.. its important to get that half in there!

This week at my moms he had a close call. he was helping his Mimi do yard work and the rake somehow came back and gashed him over his eye.. my mom said blood was going everywhere and she didnt know if it needed stitches or not.. i ended up meeting them at the doctors office to have the doctor look at it.. its a pretty wide gash that will leave a scar but the doc said he didnt need stitches. I was relieved and thankful to God that it was as minor as it turned out to be. Like I've said before, knowing the amount of times I had to get stitches and visit the E.R. as a kid and hearing about all of Jon's close calls and experiences with stitches and broken bones I am a Momma that lives in alert mode anytime something like this comes up.

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On Jaxson's latest visit we opted to get some Christmas card pictures.. Our cards this year have Jon and the boys on them because I preferred to take the pics rather than be in them.. I showed the cards to Jon and he says 'they are good...if i were a single parent.'... haha

Surely by now everyone we send a card to knows I take the pics, but next year I will get back on the card!

:)  

Jaxson at age 7 is one of the reasons Kellen thinks he is 6. Kellen adores Jax and there is clearly an older brother/ little brother pestering relationship going on. perfectly normal. but Kellen is also very generous with Jaxson and defends him to the end. In the middle of Jaxson being annoyed by having a 'little brother' we try to remind him that Kellen is a pretty sweet and giving little brother. He will give Jaxson the last bite of anything he has and will share drinks with him when Jax has slurped his all down.. Once we remind Jax of these things you can see the wheels spinning and he realizes its not as bad as he makes it out to be. This week they were playing a game and Jax says 'kellen, im really sorry for all the mean things ive done to you.'  and kellen replies 'thats ok Jax' .. and they just continued playing their game together.. brothers. sigh

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Rogers square is a good spot for shots if you can manage through the other 95 people there with oversized cameras.. My favorite was the lady waving around her 1500 dollar flash.. in the middle of the day!!  sigh.. Jon's fave was the lady that followed us around from spot to spot. At what point do you stop smiling to be nice and start asking for reimbursement for the FREE lesson ?!! :)

good stuff

Never the less,

Jon and I got some laughs out of him saying we had a snaggle tooth and a wild Indian while attempting pictures.

ALL kids go through their stages , don't they.. and gremlin teeth or not they are still so handsome in their own right.. Love to see these boys laugh

Talk about three smiles that light up a room!   

...and Shelly made this precious scarf for Kellen. Too stinkin cute. This will really add some color to winter pics when we get all that snow this year (wishful thinking).. love love love the boy scarf.

get your scarf here!!

Thankful for my little family and thankful for our big hopes and dreams. Things in life do not always go as planned and I've learned that there is a reason that they dont.. It's so much bigger and better and way more important things can come along.

Happy Thanksgiving

4th Annual Halloween Party

Kudos to anyone keeping up with their blog while maintaining kids and a full time job.. I am not a member of the over achievers club by any means!

Our 4th Annual Halloween party was a few weeks back. My mom wasn't able to make it so it wasn't quite the same for me, but it was full of sugary goodness and a fabulous hayride and some adorable costumes all the same!

The weekend happened to double as my birthday weekend...not that turning 33 is a big deal to anyone.

My coworkers rocked it and helped me celebrate in style. Great lunch with great company and much much appreciation to them. :)

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My mom wasn't able to make it this year. She was helping my Aunt Barb recover from surgery..

So that was a bummer. I look forward to her quirky homemade creations. We still had several frightful delights. I had found my way to pinterest for the idea of these fabulous monster cups

(vanilla pudding, green food coloring, oreos crushed on top, face drawn on clear cups.)

so easy and so cute!  

... and Jon made the witches brooms.

festive!

Gramma brought some frightful treats this year including eye balls and pretzel ghosts.. cute cute

and Jon had her make me this dirt cake birthday cake you see here.. fitting! ha

Note the 'Brittle Bones' head stone.. every time we wrestle around and hes clearly winning I'm like

' let go, my bones are brittle.' we both laugh and make fun of me.. ha

its a cop out really.. shhh

:)

From treats to tricks...ha

The Jaxsonator was a blue ninja this year.

He was in full character all evening and took his job very seriously.

Kellen was Clark Kent. Jon and I got a kick out of it.

My coworker had shown me a picture on pinterest of a kid dressed as Clark and when showing Jon the treats we should make on pinterest I ran across the picture and he loved it.. so Clark it was !

