camp-in

i just got this picture from pops. the kids spent the night at their house last night. the boys slept in a tent in the den and it looks like laney joined in on the fun this morning. cuteness!

I'm thankful...

i'm thankful for:

a nice day at home

my hilarious kids

living in birmingham

my hubby, day 2 after his tonsillectomy, and he's feeling good

our country

getting to see b and pops today

a visit from the philleys

today, which is ron's 33rd birthday

cameras, as silly as that sounds

good movies

date nights

grace

pillow-filled shirts so boys can play rough...

i'm thankful for a lot. right now, 10:45 pm, i'm thankful that i'm heading to bed...

a visit with Jim and Sherry

It took Laney a while to warm up to the Banks'...

Sam warmed up to Uncle Jim right away...

By the end of the night, they were all smiles... except maybe for Laney.

Monday night was a very special night. We went to B and Pops' house and had dinner with all four grandparents. The Philleys were in town to help out with Ron's big tonsillectomy. My aunt and uncle were visiting from Florida. So we had a nice little family dinner. Our kids were in heaven getting to be with Grandee, Pappy, B, and Pops at the same time. And they enjoyed Jim and Sherry as well...

happy kids at bath

they LOVE bathtime!

love that hair!

iPhone images

he's losing the baby face and looking more like a little boy these days...

visiting B

i have a feeling that my mom would say things worked out quite while. shoot, i'll say they worked out well! briarwood is the hub for us... sam goes to school there, the babies go to MDO there, we go to church there, and B works there. it means that we see each other at least a few times a week. and that doesn't include the one or two times a week that we pop over to visit each other. the kids get to see a lot of their B. thank you, Lynn, for these sweet pictures of one of our visits to the membership office!

Laney's snow globe

Ron and the boys were out for a few hours this morning which gave me and Laney a little time alone. I almost never wake the kids up from a nap, but 11am rolled around and she'd been asleep almost 3 hours. I knew she needed to get up if she had any chance of an afternoon nap. I just had to take a picture of my sleeping sweetheart before I woke her...

One of the first things she wants to do when she gets up is grab her snow globe and listen to "When you Wish Upon a Star". So we picked it up and enjoyed the music and the sparkling glitter.

Exercise time

Ron has taught the boys a bit about exercising. They enjoy doing pushups, situps, jumpking jacks, even some core moves like the plank and side plank. The other night, Sam decided he wanted to be the instructor. He got in the den and started calling out exercises. It was so funny! It had to be a proud moment for Ron as well, with him being such a fitness enthusiast and all... As you can tell by the pictures, the boys got a little tuckered out.

Laney's first Drumstick

I gave Laney one of those Nestle 'lil drums the other day and she loved it! I'm not surprised. She'll eat anything...

iPhone images - strep throat

Sam has strep throat for the first time. He missed school last Wednesday and Thursday due to not feeling well. At breakfast one morning, he got up from the table and went to the living room to lay down. He covered himself up with a blanket and laid there for an hour while the babies were watching TV. I knew he was sick when he did that... Poor guy is not enjoying his medicine, but he is enjoying feeling a little better.

Blurb book

I finally got my Philley Pham 2008 book done. I mentioned my discovery of Blurb in an earlier post, and how discovering it was going to save me hours and hours of time since I'd be giving up scrapbooking. Well, I gave up scrapbooking back in March of 2008 and I don't regret it a bit. Everything I blog about gets turned in to a nice book without much work. It took me 2 hours to make the book. Sweet. Because it was so easy, I did the 2009 book the next day. It only took 1 hour and 45 minutes, and it was 270 pages. It should arrive Monday. But today the FedEx guy dropped off my '08 book and I love it.

Pops and Luke's boat trip

Sam spent the weekend with the Philleys at the beach. So Pops picked Luke up Sunday afternoon for a canoe ride. They had a blast. Sam got home while they were gone and he insisted that we wait outside for them. He and Luke were so happy to see each other. Then Pops gave them a little Halloween goody: scary teeth. As you can tell by the picture, they were smiling and laughing so much they weren't all that scary.

* Pops just sent me these pictures, so I'm adding them to the post...