Blog Awards!!

I was given two blog awards yesterday by my friend, Alison at Wayzley Academy. I feel so special!

Both require me to nominate 10 blogs.. so I am going to nominate each of the 10 for both awards..

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers who’s positivity and creativity inspires others in the blogword.

The Lemonade Stand Award is awarded for being a blogger who shows great attitude and gratitude.

The rules for accepting this award:

- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.

- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.( the Lemonade Stand one) or ten bloggers who inspire me

- Link the nominees within your post.

- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.



Here are the people I am sending the awards to. I don't have a lot of blogs that I read so I am not sure if I can come up with 10 but I will try! ( Some will be the same ones that Alison awarded as well)



1) Chelita at Shady Bayou Academy. Although I have never met her in person, I feel such a special connection with her.



2)Sadie from The Ugly Gray House. I have "known" Sadie for several years now and I just love to read her blog. She is so inspiring with her crafty and witty ways!



3)Rhonda at Alston Academy. She is just such a sweetheart and I just enjoy seeing her days homeschooling her three girls.



4)Emily from Lift Up Your Hearts. I appreciate Emily's honesty and the fact that she is such a tell it like it is type of person. She is just so genuine and doesn't try to pretend to be something she is not.



5) Sherri from Our Place. I love seeing how Sherri isn't afraid to get right in the middle of the fun her her kids.



6)Alison at Wayzley Academy. I am passing these awards right back to ya girl! I appreciate our friendship and also the fact that you don't always try to sugarcoat things and you just say what you feel!



7)Dani from The (not so) Amazing Adventures of Supermom. Dani is such a fun mama and is always putting others above herself. I think she is just amazing.



8)Jenn at Our Many Beautiful Blessings. I haven't known Jenn for a long time but the time that I have I have really enjoyed. She is a great mama and she loves the Lord and isn't afraid to share Him!



9) Tisha from Sowing Good Seeds. Another great mama. One of my fellow southern homeschooling mamas!



10)Jenn from The Suchniak Six. I love going to Jenn's blog to see all of her amazing pictures and the fun times she has with her family.

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Christmas!

I know, I know! I haven't posted any Christmas pictures yet! I was going to post them all here but after uploading them on facebook I decided I would just post the slide show of my Picasa album here instead. We had a wonderful Christmas here. I think we all really enjoyed the season this year and it was just wonderful to spend the special time of year together. Randy and I took the kids to see some Christmas light displays one night as is our tradition a few days prior to Christmas Eve. My extended family came over to our house Christmas Eve for our annual family Christmas dinner. Gran Julie came over to spend Christmas morning with us and we are so glad she did. The rest of Christmas day, we stayed home and just played and had fun. Aaron left that night to go on a vacation to see some of Heather's family and to a UNC game for the week following Christmas. While they were away, we kept Heather's two mini schnauzers. The Sunday following Christmas we rode over to visit Grandpa and some of the Willis family. We also enjoyed several parties, church activities, ice skating, and more during the Christmas season. It made for a busy month but I wouldn't change a thing! As you can imagine, all the fun means I took LOTS of pictures! For anyone interested in seeing what we were up to in December as we celebrated the birth of Jesus, check out this slide show!

52 Books in 52 Weeks!!

I really do love reading but I always seem to put it off. I saw this on a friends blog the other day and thought this would be a fun challenge for the new year! You can join too by clicking on the picture. Also, if you have a favorite book, please share with me so I have plenty to read this year!

We are Here!!

Wow, I have been so slack here! I really don't have an excuse other than I have just been living life and haven't taken the time to get on here to update. I also have so many pictures to share, that I didn't want to take the time it will take to post them all! Anyhow, here is a quick update.
We finished co-op the week of Thanksgiving. We are enjoying the break. There have been lots of activities going on, CLA, Tai Kwon Do, church, youth, children's choir, drama for the adult cantata, outings, friends, school, life in general.....just busy-ness.
Aaron, Kristen and I went to a youth conference in Gatlinburg, TN the week before Thanksgiving. We had a great time with the group that went. Since then it seems the time has just flown by and here it is almost Christmas. I am just totally enjoying the season this year. We have finished our shopping and decorating and I have been working on some baking. The children's choir performed a couple weeks ago and the adult choir performed last weekend. We have visited Santa at the mall and will be going out to look at Christmas lights tomorrow night. I have a few friends coming over in the morning to make some ornaments and have coffee and goodies!
I think that is all. That doesn't look like much of an update but really, we have just been enjoying living life. I am going to make a slide show with some pics and post it soon instead of trying to catch up on two months worth of pictures. I will try to do a better job at keeping up after Christmas has passed and we are back to normal school days.

