Christmas on The Road

Well, we are finally home from our week of traveling to visit family for Christmas. We started out by going to my moms for Christmas Eve. Then we went to Pulaski to visit Wade's mom for Christmas Day. Then we spent the day after Christmas with my Dad and Jodi in Portland. We had a great time spending with family.

I will start with our Christmas with my mom:

It was definately different this year without our Daddy T. We miss him SO much, but we know that he is having his 1st Christmas in Heaven with our Lord, Jesus Christ. He always loved Christmas so much...it was by far his happiest time of the year and he loved surprising the kids with something special, just from him. So, we enjoyed the time together as a family...just loving on each other, watching the kids play, reminiscing and opening gifts to each other. It was a special time!

Here are the 6 grandkids already in their jammies, ready for a visit from Santa!

Christopher 6, John 8, Ethan 8
Benjamin 2, Caroline 3, Tripp 4


I thought this pictures was so cute...Benjamin opening one of his gifts with all the bigger kids watching.



Caroline and Tripp in their Christmas jammies. We have decided that our moving to Cleveland has helped their relationship. Katie and I always hoped, from the time that we were both pregnant, that these two would have a special relationship. And it is getting better...they just have a struggle with who is in charge...Tripp is older by 6 months, but Caroline is a girl and shares the same "in-charge" genes as her Memommy, Mommy, and Aunt Katie...so there's the problem. But they are enjoying each other more these days.



Christopher got his long-awaited DSlite!!



Memommy enjoying watching the kids open their gifts:




Merry Christmas...next post: Toyland at Papa Jack's & Granny Jo's

Merry Christmas From "Monkey Boy"

In case some of you have not meet my 3rd child, this is Monkey Boy.
He is Christopher's life-long best friend...he sleeps with Christopher (at home and when he sleeps away from home), he sits on my couch while Christopher is at school, Christopher dresses him in his clothes (he has his own drawer of clothes that Christopher has grown out of), and he sometimes ventures out with us...but he has to stay in the car...I have to draw the line somewhere, right?!?



This is Monkey Boy testing out our new car. Yes, he is fully dressed...underwear and all!!

The story of how Monkey Boy became such a vital part of our family:
When I was pregnant with Caroline, Christopher & I went to Babies R Us in Nashville to register for baby gifts. Well, Christopher was getting really sleepy (he was two)and I was "almost" done. I saw this monkey (not planning to buy it, just borrow it until I was done) and propped Christopher up on it, got him comfortable, finished my registry, and proceeded to the check out to buy a few things...and this pitiful little 2-year old boy puckered out his bottom lip with a firm grip on the monkey. Keep in mind, at this time they were totally the same size! Well, Christopher had been really good...so I bought it for him...not knowing that they would become my twin 2-year-olds!!

Monkey Boy established quite the entourage in Christopher's nursery:



From left to right:
Monkey Boy, Monkey Baby, Monkey Shibby, Shibby Daddy, Monkey Bear (he's adopted), Monkey Grille (how Christopher said girl as a 2 year old), and Monkey Pillow



And that's how we became the Monkey Bunch!! Maybe I should consider putting him in our Christmas Cards :)

Christmas with the Harris Family

We had our big family Christmas gathering yesterday at my mom's house. The Harris Family always comes together to celebrate Christmas...and it is always a house-full!! This year we lost our Granny Lou, who we all loved so much...she was the head of our family and we miss her so much. She passed away in August, but had celebrated her 90th birthday in January. This year we focused on all the kids in our family and really had a great time!! There are 21 great-grandkids that range from 3 months to 20 or 21 years(not sure). Here's the chaos:

Brandy & Kelly passing out the gifts:




Caroline and Tripp (4 years old)


Benjamin, 2-1/2..."i've got my gift!!"


Cinnamon (mom's new puppy) is glad that everyone has gone home :)


Merry Christmas!!

Monkey Bathroom

Well, monkeys it is!! We (me and Caroline) decided to do the kids bath in monkeys. We have a thing in our family for monkeys...I'll have to do another post on that, cause it's a LONG story!! Anyway, we found the cutest things for the bathroom at Target and got busy with decorating. But...before you decorate...you must clean!! So, I removed shower doors from their tub and it was SO gross. I'm so glad that I did because it was so funky. Caroline cracked me up saying "this is disgusting!" She has a little lisp, so it's really funny to hear her say that. We cleaned and scraped and scrubbed and then finally got to decorate...and wha-la...here it is:

Now THAT is a Bubble Bath!!!