Great choice. He was a hoot. He of course just thought he was superman, and no doubt Superman has now pulled rank above Batman in his hero line...

I have some hilarious pictures of him posing and hammin it up Clark style!

(and for the record, yes we have family of four pictures but the lighting is awful on a lot of our pictures this year and those are some that didn't turn out as good. boo, hiss)

I was a pink lady and Jon was a greaser, cigs rolled up in his sleeve, pants rolled up and everything!

The lighting (sun placement) on this next one is bad, (my fault) but I love it anyways...

Pops and his super heroes.

My dad totally rocks! I hope I am as laid back and straight up AWESOME

as my parents are when I'm a grand parent.

 

The Paul's were a themed hoot as usual.. They went with a Christmas collaboration this year.

and then there was Pop-Eye and Olive Oil.. I give MAD PROPS to Papaw for being willing to wear these costumes with a smile. cute cute

My brother and Cameron weren't able to make it.

(and if they think I have overlooked the absence they are mistaken!

 hunting season or not!!)

:)

Nurse Ashton and redneck Angie were beauties as always.

and this little stinker was a super girl in pink, loved the boots.

Love me some Lily Grace.. or as Kellen calls her 'his best friend forever'

They are at Mimi's house together during most days of the week and fight about like cats and dogs.

ha

but at the end of the day, they really are friends.

gotta luv cousins!

Speaking of cousins here's another one of K's buddies, the Brodester!

This blue eyed little stinker has no part of participating in pictures unless you catch him off guard.

Brody was loving him some lawn mower bubbles. He has a good time when he comes over.

Uncle Jon and Aunt Jen's house is FUN.

It was not an easy night catching up with the Ninja as he was on the move most of the night in true Ninja fashion.. Got some poses out of him, here is one of many.

My dad took us all for a hayride which was fun as always. The kids love to be spooked.

This year Uncle Chris jumped out of some construction and scared them.

Good job Chris.

Hope everyone had fun!

31st birthday celebration, some hog stuff and a trip to the Rock!

Well Jon celebrated his 31st birthday in style.. The 3 of us went out both Thursday and Friday night of his birthday week and enjoyed some good dinner and shopping.. and of course, lattes were involved!

and for the record this man gets better looking each year.. age looks good on him I must say :)

The smaller of the 3 hog fans here, went and stayed the day playing with his cousin Lily so the birthday boy and I could go tailgate with our friends Loren and Janetta. We laugh with them about the fact that every time we make tailgate plans together it rains.. the Alabama game did not disappoint on the rain.. However, it devestated on the scoreboard. poor piggies :(

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying instagram on the iPhone.. can you tell ??

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I have the funnest coworkers a girl could ask for...

they are truly adorable, love love love these women !

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Check out the future photog... or maybe he'll model the cameras :)

He likes wearing his hat.. he'll say 'Momma, wheres my gap hat, i need my gap hat'..

(he has no idea what gap even means, nor does he care.. he has just heard me call it that so thats what he calls it. )

Last night on the way home from dinner he was going by all the houses saying 'thats not my house, thats not my house, thats not my house...' what am i going to do when this little guy grows up? All of his quirky sayings and pronunciations are in my heart forever

:)

 

 

K man was a big helper with the puzzle.. 'look I put the pieces together and it matches Momma.' .. and he would show me two pieces that he had forced together.. they'd be all mangled and barely touching.. HOOT

we luv us some Sunday veggin!

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Living room snapshots are the best

Just pull up those blinds and turn off the indoor lights and let that natural light shine on through!

 

I like this picture of Jaxson... his looks are getting so much older and he is growing into his own.

Time goes by way too quickly. We need more weekends of vegging and quit trying to fit in 95 things while he is here.

We went to Little Rock last weekend because I had a couple of customers scheduled for pictures at Burns Park. That is really a neat spot, worth checking out if you're in the area.

We went to visit Jon's Memmaw as well.

She has apparently had cancer for some time now but it has spread and the doctors aren't giving her a lot of time left.. She is Jon's step dads mom. I have visited with her several times now and she is a sweet lady. Very much interested in Jon and his kiddos.. very loving and sweet. We were happy to get to go visit with her and let her visit with the boys. They were super sweet to her and gave hugs and talked up a storm... even made her laugh several times. It was a wonderful visit.