Aaron and Heather's Photo Shoot

Heather's mama took Heather and Aaron to a park in Savannah one Sunday after church to do a photo shoot. I really loved the pictures they took! I know there are a lot here but I just can't decide which are my favorites!

Isn't she beautiful?

Heather was all tangles up in Apollo's leash!

My handsome son!

Aren't they cute?

Heather's Sweet 16 and Silly Kristen

We celebrated with Heather last weekend for her Sweet 16 Birthday! Aaron's band, Against The Current, played for her party.

Momo having a good time at the party and looking cute too!

Silly Kristen picture number 1!

Kristen and Heather at her party.

Blowing out her number 16 candle!

Kristen and Emily.

Heather opening the gift we gave her.

And here are the rest of the silly Kristen pics!! I just had to share these!

Momo's Baptism

Morgan accepted Christ as her Savior and Lord on Oct. 4th. She was baptised this past Sunday, October 25th. Here she is before the service.


Brother Jeff, just before Momo joined came down.

I am not sure why she was making this silly face. She was so excited and nervous though.

This is at home after church.

I am so excited about Morgan's salvation. It was such and honor and privilege to be able to lead her to Christ. I know God has a special plan for her live and I can't wait to see what it is. My prayer is that I can raise her in a Godly way so that she grows and matures in her faith and always places the Lord as her top priority. I am so thankful to have my Momo Monkey and am blessed to be her mama.

The Couty Fair and Some School Work

The county fair was in town last week. To kick off the fair, there is a parade through town which ends at the fairgrounds. Aaron's band played on the church float this year. I didn't have my camera so I don't have any pictures of that. It was a lot of fun though! We all rode on the float with them. After we got the trailer cleaned up, we headed back to the fair for a couple hours. It was packed but the kids still had a good time. Aaron and Heather took off on their own so I didn't get to take pictures of them. Kristen didn't want to ride. Momo and Ian both rode as much as they could while we were there! This was the first ride they went on. It was a kid ride but it was a little fast and rather jerky. When it stopped, the first thing Ian said was " That thing made me freak out!" He said it was fun though!

They were happier looking on the other rides!

Kristen did ride this one with Ian.

Momo tried the big slide but it was a little damp from the dew and didn't go very fast. She was a little disappointed with that.

Ian rode this little mini Ferris wheel. It is hard to see but he is in there on the left.

This is the only picture of Aaron and Heather I was able to get. We caught them on the big Ferris wheel! AWWWWWWW!!

Back at home the next day, we were back to work. At least we can do school in our PJ's, snuggled up in a blanket on the recliner!

I made a few new file folder games for Momo so she was trying those. This one was a sentence game where she had to build sentences by taking a carrot out of each basket and then write the sentence. I think she likes this one a lot because I have found her doing it several times!

Morgan also started working on a pocket book all about whales. She has been enjoying reading books she checked out from the library about all kinds of whales too.

There was also our normal weekly activities and lessons that we didn't get pictures of. Life has just been so busy the past few weeks and the days are just flying by.

Kites, Lessons and More Apples!

I am working once again to get this blog up to date. I don't remember exactly what order everything happened but here we go! We have had some gorgeous weather over the past few weeks. It has even felt more like fall more and more! Randy and the kids pulled the kites out one morning and had some fun flying them for a bit.

The weather was too nice to stay inside so we did some school work outside.

We worked on and finished up our apple unit. The kids enjoyed an "apple snack picnic" one afternoon.

Ian practiced the number 2.

Aaron played with Momo and Ian on the swings.

Here is Momo working on the Johnny Appleseed/Apples lapbook.

Ian helped with it a bit too.

We made a really neat craft.

Here is Momo's finished stained glass apple hanging on the door.

And here is Ian's.

We also made some more apple crisp.

Ian worked on a file folder game I made for him. He had to sort the apples by size.

He really enjoyed doing the apple lacing card.

Momo worked on the lapbook some more.

Just being cute as always!

I also made a file folder game for Morgan for practicing contractions with apples.

Ian played some other file folder games while Morgan worked on her reading lesson.

Time for play dough!

The big kids did their work!

Morgan used the orange dry erase board to practice her spelling words.

Ian was being helpful by cleaning up after play dough!

That finishes up this post. As you can see, we have been busy, having fun and learning at the same time!

Fishing!

Randy and I took Aaron, Momo and Ian fishing one afternoon. Kristen was at the church working. We went down to a boat landing at the river not too far from the house. We didn't catch anything but it was fun.

Randy and Ian

I think Aaron was putting a worm on his hook but I'm not sure!


I snapped a few cute pics of Momo while we were down there.

She looks deep in thought in this one.

Casting! She almost made it across the whole river!

He was having fun even with no fish!

I even fished a bit.....Alison, I think I was actually texting you when Randy took the picture! Notice my cell in my hand!

Brothers.....

Just a fun, spur of the moment outing.