CHRISTmas Miracle

This is so amazing, I had to share. Since we have put up our tree, Savannah has been seriously praying about snow on Christmas. She mentioned it EVERY day, and at night, either she would or ask me to pray about snow on Christmas. I found myself even praying for snow when I was by myself because she wanted it so bad. The week before Christmas the weather man was showing the temps around 50 and rain, rain and rain.
So Christmas morning we woke up and I didn't even think about it, neither did Savvy. We opened our gifts got ready and headed out to my dads. We pulled out of the garage, I look out my window and there are snow flurries!!! I was almost hysterical. I was yelling at Savannah to look out the window its snowing, its snowing! It lasted all of 30 seconds, but I saw the snow. I don't think she saw it, but I was telling her how AMAZING it is that God gave snow just for her, that she prayed for it and he answered her prayer! I was really in tears.
Then we pull up to dads, I get her out of the car, and the flurries started again, and Savannah saw them! I can't tell you how amazing this made our day. I was just listening to the news and they were talking about how only certain spots of Memphis saw snow on Christmas. Memphis has only had snow on Christmas 4 times, and the last time was 17 years ago.... I would say this was a Christmas miracle!

Keep my fingers crossed

Cohen is 26 months and this is the same age we potty trained Savannah, so I thought I would try Cohen over Christmas break. SO..... we unintentionally started Monday and he hasn't had a wet diaper since Sunday night!!! He is even going all night long dry....what...HALLELUJAH! He loves going potty because he gets a tootsie roll every time. So he has tried to abuse the system and just putting a few drops in and wanting a tootsie roll, at first I was giving it to him but now he has to "put all his tee-tee in the potty for a treat". WAY TO GO COHEN!! And he is so very proud of his big boy underwear!

Kids Christmas Party

The kids had there preschool Chirstmas party last Thursday. The room mom's organize and I come to help and play! Cohen's room is really too young to do crafts so they got chicken nuggets, cheetos and fruit for lunch. Savannahs room made miniature christmas trees out of pinecones that had been spray painted green. They then stuck little pom poms in for the ornaments. Glued it on a CD and then glued presents on the CD. They were adorable and the kids loved making them. While they were getting the room ready for the crafts. I read the kids a book, then decided to sing songs. Let me tell you I hands down have the worst voice ever!! Even my mom growing up was like "ashley you are so tone deaf" And even though I still love singing it is usually done in private! So anyways we sang the itsy bitty spider, then someone asked for Jesus loves me, then a little boy asked for Transformers so I made up a rap about how neat transformers are, then Savannah wanted Ariel so I broke out the "AAAAAAAhhhhhhhAAAAA" You know what I'm talking about. Then after this and tears in my eyes from laughing the room was ready! But at the end of it one little girl said "whats your name" And Savannah yelled out "Thats MY mommy" I love being her mommy!

Jessica!!!

My best friend Jessica came and visited last Sunday. We met my second year in college. I absolutely love her and she has been such an amazing friend. My last semester of school we were together 24 hours a day 4 days a week. Michael and I moved back to Memphis and her and Stephen (her husband) moved to Nashville. I would drive up to her house on Sunday, then we would head to Cookeville Monday and stay in one of our teachers boat house (yeah her husband was a Dr.) for the rest of the week. I have such wonderful memories of that semester!

We graduated in May 2005 and are still best friends, I can get on the phone with her and if we were uninterrupted we could talk for hours.

Jessica I love you and am a better person because of you.This picture has to show how much I love her because it looks like I'm smelling something bad..ha! But I had to show how precious she looks. This will be her second boy, Easton!

This is their son Parker, is he not ADORABLE and he is always smiling!

Just too busy

We have been SO very busy, I have not been able to blog. So here are some updated pics of the kids and what we have been doing...

She kisses him all the time now!

Roll-Tide!!!!! SEC Champions!!!!

I have no idea what Michael is doing, but it makes me laugh

Fun with cousin Patrick

Those brown eyes take my breath away

We were hanging Christmas decorations outside and it was around 30 degrees outside. So Cohen got to wear his first snow suit and loved it. I couldn't get it off of him.

Savvy helping decorate the Christmas tree.

