Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!!!

Oh yeah!!! While we were in Ohio .... It snowed!!!! Yeah!!! It was really not alot, but to a 5 year old who has never seen snow that sticks before and to a southern girl who has seen a good hard snow may 5 or 6 times in her life, It was the most exciting thing in the world!!! Also, in these pics with Alex was Autumn, another cousin, who for some reason did not make it into the other pictures. I think she was hangin' out with Angel (yet another cousin) who they call the "Pied Piper of Children". She is really great with all of the younger kids and was such a delight to talk to, as an adult!

Cousins, Cousins, Cousins!!!

There is one big thing that I hate about us living so far away from Jody's family...it is being so far away from Jody's family... for our benefit of just getting together and hanging out... and for the kids to get to hang out with their cousins! You can tell how much fun they all had together when we went up to Ohio over Thanksgiving. Although we went sorta unexpectedly and for very sad reasons (Jody's grandfather had passed away.)We wound up having a very nice trip up there. I finally got to meet one of Jody's cousins and his wife and child, that I had somehow never met in the almost eight years that Jody and I have known each other. That is Rick (the big kid) playing with kids in the picture, they all loved him!!

We Got Elfed!!

Check out the link below... and have a Merry Christmas!!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1173176817

More Halloween

I have been wanting to post more (and I will soon hopefully). But had misplaced my camera usb cord, found it, and now left it at school!! Argh!! Anyway... I have been meaning to share these for a while so here is the Halloween slideshow that Erin did of Alex. www.erinnolenphotography.com/alexhalloween

Jordan's Car

"The Sube"...As we have affectionally called it over the last several years. Jody's car for 10 or 11 years... out of commission for about 3 years... and now for the past 9 or 10 months, Jody and Jordan have been working on it doing various things, most of which I know nothing about... but what I do know is that they rebuilt the whole engine and replaced the transmission. I mention all of this because I had planned to blog today that it is complete and running and that all that was left was getting the tag back up to date and Jordan getting his license. But as it seems every time they get close to being done... something else goes wrong... so one day (soon I hope) I will be telling you about the complete project and how great it is. I will say now... they both have worked extremely hard on this car, and the fact that Jordan was gone for 10-12 weeks over the summer and they only truly have weekends to work on it... they really have done extremely well...sure, we probably could have just bought him a used car and spent about the same amount of money, but the experience that Jordan has gotten out of this work and the quality time spent between Jody and Jordan is truely priceless!!! It is looking really good, I hope to have pictures the next time I post about it.

Boo at the Zoo

There are some days that I wonder, do I have more fun doing the kid stuff than my kid does. I had so much fun at the zoo, and I think Alex did too. Although she did go to her first "Haunted House" there and was not real keen on that. I thought it was kinda clever. It was in the primate building and was led by the apes from Planet of the Apes, and you went through the building to view the Humans in cages. It kinda freaked Alex out though. But there were more young kid friendly activities to do also. She really liked the hayride... it was really kinda cute. The pictures show her in her Halloween costume and there are more on Erin's website http://www.erinnolenphotography.blogspot.com/ They are really cute, I cant wait to see all of them.

Alex and Mommy Day

Well, Jody takes an Alex and Daddy day every once in a while and they usually go to IHOP and Chuck E. Cheese's. Alex always has sooo much fun, and I think Jody does too!!! Well, Alex asked me the other day if we could have an Alex and Mommy day like she does with her daddy. I guess, even though we are always together, as weird as it sounds, we don't always get good one on one time. So, I told her I would take her somewhere that Daddy probably wouldnt go. Sweet n Sassy! I know, I know... glamour shots/pageant girl sort of look!! Not my choice, she has a little friend that has been and talked about it, and she has been wanting to go for a while, so I finally just caved!! It kept me from having to go to Chuck E Cheese (her second choice) and it wound up costing less than C E C too... so really it was a win-win experience and boy did she feel like a princess... she thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world!! It was a fun day to spend with her, I am glad we did it even though I am not crazy about the look!

Pumpkin Carving

Here is one of our pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns for this year. Mom bought this pumpkin for Alex last weekend. Alex was eager beaver to get it carved, I was not quite in the mood to carve pumpkins because I really thought it was a little early and as you can kinda see it has already gotten a little yucky!! We had a hard time deciding what to do on it, Alex kept on picking out these really elaborate designs out of the carving package that we have. We finally decided on this one and the paper pattern would not fit on the pumpkin so I just free handed it and I thought it turned out pretty neat! It does look really cool lit up, the picture is a little blurred (I could not figure out my camera setting to get it right... I am obviously not the photographer that my sister- in -law and brother are... but that is okay... I guess I have other talents). Hopefully we will get another pumpkin to carve with Daddy and maybe Jordan (He has done one too, in the past).