So...the kids' favorite thing about our new house is the jacuzzi tub!! I have not had the opportunity to try it out for myself yet, but I'm sure it will be my favorite thing too!! So, this is what happens when you mix bubbles with jets:



They had a blast!!

God's Perfect Plan

I have been reading Luke 2 yesterday and today and I had a thought that I have never thought before. I would think that God's Perfect Plan would be perfect in my eyes too. And, I will admit, sometimes get frustrated when it is not...like losing my stepdad this year doesn't seem like that would be His perfect plan...moving 2 hours from home doesn't seem like that would be His perfect plan...my dad facing treatments for prostate cancer doesn't seem like that would be His perfect plan...and I guess we could all go on & on with the trials that we face each day. But when I was reading in Luke 2, I thought "isn't it amazing that God's Perfect Plan for His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born was in a barn filled with straw, animals, and I'm sure it was cold...rather than in the most posh place that existed at that time?!?" And "isn't it more amazing that Mary & Joseph accepted that with no hesitation?!?" I wonder why THAT was His perfect plan for Jesus' birth? Was it to make Jesus more approachable and not so intimidating to the human race? If He had been born as an earthly King, would the common man or woman feel like they could have gone to Him with their needs? I don't know God's reasons for allowing trials to come into our lives, but I do know that He knows best and we have to be willing to accept these things without hesitation. This thought was very humbling to me and has encouraged me to stay focused on Him and ask Him what he would have me to do each day or how he would have me to respond or what He would have me to learn from each situation that I face. I have faced this before with several situations, but this is not something that you learn once and never have to think about again. This is something that I have to learn and apply each and every day with each individual situation. And I praise the Lord for working in my life and for teaching me how I can better live for him.

On to my house stuff:
I have had to take a couple of days to catch up on some work and also get geared up for Christmas, so I have slowed down with the decorating. I will get back on that by Monday and have some new pics to post.

I hope that you all have a great day!!

Our Living Room and Kitchen

We have been busy...organizing, cleaning, hunting down the Christmas decorations, decorating, organizing, cleaning...you get the picture, quite a vicious cycle!! Anyway, here are pictures of our Living Room and Kitchen:







Notice Caroline in her TV-watching trance (tee-hee)

Here are some pics of the Kitchen:






Overall, a pretty good day. I talked to Aunt Rita today and she is doing well, considering what she has been through this past month. Caroline talked to Santa (herbert) on the phone today. And Christopher had a great day at school. I am so thankful that he has transitioned well with the move and into his new school. He has made some good little friends. God is Good!

Caroline's Room

So, on to Caroline's Room...the "Pink Princess". Let me preface this entry by saying that she was dead-set on a pink room. I tried to talk her out of it...I wanted green like she had at our old house...but she would just say "um, no, pink". So, I decided you only get a pink room once in your life and I found a pink that I could live with. But I ended up having to get her a new quilt cause the one she had was red with cream poka-dots and it was driving me crazy. I found this one at TJ Maxx and love it!!!

Before:




After:





Still to do: I am going to paint her ceiling green and still have to do window treatments. It may be a while until I get to those things.

Make it a Great Day!!

What?!? It Really Snowed?!?

I can't believe that it really snowed! We woke up to about an inch of snow this morning and the kids were so excited!! They bundled up and headed out to make a snow man, snow angels and have a snow ball fight with Daddy. The high today is only 39, so I am planning on staying inside :)

Getting Settled!

Well, we are getting settled here...room by room! I have had several people ask for new pictures of the house, and that is a little overwhelming because each room is a "project". So insead of waiting and sending new pics all at once...cause it might take me a year to get that done...I have decided to post pics of each room as I get it done or even close to done. Starting with....drum-roll please....Christopher's Room: He has chosen to do Star Wars, and he loves it! I surprised him today...while he was at school, I put it all together and I had things that he didn't know about. He was SO surprised!!

His window treatment from our other house will work, but I just have to make a new one to match for the double window. And I am debating to paint the ceiling black with stars to give it a real "galaxy" feel. We'll see :)

I should finish Caroline's room tomorrow, so stay tuned!