Final note, we were given "the Elf on the Shelf" and it is so much fun!!! The first thing you do is give the Elf a name. Savvy is AMAZING at giving things names. Her teddy bear is Twalla and her monkey is Chalous. So I knew she would give the Elf the best name... She chose Jasmine and she chose this because we had been watching home videos of Disney World 5 minutes earlier. So I explained that the elf is a boy and needs a boy name...Patrick. That is her cousins name, so again I asked for one more....Jealous... Are you kidding??? I said how I thought Jealous would not be a good name for the elf to tell Santa that you named him. So Michael said why don't we name him Melvin. Well I wanted to have Savvy come up with the name and so I gave her one more try and she came up with, none other than.........Nevalyn

Michael earned MAJOR points

I had the BEST birthday this year!!! And my fantastic husband gets the credit!
I woke up Tuesday morning to Michael getting out of bed, I saw that it was 7 and he usually leaves the house around 5:30. So I went to the kitchen to find him making me breakfast! He had taken the day off of work and told me he would watch the kids and I could do whatever I wanted...LOVE IT. So we ate stuffed french toast, then I headed off to the gym for an amazing workout! Michael then informed me that he scheduled a massage for me. So off I head to the spa. After my massage I head to my car and Michael and Cohen are in the parking lot, my boys wanted to take me to lunch. We ate at Swankys Taco Shoppe and hands down I had the best Chicken Chimichanga I have ever had! I recommend going there today! Then we rested the rest of the day and my dad took us out to eat that night!
Michael I love you. Thank you for a wonderful day!!!

It's Official

I cannot wrap presents. I learned from the best, but my gifts still look like a 3 year old did the wrapping. Oh well its what inside that counts, right???

Date night with Daddy and Mommy

We have decided that we are going to start a tradition to take Savvy out on a date for the Holidays every year! We started the night with Savvy and I getting ready together. I curled her hair for the first time (and was tearing up while I was doing it) and she loved it. She is so girly, she loves to watch me put on make up and do my hair. She talked me into letting her wear lipstick. We decided on a gloss, which looked FABULOUS, as she put it! Michael picked us up in the bedroom and we headed to J Alexanders. She chose a delicious hamburger. We then went to the Orpheum and saw Cirque Holidaze and it was wonderful! The costumes were gorgeous, there was singing and then all the acrobats of Cirque, it was right up her alley! We didn't get home until 11 and she was out! What a fantastic memory

New Moon!

We went to the midnight showing of New Moon Thursday night. Candice picked me up around 7 and after a few stops we were at the theatre at 9 and there was already a line! We were seated at 11:30 then the show started at 12:01. It was so good!! We loved it and had such a fun night!

Candice and I. T-minus 5 minutes!
Juli and Tena sneaking in CheetosMe, Christen, Candice Mischelle, Christen, Tena and Julie! This is us waiting in line!

Go Tigers Go

Can I just say I love where I work! One of the reasons is that EVERYONE loves Tiger basketball. For the last two years they have been writing poems for every game, dressing in blue for every game and of course there is a tiger Christmas tree every year. Our main poet in the group mailed some of the poems to Coach Josh Pastner. The next week Coach himself called her and said he wanted to meet us! He came today, even though they had a game tonight, and thanked us, signed basketballs and took pictures. He was everything he is cracked up to be!!! And we were completely star struck. After he left I called Michael and he asked "is he so dreamy?" and the answer is YES!

I really don't like the pic of me, but here you go

Halloween

Thursday at the kids preschool they had a Halloween parade, that never fails to make me tear up! I know it's ridiculous but something about seeing kids dressed up and so excited always brings out my quivering lip!

Saturday morning we took the kids to Shelby Forrest and walked the bicycle path. It was beautiful and the kids inherited Michael's love for the outdoors. That night we went to Uncle Tim's and Aunt Suzie's and had a bon fire and Aunt Suzie told a 'scary' story. It was a lot of fun. We left there and headed over to Michael's grandmothers and great aunts. Then home so the kids knocked on two doors for tricker treating...I was more upset about them not having more candy than they were

Pumpkin Patch

We had Cohen's birthday party at Priddy Farms, it is a pumpkin patch in Bartlett. The kids got to do a hay ride back to the patch and then pick their very own pumpkin. My wonderful mom made all the kids their own pumpkin cake to eat after all that hard work! The kids had a blast! Mommy and daddy had a great time too.ChloeJacksonBrooksThe ButlersThe McDanielsPresleyOliveCohen decided this was a much more efficient way to eat cakeErica, Candice, me and CandiceThe only picture we have of everyoneOur only attempt at a family pictureMichael is crazy about his girl!Riding on the train! They were really good, I was scared to death one was going to push the other out :0)Pumpkin cakes, thanks mom, Cohen requested choclick cakeLook what I got mom! This wasn't the patch, just pumpkins up front for "easy picken"

Other exciting news today. Our good friends the Stewarts are adopting precious Nolen from Russia. They have been there since October 5 and won't be back until November 7th. Today Nolen is officially theirs, PRAISE GOD!!!!

Check out their blog http://stewartsadoption.blogspot.com/