5 Big things that happened in 2013…..

Top 5 Hits ~
Emma Jane turned 1

My future sister in law always throws such great birthday parties with the cutest decorations!  Sweet Emma is devouring that cake!

Went to our first "real" Florida State" game

Fashion was also kept in mind when attending the game.  How do I look? ha!

Kaylee turned 18

This is a monumental moment in a child's life and we were able to celebrate with her.  Love my precious niece.  

Went back to school and took a math class and made a B+!! 


Learned how to tie a figure eight scarf

I'm sorry but this was a big hit for me. Now I can look stylish while wearing my scarves..ha!

My top 5 goals for 2014 are:

~ Visit a few local attractions for the kids - Science Museum, Epcot, something that I can keep the kids interested in learning about life in general.

~ Attend a yoga class!  This has always been a goal for me, I hope to actually accomplish this, this year.

~ Further my photography skills.  My husband bought me a Canon camera this christmas and so far I am quite pleased.  This year instead of taking my kids to a professional portrait studio for their annual Christmas picture, I was able to take them to the beach and get some pretty neat shots.

~ Further my personal relationship with God.  With work and everything else, life can certainly get in the way and put a divider in between spending daily time reading and praying.  When your relationship with God suffers, everything else in your life is a direct reflection.  Look at your life, how is it looking today?

~ Last goal for 2014 is to start doing some more arts & crafts.  I would love to learn how to use a sewing machine!


I am excited about a lot of goals and aspirations I have this year!  :-)

Now, on another note…some misses of 2014 were:

• Diagnosed with a underactive thyroid - hoping to gain control of this thyroid and come to a healthy balance in my everyday life and health
• Mother in law was diagnosed with lymph node cancer but it appears that she is in remission.  yay for God's healing power! 
• Grandmother in law - Jane passed away.  We were expecting that for years but it finally happened this year.  I say that because she wanted to pass on for several years.
• Had to withdraw from a math class (fall term, passed the summer term class) I was taking at the local community college. Hoping to get back in there and pass that class this year!  
• Not spending a lot of time at the spa and/or getting my nails done.  Ha!  I used to keep up with that on a weekly basis.  I kinda let that go and I need to put that back on the list.  My husband won't be too happy about that but I will have to find a healthy balance that works for us.  

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!  :-)

Weekend happenings...

Weekends around here are always a little busy.  Between flag football games and running errands, it stays pretty busy.  Here are some pics of the kids football game this weekend.  Their team  name is Green Machine.  Both James and Sue are on the same team this year and I am happy about that.  I think between the two of them they can learn from each other.

Goofy kiddo..he got a transformer mask for Christmas

Sue is #30 and James is #3

This is friends of ours children, Jackson and Brandon.  Such cute children!

The tall blonde boy in this picture has a crush on Susan, she thinks he is a cutie too

From LR…Tanner, James, Susan and Caitlyn…Some of the kiddos good friends.  We think their parents are pretty cool too!  :-)

This was their goofy pose!

I am feeling pretty blessed!  
God is good people.  Even when it seems like the world is falling apart around you, know that he is control.  God is a good God and he loves us dearly!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.  That whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life…John 3:16

Have a great day!  :-)

A new look...

Hoping that everyone is recovering okay from Christmas and all the festivities!  :-)

I wanted to share today one of the gifts that we were able to get my daughter this year that I loved.  We were able to transform one of the bathrooms into one solely for her use.  She is going to be a teenager in less than 2 months and with that comes more time in the bathroom.  A quick way to avoid any future arguments of time spent in the bathroom, we let her use the extra one.

Here are a few quick pictures of the minor updates to the room to make it look more girly.

I bought the shower curtain from JCpenney and it was just a plain creme shower curtain and I hot glued on the zebra stripe with pink ribbon overlay.  It looked like the curtain was bought that way.

I think the thing that she loved the most was the towels that had her name embroidered on it.  I was able to purchase those from Pottery Barn.  Tried to incorporate a sign with some reassurance of confidence.  Sue is at an age even more so now with peer pressure and such that she needs to be reminded to be a confident young lady always.  Here is a close up of the sign.

I am sure that she loved it!

Here is a couple of pictures when she first walked into the bathroom!  She was definitely surprised. She was definitely not as impressed than she was with the galaxy tab her dad bought her for christmas (which was in her hands).  Social interaction is at the utmost now so she was ecstatic to get the tablet.

Another thing that I saw in the stores that I wanted to take a picture of and share is a picture of christmas bears with puffer vests on.  On a couple of the blogs that I follow they are talking about the importance of purchasing a puffer vest for fashion purposes this season.  Well, we went into Kmart (didn't even realize Kmart was still in business) and they had these bears up on the shelf with their puffer vests!  Too cute!

And just because I love this picture and its reminder of our visit to see the ICE exhibit at Gaylord Palms, thought I would include it.  Couple of cuties!  :-)

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  And unto us a savior was born!  Thank you for the birth of Jesus that makes every single day on this earth worth living.  To know that he was born for the world to experience God's love through human flesh is amazing to me.  I will never take for granted Christ's love for me.

Today we spent the day at my mothers house with family.  We had a great time.  Here are some special pictures of the day.

This year I bought a James a new outfit for Christmas, just because.  Maybe in my mind I was thinking that I would like him to have a nice clean outfit on Christmas day without having to worry what condition it is in by the time we make it to the grandparents house.  You should have seen his face though after he opened the present, it was a look of somewhat of disappointment. ha!  He looks cute!

                                              Just arriving at my mother's house

                                               So this was a new yankee candle scent that I bought for my mother.  Careless on my part was that I did not see what scent candle it was before I purchased it.  I saw the Santa mentioned on the candle and did not realize it was the scent of a pipe!  Thank goodness my mother did not mind the smell of a smoking pipe!

Me and my precious niece Kaylee.  Love her to pieces.  Every moment with her is very special at this time as she is about to graduate high school and who knows what direction she will be going in and how often I will see her.

Susan with her new galaxy tab.  She was so excited and she wanted to share it with her cousin Colette.

                                            My sister and her friend, Johnny and Miss K!

                               My step-sister Mae and her family, very happy to see her at the house.

We rarely get a picture of just the three of us so this was really nice.

Love this picture of James and Collette.  James looks less than thrilled to be yet in another picture.  Collette is just looking more and more like a little lady everyday.  She is always wearing such fancy dresses when I see her.  

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and spend time reflecting on the joyous gift of life that God has given us today.

Merry Christmas!

~ Sherry