Little Jokester and the Bominater!!! Dun Dun Dun

Well he might be more of a joker than king of the castle, but either way this little dude rules the roost at our house... (there, i said it). All there is to say about having this little guy as my kid.. he ROCKS

I have zero time to scrapbook lately and have to 'blog on the run' so I'm literally using post-it notes and random emails to myself to keep up with the priceless things he does and says. Oh the life of a working Mom.. sigh

'give me back to it' = give it back to me

and 'singer' still equals finger

The other morning Jon fixed his hair before we left the house and in the car he turned around to see Kellen messing with his hair and said something like 'I see it didn't do any good to fix your hair'.. and Kellen pushed it around a little and was like 'there I fixed it' and we both turned around to see his mop top hair all messed up and in his eyes and the look on his face was hilarious. Jon and I started dying laughing and that made Kellen start laughing. He's just comical. We are always laughing at his jokes and his humor.

he'll say ' momma knock knock.

me: who's there

Kellen: cow

me: cow who ?

Kellen: MOOOOOO

and then laughs hysterically from his own joke.

KIDZ

His current favorite song is 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands'

Since buying our new car we haven't gotten a DVD player in it yet, so we do a looot of singing

on the way to and from Mimi's house each day.. He'll say 'Momma, what do you want to sing today?'

me: we can sing anything you want to baby

Kellen: 'lets sing hes got the whole world'

we have added several versus to the song to include all of our family members and all of the animals he can think of :)

His second fave is 'shoot the tillery'

(The Lord's Army) If you know that song then his title for it is pretty cute.

I love that both of those are childhood favorites of mine and now they are his. love it.

His movies right now are The Lorax, Tangled, and Dunston Checks In..

The song to The Lorax goes something like:

'How baa aaa aaaa aad can I be, I'm just following my destiny'

my sons rendition goes like this:

'aaa aaaa aaad can I be, I'm just sollowin my dess'

:)

We have discovered a great play ground at the new school not far from our house and this is one of their new swings. Kellen saw this for the first time and yelled 'lets go ride the bominater, oh yeah oh yeah dun dun dun' and has called it the bominater ever since. as his mom i have NO idea where he has heard 'bominater' or if he just made that up.. who really knows.

Yesterday my mom had a really bad crick in her neck that lasted all day and had a bad headache.

He worried about her all evening and said 'Mimi's neck is hurtin her'

Last night I told Kellen that we needed to say our prayers and make sure we pray for Mimi and

for her neck to feel better... So last night I said lets say our prayers and he bowed his head and closed his eyes and said his prayers 'please make Mimi's neck stop hurtin her' 

He is a good hearted sweet little boy, bless his heart.

:)

All For Little Zander! -Brittany's Shower

 

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 All for little Zander!

Last month we had a baby shower for Brittany.. complete with lots of my Mimi's craftiness, a great turn out and the usual TONS of food!

We are all excited to meet baby Z!  

The above and below personalized items were made with love from my friend Shelly.

She is beyond talented and specializes in all things baby!

check out her handy work HERE

Chris is an Alabama fan and Brittany is a Razorback, so I asked Shelly to come up with something cute for Zanders decisions. it turned out precious!

Ashton's fruit baby, adorbs!  

 I get caught up in my own kiddo and our little lives and routines and there are days that I forget anything else is going on in the world, but I am pretty excited for my Brittany... lets back track through memory lane a little, shall we...  

These scrap booked goodies are straight out of the archives!

I was ten years old when miss Brittany Marie was born.

As we've gotten older, she is more like my sister than my niece.

who is 17 and who is 27 in these ???

A niece is a good excuse to not have to act your age :)

 She is the girly one, good at hair and make-up and I am... well, not.

Someone hit fast forward and we have gone from make-up days with lots of eye shadow and digital pictures to play days where the kiddo involved is MINE!

crazy.. and now Brittany is married and about to have a kiddo of her own.

even more crazy.

I have three nieces and I think the world of all three of them..

Here is Ashton and Brittany at the shower.. (don't even get me started on how fast Ashton grew up!!)

The shower was held at my childhood church at the 'Jesser Building'

It is always a little surreal to visit there with Kellen. I was a kid playing in this building, I remember when

Brittany was Kellen's age and running around this place, and now I watch Kellen running around the place and can't help but smile.. and then scrunch my face at the realization that I'm GROWN-UP..boo

:)  

I am proud of Brittany and the woman she has become.

She tells me she looked up to me growing up and she learned things from me, but I dont think she knows how much she has taught me as well!

I know she will be a great mother to Zander. 

 

we can not WAIT to meet this little guy!!