Six Year Anniversary/ Fall Festival

Last weekend was our anniversary! Six years!!! Erin talked about on her blog on her 4th anniversary... Is that a long time or not??? I feel the same way! It feels like a really long time at certain times and not so long at others. I was talking to someone at work the other day and they asked me how long we had been married and when I told her six years, she said "Wow! Good for you!" so I guess at least to her, that is a long time and somewhat admirable??!! Anyway, I have felt lately a little disconnected in our marriage... not because of any problems that we are having.... but because we never see each other. Jody works full time and is taking 19 hours in school... I have started a new job working longer hours myself. So needless to say by the time Jody gets home, I am either already asleep in bed or well on my way. We talk briefly and then I go to bed and he stays up to study some more. On weekends we rarely get to see each other either. He uses ever minute he has devoted to studying, and doing little projects around the house that he feels need to be accomplished. I have been going to all the Alabama home games on Saturdays... and kinda staying away and keeping Alex occupied while he gets done what he needs to. (I should note that all of this studying time is really paying off because he is maintaining an A average!!!)

All of that to say... With such little time spent with each other, I felt like we really needed to spend our anniversary together. But guess what??? The Fall Festival fell on our anniversary. So, we decided we would just do that for our anniversary. It would give us some time together, and some time spent with Alex. (Jordan had to work all day and then had some friends he wanted to hang out with that evening, since he is working all weekend and has football every afternoon during the week, he does not have the social life that he use to) So the day started out with a Fun Run (1 mile). We started sorta towards the back of the crowd, not real sure what to expect of the Run. Jody, Alex and I ran that together... well sorta... I am very out of shape and so Jody and Alex ran together and I sorta jogged behind. I was really impressed with Alex's performance, because we had also walked/ran to the school from our house before the Fun Run. They made it to the finished line a ways before me. We sat around talking for a little while and we told Alex that she did such a great job that we would make sure that we got to the front of the group next year. Then they started announcing awards! And Alex won 1st place for the preschool girls!! yeah!!! I hope to get a picture of that later. I did not take a camera cause I did not know what to expect. But the school took pictures and I hope I can get one... she was SO proud!

That evening we went back to the school for the festival. Which was Way more than I expected! ... carnival rides, a DJ, and more inflatible fun than you can imagine. We went inside to do some of the "walks" ... cake, donut, ice cream, cookie, dvd/video... Alex was determined to win them all and by the end of the night, she had all but the cookies, but we came home with two cakes so I think that makes up for not winning the cookie one. All of this brings me back to the anniversary. I had "eyed" this cute elephant cake when we first went in to the festival. I just casually made the comment... I hope we can win that one. Jody had to leave about halfway through the evening to get back to studying... When I came home I found my 6 year anniversary cake!!

Alabama game

Alex and I went to the Alabama vs. Arkansas game on Saturday. Jordan had to work and Jody needed to study. (Sociology clep is today... Monday). We went with Mom and Dad and what wonderful football game weather we had. Okay... so I tried to get my picture downloaded from my camera on my phone and couldnt for such a long time. I finally came up with a solution if I ever do that again. So you can see from the picture that Alex and I were sitting with the birds at this game!! Needless to say I was literally crying when we got to our seats, it was very scary!! I am a terrible wimp when it comes to heights and to top that off I had a 5 year old with me who does not have the same fear I have and therefore made me even more frightened!

So now I tried to upload the picture and can't get it to do!! Oh Well!! maybe I will try again later! Anyway it was a fun game to go to... Alex got hot and (and I guess Mimi did too!) By the end of the third quarter they left and I got to go back down to earth and sit on row 18 again! I am so spoiled and thankful that dad bought these tickets! I guess everyone that follows Alabama football know what an exciting game this was... so glad I got to go!

Starting a blog...

I felt like it was sort of the thing to do. Maybe I am the only person out there without a Myspace or a blog to document life. So, this is my first entry. I am trying to make this our family blog to let people know about what is happening with us... especially those in our family that do not live close by. That's it for now.