Merry Christmas!

Every year when we send out Christmas cards we pick a word to put on the front that has meant something somehow to us that last year. This year we used "grateful" on our Christmas cards. When I look back at 2012 I am grateful. Grateful for a little baby born in a manger. Grateful for a big Savior. Grateful that I am a Daughter of the the most high King. Grateful for a loving and God fearing husband. Grateful for two crazy children. Grateful for real friends. Grateful for family. Grateful. Merry Christmas from my family to yours!!

John 10:10 ...I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Happy Halloween

Oh, how quickly things change around here!!

Napa Valley 2012

Well if you ever wonder if Napa is a good place to take a vacation just ask us! We LOVED it so much we went back! Funny thing is we went back in March! Ashley who was our official photographer of the group just now got us the pictures! Needless to say she lost her job as photographer for the next trip!! :) Seriously though. Three of our dearest couple friends and us wanted to make a trip happen. Three of us live here and another couple out in LA. Everyone heard how much we loved Napa the first time and it just made sense to all meet out there together and experience it with each other. Jason and I always said Napa would be even more fun with friends, so off we went.

It happened to conveniently be my 31st birthday while we were out there!! Can't lie, it was a great way to spend it!!

Love these guys! It is a sweet thing for the husbands to be as close of friends as the wives are.

When you travel with Ashley and Noelle everywhere you eat is an experience. But I am thankful for them as I would miss out on a lot of good food if they weren't there to lay down the law of "no chain restaurants." This was us at Girl and a Fig. Delicious food.

We are so thankful for the Sweets, Glazes and McMakins in our lives. The Lord has really blessed Jason and I because of knowing them.

Ashley took a few hundred pictures and there are some seriously cute ones but lets face it, the bloopers are always better...

Disney World

The Brantleys graciously took the whole family to Disney World for Kate's 5th Birthday!! It was such a wonderful time and we enjoyed every minute. We left Whit behind and only took Kate. Lets face it, I wasn't made to be one of those moms at Disney World with a screaming toddler who has missed his nap and is deathly afraid of all the characters. Kate was a trooper. She was EXACTLY 44 inches so she was able to ride all the rides. Her first roller coaster ever...EVEREST! She got on every ride, but when she got off we often heard, "I don't want to do that again."

I forgot how magical Disney World is and I credit that to the employees there. Disney really has wonderful staff that make the experience top notch. Everyone was so helpful and so fantastic with Kate. I took almost 300 pictures so in no particular order, here are some pictures from our trip.

Kate's 5th Birthday Party

So I am finally getting around to posting about Kate and Whit's birthdays. (see next post for Whit's). This year I got Jason to use some of his hotel points to get us a room at Ross Bridge Hotel so that we could invite a few of Kate's friends to go swimming at their pool and then stay as a family that night. He came through big time and got us the hospitality suite...very nice! We had a great time, and the kids could have stayed at the pool going down that slide all day. Kate thought it was the coolest thing ever that we were going to spend the night in a hotel!

We were having so much fun going down the slide that we had an accident where Kate hit her head up against her friend and cut her mouth. For a second there I wasn't sure if she was going to recover but she pulled it together and enjoyed the rest of her party.

This little one had to be woken up from a nap in time for cake. He was a bit grouchy until we told him he got to go swimming and then he perked right on up!

Whit's 2nd Birthday Party

(Yes, this is 3 months late...sorry) My neighbor's little boy Miles, and Whit have birthdays a week apart in May. So we got together and decided to do our First Annual Birthday Block Party. It was perfect, we invited the families on our street with children Whit and Mile's age to come down and jump! It ended up that the entire family (daddies included) came and it was a super fun afternoon. Of course offering beer to the dads didn't hurt :)

Spring Pictures

My friend Fresh Grace Photography took these pictures a little while back but I am just now getting them up on the blog. Love how she uses lighting. And to see some amazing wedding photos check out her sight...they are breathtaking. But back to my cute kids...

Happy 2nd Birthday Whit!

I can't believe Whit is TWO! Time has flown by and it is hard to believe that he is no longer a baby but a toddler. He is much more verbal then Kate was at two years old, saying many words and repeating almost anything you ask him too. He is very independent and will disappear in seconds off wherever he wants. He loves his daddy. He eats everything. And he is clever enough to get figure out how to get what he wants. He is very snuggly when he wakes up and loves his blanket and paci.

It is a real joy to watch him and Kate play together. Whit LOVES his sister and wants to do everything she does.

Happy Birthday little man! We love you so much!!

Nashville Country Music MARATHON

We did it!! My friend, Nichole, and I ran a MARATHON! Nichole (a good friend I have known for forever) and I traveled up to Nashville Friday afternoon. We basically tried to pump ourselves up for what would be the hardest thing we have ever done. First goal however, was to get to the Convention Center to pick up our race packets which was an easy enough task. When we pulled into downtown Nashville it was complete mayhem. I have never seen so many people in my life in one area much less the line around the building of people trying to get their race packets too. After getting our race packets we walked through the expo where we overheard a man say "biggest mistake of my life was not having sun glasses last year when I ran this race." Needless to say we headed straight towards a vendor selling sun glasses and bought some very stylish running glasses...I think they made us look more like professional runners!! :) Nashville does a wave start so that 20,000+ people don't trample each other to death when the race starts. We were in coralle 20. There were 37. This picture is looking towards the start line which you can't even see because we are so far back. I have never been a part of any event this big in my life...it was insane to see all these people.

A before race picture. When it was time for our coralle to start I was almost in denial of what we were about to do. We had trained for months and prepared all week with drinking LOTS of water, eating TONS of carbs so we felt like we were ready. Nashville is known for its hills. I have never been one to complain about running hills but Nashville was relentless. It wasn't that we couldn't run the hills it was that once you got up one there was another, and another, and another. However, we felt great about ourselves because we were passing people left and right that were having to walk up these little monsters.

Jason, my parents and my in-laws came up to support us. I gave Jason a little baggy of goodies with crackers, extra waters, bananas and more for us to be able to use if we needed to...we needed to. Ideal running weather for me is in the 40's. It was 65 degrees and when we finished it was 80 degrees. Nichole and I made sure to rehydrate every water station...we drank so much water it should have made us have to go to the bathroom a million times but instead our bodies were using every ounce of water we took in and after 20 miles we realized we had never even stopped once to use the bathroom yet.

It was a neat experience to see all ages, all body types out trying to accomplish a goal. We tried to encourage those we saw struggling and especially at the half way mark we were trying to rally those around us...really just trying to sike ourselves up for another 13.1 miles!

I would have never done this alone. I am thankful for Nichole and what a sweet friend she is. This was such an amazing experience and I am glad we accomplished it together.

When we crossed that finish line we hugged and teared up and then I looked at Nichole and said, "we don't have to run anymore!" We had pushed ourselves for close to 5 hours and then to know we had finished felt AMAZING! And besides the fact that my legs felt they could have fallen off my body at that moment they were so exhausted I really felt great otherwise especially considering the heat we had just run in.

I loved every second of this journey...it was so hard at times but worth every second!! And a BIG THANK YOU to my husband who never complained once when he had to keep the kids for me to go out for hours to run and train for this. I love you.