Bringing Pray Home

My friend, Amy, is so very close to bringing her son home from Tanzania after loving him for three long years. By purchasing one of these shirts, you can help her get that much closer. The shirts are adorable and feature the website for 147million orphans. 60% of every shirt sold goes strait to Pray's adoption fund! It's an awesome fundraiser and a GREAT way to help Amy and her little man to finally be together forever =)

"1st Day of School" Dress on the 7th day of school

I had this dress made for LP to wear on her first day, not realizing they would be instructed to wear a specific color every day for their first two weeks, based on what color they were working on that day. Boo. So she wore it today for "white day".




She is still love love loving school. She RUNS in when I drop her off, fearing she might miss one little thing (even though we are there in plenty of time). Teachers I don't even know have stopped me or walked up to my car(!) to tell me what a doll she is or how well-mannered and well-behaved she is (with the exception of that one day when she came home with a blue behavior dot since she couldn't quite seem to stop talking when her teacher was talking or keep her hands to herself! Hey... we all have those days ;). Wednesdays are her favorite because she has gym- she has a soft spot for Mrs.Harris =) and they DANCE (or boogie, she says, lol) easy way to make her happy! I hear all about her new friends, she even saw one of them at the park which absolutely thrilled her to pieces. She is a happy, happy girl... makes a happy momma.

Cookies & Milk Moustaches

I cooked an actual meal! Ahhh. Finally.
My poor children were so confused. They barely recognized the pots and pans and couldn't remember what the stove was for. They thought its sole purpose was to sort mail. Bills on the front right eye. Catalogs rear left. Junk mail rear right.

To celebrate breaking our grilled cheese-hot dog cycle, I also baked cookies :)

I usually only do that after they go to bed and they never know anything of it, so this was a real treat.

First the cookies...





Then the milk...





I'm sure half the food I made will get thrown away, which is a total waste of food and money- but it was completely worth it just this once to finally eat a decent meal... and get that last picture of Cale :)

Commander's Coin!

Nathan called me last night, SO excited, to tell me that the base commander (big dog on campus) had stopped by his post for the first time since he arrived at Manas. That's a big deal, apparently. Stand and salute and you must offer to brief him on your post, which means describe your job- backward and forward in perfect military detail, which takes quite a while. You only have to offer and the norm is he says no. Well... of course, as luck would have it, when Nathan offered, the commander said YES.

Because Nathan is awesome at his job, he kept his composure and briefed his commander. He said that he even surprised himself, he did it so well. It requires a LOT of studying, considering you work several different posts throughout the week and are required to know the briefings of each one at all times, just in case (knowing that you rarely have to present them). When it was over, the commander (whose hands had been behind his back) went to shake Nathan's hand, when he did, he placed a "Commander's Coin" in Nathan's hand and told him he was very impressed with him :) Apparently, this is a huge honor and no one from Nathan's unit has received one. Nath was SOOO excited and I am SO dang proud of him!!

Commander stayed to chat for a few mins, asking where he was from and was pleased to hear he was from Tennessee. He says he likes it here except for 2 hours out of the year (he's a GA Bulldogs fan!). Nathan had to go back to work right away, and we could only talk long enough for him to tell me the good news, but I couldn't be happier for him!!

Kiddie Calendar

I wish I could put up a calendar of events up with everything we have planned for the next month, including the dates that I will need help with my kids and people could just sign up for the times that they want to help. I think I would feel less guilty if people were volunteering. I loathe asking for help of ANY kind, but especially when it comes to babysitting. It's such a hard job! I feel like I am always asking, and most of the time I put it off because I dread it SO much. Ugh ugh ugh.

Salute the Troops

Friday night, Mom, Layla, and I headed out to Ft.Campbell for the Salute the Troops concert for military personnel and their families. There were TONS of people there (rumor has it at 50,000...), lots of fun things to do and a couple of GREAT shows. We got there in time for Layla to spend a little over an hour in all of the bouncy houses, bouncy slides, all the bouncy goodness they had set up for kids out in the field before we checked out the booths and picked up some ice cream.



It was super-crowded but because Mom had catered the VIP tent and the Wildhorse had donated their food, we had passes which got us awesome seats and we didn't have to fight the crowd or stand the whole time, hoping to get a glimpse! I love my mom's job :)


Layla was WILD... in a good/fun way, not an obnoxious or inappropriate way. She was SO pumped to see Carrie Underwood, even though she wasn't quite sure which songs she sings (she's a Taylor Swift fan). She just knew all the other littls girls were screaming for Carrie, so she wanted to "see her so bad too"!





We played around thru John Rich and Hank Williams Jr, neither which sounded great and neither whose sets were appropriate for children's ears. But decided to find seats in time for Jake Owen. Jake put on an awesome show! I was impressed! LOTS of energy, sounded good and the boy has got some moves!! Layla danced pretty much the whole time.



It took quite a while to set up the stage for Carrie. A little longer than I had hoped. Around 10:16p, Layla (along with the little girls behind us) was grinning ear-to-ear chanting, "Carrie! Carrie! Carrie!"... by 10:20p, she looked like this:



Carrie came on ten mins. later. She did not disappoint. She sounded fabulous. As always. I've seen her perform live a few times and she always does. (Too bad she has ruined my impression of her personally because I really want to like her). I stood up to get some pics and holes kept openning up, before I knew it, I was on the 3rd row, lol.




