Happy New Year!

In 2008 may you have: Joy in your life, happiness, fun that multiplies around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, good health to you and yours, peace of mind, and prosperity througout the new year!

Mykela and her friend

Mykela made friends with a turtle that wondered into our yard a month ago. She was fascinated by this little guy and the way he lived. I grabbed some pictures and thought I'd share them with you all.

Post Thanksgiving

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we did! We all have enjoyed having Josh home for the last four days, especially since he works as much as he can. We decorated the house for Christmas and went to a tree farm to choose and cut our Christmas tree. The kids had a ball decorating the tree also. It was Mykie's turn to put the Angel on the tree, but she completely spazzed out about being so high. After a 10min freak out she was fine and placed the angel upon the top of the tree! Here is a picture that was collected after everything was done... it's pretty funny. It was very hard to get everyone and our dogs together, I crack up every time I look at this picture!! So, every year I try to do something different for our Christmas card. I found this great pouch that says COAL in a second hand store this past summer, I quickly bought it knowing I would incorporate it into our Christmas card. We are doing something very special for our family and friends, so keep an eye out for our card in a few weeks! Anyway, in the mean time here are a few pictures from our Christmas card shoot.

Our Skater Boy

I found this really cool place under an overpass to take some pictures of William. He really enjoyed having me take pictures in a place that he enjoyed and liked,and was able to be himself with his board! We both liked the graffiti tags and they made for a cool backdrop. Here are a few from our shoot...

Forrest Hall Farm

I thought it would been fun to go Apple Picking for the day. There is a beautiful farm in Mechanicsville that allows you to pick your own apples. They have a lot of different apples to choose from, which is great, because each of my kids like different apples. But when we got there we were sad to find out that they were no longer letting people pick their own apples. Apparently people are damaging the trees as they pick the apples. So, we walked through the store and picked our apples out of the huge barrels. They had the cutest little baskets to place our apples in and they had so many different types of apples to choose from. Mykela loves Gala apples, but they sold the last of the Galas the weekend before, so she went with her brothers favorite, the Granny Smith. Ciara likes the Red Delicious, but honestly she eats what ever apples we have in the fridge at the time. She will eat any kind of fruit, she loves it! After we bought our apples and veggies, we decided to check out the farm. The lady in the store said that they had baby chickens and roosters out in the barn, as well as other barn animals. There was so much to do and see, they had a sand pit, tubes to play in, a play yard, and a little house filled with dried corn. The barn had rabbits, chickens, roosters, goats, and mini horses. Forrest Hall Farm has been around for a while. They had old bottles, barrels, and other various items from the past. The stores porch was lined with beautiful handmade rocking chairs and there were tables to play checkers or chess on overlooking a man made lake. This was truly the prettiest and most peaceful farm I have ever seen. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

Football season has come to an end!

This has been such a rough football season for William. He has suffered through a separated shoulder and a broken wrist, while managing to stay strong and play through those injuries. He was out for 2wks when he separated his shoulder, but was back in the game before the season actually started. He then broke his wrist making a tackle a little over a week after that. With the doctors "OK", and Will's persistence, we would "bubble wrap" the cast and add an ace bandage to protect other players. Besides all the pain he has had to endure, he managed to have a really good year. He made ALOT of one handed tackles, as well as assisted tackles. They recently took the cast off, but I think it was too soon. The doctor only kept it on for 4wks! So, as a precaution I went out and bought him a wrist brace to help keep it supported while he is playing football. The team made it to the playoffs, but we lost 13-0, ending the year in 4th place. Wow...what an exhausting season! These pictures were taken before his injuries. I have over 1000 pictures to go through and edit for the team and don't have any edited yet showing him playing football with his cast. Mykela has been around football since a baby, she has watched her brother play and loves it. She has watched him from the sidelines, been included in the exercises and after game huddles, and always cheers him on proudly. The two of them go outside and can play football together for hours. Mykie was old enough this year to play flag football. Josh, William, and I were so excited she wanted to play. I was even more excited to see that there were a lot of little girls playing on all of the teams! She did great! She made one touchdown, but didn't understand the concept of grabbing someones flag. We are not supposed to really keep score, but we still kept track of it and her team was undefeated this year! They tied with one team and we are playing them on Monday at the Beach Bowl. I'll keep you updated on the score. How funny is this picture? Everytime I look at it I just laugh!! I showed this picture to Mykie and asked her what she was doing here. She gives me this crazy look and says, "what does it look like?" " I was blocking that kid, he wasn't gonna go no where!" haha...

Halloween

This years Halloween was so much fun! Mykie had such a good time and understood the whole concept of trick-or-treating. She spazzed out a bit when she found out she had to remove the pumpkin "guts". There was about 10-15mins. of screaming and crying. She would give it a little touch and the screaming would start all over! Instead of taking photos of the joyous moment, I pulled out the camcorder.. laughs for years to come :) Anywho, on to the costumes. William has sadly reached the stage of not really wanting to dress up and go trick-or-treating :( He just wore jeans and a sweatshirt, along with a mask that Josh wore last year. During our trick-or-treating venture he asked if he could go TRTing with his friends next year. Where has the time gone?? Ciara was a lil'rag doll and she was too cute. She is not a girly girl at all and hated that she wore tights... I told her we should just get knee highs, but no, she knows so much more then me..haha.I made Mykie's costume and I am quite proud of it! She was a chicken this year. The costume turned out to be adorable and she played the part perfectly.