Our Trip to Southeast Asia

I real quick put together a slideshow of some pictures of our family trip to Asia.  We had a wonderful time, experienced MANY new things, ate some "not so terrible" food, and shared our lives with new friends.  
We are still recovery from some jet-lag and are not sure how long it will take to really take in and digest all we saw. learned and experienced but would love to share with any of you in more detail about what we did and why we went.  
For now though enjoy some pictures and hopefully you will get a taste of beautiful Asia and the people that live there. 
I will hopefully post another slideshow soon that Greg did that is alot more involved but for now this is all I got:)  

Please go to this link below. 

http://youtu.be/MlS2f21c1HQ

Family Pictures 2012

Finally got some new family pictures done about a month ago and just now sharing them with you....it's been a crazy fall for us just take my word for it:)

I think they turned out pretty good....enjoy!

Abby's 10th Birthday!

I can't believe how far behind I am this fall.  Abby had a birthday on the 7th of November and it was a BIG one!  She is 10!!  Wow time really does fly and she is growing into such a lovely lady.
All she wanted for a party was a sleepover with lots of sugar, girls and movies....I can do that:)
Granny came in town to help with a craft she wanted to make (duct tape backpacks--which were a huge hit! Thanks Granny and Maw Maw for helping the girls!!)
I think the girls had a blast and it was pretty painless;)
Happy Birthday Abby--you are loved!

Abby wanted flowerpot ice cream that we saw on Pioneer Woman:)

Abby and Courtney at the school carnival. We took the girls to it before we came back to the house (just happened to be the same night as her party:/ bad planning on my part:)

The girls put Greg and I in jail:)  

We also made hand cookies and the girls had alot of fun decorating them!

Abby got a cool karaoke microphone stand...way fun!  Greg and I were taking turns too:)

All the girls having fun at the carnival!

Rockstars!

Future Taylor Swift:)

Making duct tape backpacks!  BIG project but the girls loved it!

painting their hands!

Jordan and her backpack

way too much sugar=perfect birthday!

Abby's bag

Craft central!

Abby just kept adding more and more toppings! Yikes!

Happy HYPER 10 year old!

all their masterpieces!

eating their ice cream on the back porch....very messy!!!

Happy Birthday Abby girl....what a wonderful, compassionate, kind, creative and lovely girl you have become!
We love you more.  

Halloween Night!

Halloween night is always a blast in our neighborhood!  We live on a circle street and families from all around come to go trick or treating here because we have SO many houses that turn their light on:)

It's always crazy how many people come out and this year we almost ran out of candy...crazy!

 Abby was a Candy Corn Fairy as I like to call her:) and Reese was not going to go this year so he had no costume but when he saw all his friends dressed up he ran inside and put on a football jersey and called himself a "benched football player"  *His Dad came up with that one;)  Nice Greg!

Also Debbie and Jerry came over as George H.W. Bush and Barbara...they were a big hit, asking everyone that came up if they voted:)  

Fun night!

Finally made it to the pumpkin patch on Halloween....it was mainly for me because the kids think it's kinda lame now to crawl on hay;)  Where did the pumpkin wonder go?:)

The kids thought they were crazy:)  haha!
Good costumes guys....very timely!

Go Lightening!

Reese started flag football this past weekend!  

Excited for Saturday mornings watching his games!  What a beautiful time of year...wish I could make time stand still.  

Hot Pink!

For Abby's birthday we redecorated her room too!  It was fun picking out all the girlie stuff after shopping for all sports stuff for Reese's room:)

It turned out really cute and Abby LOVES it!  Phew!  It's always worth all the hard work when she walks in super excited!  

Check out the pics...it looks pretty awesome I must say:)

Happy 8th Birthday Reese!

Can you believe he is 8? I can't!  

He is growing into the sweetest little man that notices others and loves to help serve with us at church.  A prayer I am constantly praying for Reese and Abby right now is that they will have humble repentant hearts when confronted with sin...oh Lord do it, make them more like you!

This year we redecorated Reese's bedroom for his birthday.  Ever since he was little he has not really had anything special going on in his room.  From about the age of 3 it was difficult to keep anything on the walls since he took it upon himself to take it all down:( and lately his room has just been half done for about a year.  

We have been working on it for about 2 weeks (gathering all the pictures and bedding and stuff) but didn't get it painted until Thursday then spent the day Friday putting the bunk beds up and hanging everything on the wall.  We decided to have the big reveal Friday night (we didn't get home until about midnight so we thought he would think it was cool to see his new room the first few minutes of his actual birthday. (Saturday the 27th)

He loved it and we were relieved!  We were nervous he would have an expectation that wasn't there (since it was ALL a surprise, even the color of the room which is dark gray) but thankfully he loved everything!  Yay!

We got some pictures of the reveal....

Surprise!!

pointing at everything in the room...he was moving around a lot thus the blurry pic:)

I love the pennant wall!

Panoramic of the room!  Fun!

Greg made this hat rack out of some of his (Greg's) trophies...it's SO cool!
I need to Pinterest this:)

Bunk beds!
Can you believe these are Greg's from college that we have kept for our kids to use?!
These have been well used:) 

Happy! Happy! Happy Boy!

Adorable Birthday Boy!

Me and my boy!

 Reese was very excited to have his birthday on a Saturday this year!  He just wanted a simple party at the park so he and his friends could play football.  It was so simple in fact that I felt kinda out of sorts!  I feel like every year the birthday parties get more and more simple!  I don't have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off entertaining and feeding everyone:) Parties now are mostly drop off parties so with the parents not sticking around you can buy less food;) Not that that's a big deal but honestly most parents don't want "kid food" so you feel like you have to have a menu for them...or at least I did:/ This year Reese just wanted wings from Wings Stop, chips, cheese sticks and Dr. Pepper...easy peasy!!;)

Football with the boys!

Playing Jackpot

Cupcakes!
I forgot to bring candles but he didn't seem to care...sorry buddy!

What a fun boy!

 We took Reese to dinner that night and he picked Simply Fondue!  So yummy and fun!  We ate for about 2 hours and enjoyed such a sweet time together!  He did something very sweet before we started ordering and I want to make sure and remember this...
As we were deciding what to order he whispered to me that he brought his money chip (which he had gotten from his grandparents that day, and he loves btw;) and told me he could help pay since he brought his money.  What a doll!
His heart is so thoughtful and tender and I am amazed at how intentional he can be.  I didn't make him pay though don't worry:)  The thought was very precious though Reeser:)  We love you buddy!

Starting to cook 

Reese's favorite part is the chocolate fondue of course and they gave him his own plate of goodies to dip...he was SO excited!!!

Roasting our marshmallows!

Reese you are such a joy and make our time together such a blast.  You are always moving, always loving and smiling and always throwing some sort of ball and the only time you are not talking is sleeping but I would never change you a bit!
We love you so much and look forward to many more birthdays to come!