The show was over a little after 11p, and then it took us 35 mins to find our way off the dang base! That place is HUGE. Had to stop to get something to eat since we were starving. An hour drive back to Nashville, 30 min drive to Nonie and Pap's to pick up the babies, load them up, then a 40 min. drive back home. I finally made it home at 2:30am. It was a loooong night... but lots of fun and I was glad to be a part of something that honored our soldiers AND their families :)

Brynn & Cale

I feel like I have been posting so much about Layla lately with everything she has going on- the pageant, Kindergarten, soccer, dance.... Brynn and Cale need some attention too! So here's an update on them.

Cale spends most of his days loving on Bella. He LOVES this baby girl. He seriously sits in the floor and plays with her while he talks in that really high pitched baby voice that we all do when speaking to infants, "You want my cars, Bella?", "You hungry, Bella?", "Want to go night-night?". He asks to hold her constantly. Brynn asked to hold her from time to time, but she tells me she's too heavy and hands her right back. Cale would sit and hold her for 20 mins if I'd let him. He completely acts like a big brother to her.



The rest of the time he is ALL boy. Cars and dirt. Firetrucks and balls. Maybe picking a fight here and there. But he still likes to snuggle with his Momma at night... which I love :)

Brynn is hitting that stage where she just wants to do whatever her big sister is doing and I LOVE it! If Layla is coloring, she wants to color. If Layla is running around acting like an elephant, she wants to run around acting like an elephant. She follows her "Sissy" EVERYWHERE. With all the attention L has been getting, I have been trying to give both twins some extra attention at home. I caught Brynn getting into my makeup (for the billionth time) but instead of getting onto her, I decided to just join her in the fun! So I put her up on the counter and gave her a little makeover.
She was thrilled during the process, and I think a little shocked (but excited) with the results. Lol. She kept saying, "So pretty, Mommy! Pretty!". Cleary, I didn't have the right colors for my beautiful brown baby lol. I don't guess that really matters at this point. :)







They are both loads of fun at this age! Exhausting... but fun! They are cracking me up with the things they are learning to say. You just don't realize the things they hear and are going to repeat (nothing bad, of course!) but some of the words and phrases they are starting to pick up on sound so funny coming out of their little 2 year old mouths!

Ex. Sunday night, I was exhausted and really putting off fixing dinner since I was just SO tired. Finally, Cale came over and asked if I would please take him to Walmart to get PopTarts cause he's hungry! lol.





Growing up tooooo fast!!!!

Seeing Daddy for the first time =)

The kids finally got to Skype with Nathan yesterday! They were giddy with excitement. It was so sweet to watch. The night he called thy were already asleep and the two times we tried to Skype (only once successfully), they were in bed also. They were thrilled to pieces to talk to him and see his face on the computer- sqealing with delight and giggling uncontrollably! P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S.




Layla took a turn first. She talked about everything. Kindergarten, soccer, Bella, what she had for dinner last Thursday.... everything. She asked lots of questions, which I was glad about. And her questions made a lot of sense. I was glad that she got to see what kind of room he was in, what was going on behind him outside, etc. so that she could really get a better idea of where he was, even if she still doesn't really understand.



Next, was Brynn's turn. Sweet little thing was sooo excited (read: loud!) to talk to her Daddy! She was talking soooo fast, lol. I heard, "Hi, Daddy! I love you! I miss you!" and then from there, I couldn't tell ya. But she went on and on and on. I could hear Nathan laughing thru her headphones. Occasionally, she would stop and say, "Yes sir! Yes sir!" But we aren't really sure what all she was gabbing about. I think I heard mention of some corn dogs?!

"My turn, Mommy?"


Cale was not in the best mood during all of this being that 1) he's been sick for a week and 2) he chose not to have a nap yesterday. Notice I didn't even bother to edit out (or wipe off for that matter) the snot from under his nose. It is what it is. But after the girls, he decided he did want to talk. That is until I tried to put the headset on him. And then he freaked out. "I want to talk to Daddy..." Headset... freak out. So not a whole lot of communicado for Cale, unfortunately. =(

Then Nathan started making faces on the computer to cheer him up, which had them all rolling... and reciprocating.




All in all, I'd say it was definitely a success! We are going to HAVE to get the issues with my camera worked out. Nathan can't stand that he isn't getting to see us during these calls. But it's better than nothing and we are soooo grateful to have it!!

A late introduction- Catalina :)

I had a made a list of things I needed to blog about in the last weeks of July, but then all of a sudden it was first of August and Nathan was leaving and my blog has been consumed ever since! Most of it was just silly stuff we had been doing and pictures of the kids, but there is one very important thing you need to know... I'm an aunt again :)

So... I want to take a minute and let you know that on July 23, 2009 my sweet (ok, Bran and Angel's sweet) Catalina JoLee's beautiful face entered this world! And it is one BEAUTIFUL face. How could it not be?!

New life.







Brand new family :)



Precious big brother, Evan



Gettin' some Amma-love



Uncle Cay-Cay, Proud Daddy, Catalina, & Amma


Meeting "Natie" and her cousins for the first time...