He's up and at 'em!!!!

My niece, Kati, sent this picture to me tonight of my brother Garland! He has been in the hospital since February 20th and came very close to death. He had a cold that led to pneumonia that then led to ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome). But after many weeks and answered prayers here he is:

Praises to our Almighty Father - THE Great Physician!!!

A Few of My Favorites

For this week's SUYL at Kelly's Korner we are to show our favorite things. I have many favorite things, but I'll just share a few with you!

I took this picture about 2 years ago when I first got my DSLR camera. I absolutely love Hydrangeas and have always loved this pic. A fave for sure. :)

When I was about 9 years old I had this super fantastic rabbit fur coat. I honestly wore that thing out. I'm not kidding. Patches of fur started falling off. So it ranks up there in my list of lifelong favorite things.

Dogwood blooms are also a favorite of mine.

Another favorite is when the air starts to get cooler and all of God's creation begins to change colors and transform.

My favorite picture of Holly is this one that I took at my sister's wedding. This was right before the ceremony began and I was shooting with my film camera. So it's a scanned pic and not great quality, but hopefully you can tell why it's my fave.

My favorite picture of Anna is this one. This was the spring that my Mama passed and my sister had gotten the girls two ducks, Pete & Mossy. Anna's sweet innocent face and the way she is gently making sure the duck doesn't make a dash off her lap, I just love, love, love! Such a sweet memory in such a sad time.

This is also one of my favorites! He is wonderful hubby and daddy to our girls and I love him bunches!

Last, but certainly not least is my favorite Bible verse:
Psalm 28:7

"The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him."


Hope you all have a great Memorial weekend and remember to appreciate our freedoms from those who have sacrificed so much!

Here a Chick There a Chick

We have had a pretty busy week. I need to get back into the habit of blogging more frequently so we'll have all of this stuff documented. So here goes a recap of our last week.......

in pictures of course! :D

We've had a little chickie action in the classroom!

First one named Hope.

Second named...

Joe

And the third named Sally.

The girls love to cheer on the newborns!

We had 3 out of 10 to hatch this time. The batch before that I didn't blog about didn't survive. Out of 28 eggs, none hatched. But we're glad to get the three this time!

We also got flocked by our youth group at church! The girls loved it and wanted to keep them. The youth are raising money for their mission trip to Mississippi this summer.

The girls got to play in the rain a little. And yes, Anna has on a skirt and bonnet. :) I also love that I caught Holly mid-puddle jumping!

Saturday after Brian bush-hogged the yard (we've been blessed with a lot of rain!) and we raked and raked, the girls got in a little swim time...

........while Brian grilled us some sirloin and turkey dogs!

Sunday after church we took the top off the Jeep and went for a little spin.

After this we went to get an ice cream and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Anna holding her melting ice cream over the edge of the Jeep while going down the highway. It was indeed a sight to see ice cream splattering all over the back, not to mention it making it's way up to the dash in front too! She said that it was melting too fast so she just held it out!

Have I ever mentioned that I love this man?!

We've had a great week and that just about brings us up to date. Today we got to keep Bella for a little while and she even got to go to Holly's game tonight! :D

She is really starting to coo and talk and we just LOVE it!!!

Have a blessed week!!!

Victory in the Primary!!!

I literally almost passed out tonight! Brian did too! :D

You see about 4 years ago when Brian's dad, Jerry decided to not run for Sheriff Brian and I switched our party from Democrat to Republican. We had always felt convicted about that anyway, but in order to mainly vote in our county's Primaries you need to be a Democrat. Almost all of Brian's family are Democrats, but that is just not our conviction. I always joked that in order to marry into the family it was a pre-requisite that I had to be registered Democrat. I grew up with a Republican mother and Democrat father! But I have always in my heart been a Conservative!

In mid-January Jerry decided to run for Sheriff about 3 weeks AFTER the deadline to switch parties was up. This means that we weren't going to be able to vote for him in the Primary. Which was when he was going to face his main opponent, the incombent, and would need our votes the most. But it was too late to switch, so we just helped him in every other way that we could!

Now here is the good news!

He WON the Primary tonight!!!!!!!

By 82 votes. Yes - I said 82 votes!

There was one point tonight where 56 out of 57 precincts were reporting and he was down by TWO votes. TWO VOTES!!! That is when I nearly passed out. This whole time the joke has been that if he loses by two votes Brian and I will have to move out of the county. But when the final results came in he had WON by 82 votes. Whew! I am sure that they'll have to have a recount, but we'll take a victory!!!

Brian with his dad at a rally a few weeks ago.

I am proud to be in this family and look forward to Jerry being our next Sheriff. He has worked very hard in law enforcement his enire life and he truly deserves this!

So congratulations to all of the winners in the Primaries! We were also rooting for Jared Carpenter (my BFF since 2nd grade's hubby) in the 34th Ky Senate race, Lisa Davis (our pastor's wife) for County Clerk, & of course Rand Paul U.S. Senate!!! All winners!!!

Here are a few of my favorite quotes about voting:

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate--look to his character."

Noah Webster

"Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights."

Thomas Jefferson

Go VOTE!!!

Tomorrow is Kentucky's Primary election and we are getting excited! My father in law is running for Sheriff and I know that tomorrow night will be a huge relief!

Since Brian and I turned 18 we have voted. It is our freedom to do so. I believe by not exercising this freedom it is disrespecting all of the brave souls who have fought and lost their lives giving us this right.

I know people get tired of seeing sign after sign along the roads, but elections are so important! We need to make sure we vote and let our voices be heard!!!

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character. . . . When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor, he betrays the interest of his country.” Noah Webster

Favorite Books

This week over at Kelly's Korner SUYL we are sharing our favorite books and kids books.

Here are a few of mine:

Between the ages of about 9 to 12 I read these Babysitter's Club books non-stop! I think I have almost the entire set!!!

The Saddle Club was another one of my absolute favorites!

Of course the Bible is my all time favorite!

When the girls were little Goodnight Moon and The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree were their faves!

I read Redeeming Love about a month ago and fell in love! This is a very emotional, but wonderful book. I just LOVE Francine Rivers!

I love this book by Beth Moore, Feathers From My Nest!

Being a homeschool mom I have to add this dictionary in my list of faves! Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary is a great resource and he used scriptures with many of his definitions! Here is a link to an online copy: Webster's 1828

This summer for Literature the girls and I (Brian too) are going to read Pilgrim's Progress together. I found a study guide at a yard sale a few weeks ago! We're excited!


I love to read, but don't always get the time to. Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to finding some new stuff to check out!!!
Many blessings!

Mother's Day Weekend

Last week was a sad week. Brian's Aunt Lora passed away early Tuesday morning. They had her visitation on Thursday night and there was a LOT of people that came. At one point there was a line backed up all the way around the funeral home. Brian and I dropped the girls off at Nina's house while we went to the visitation. Her funeral was on Friday.

This is how I remember Lora. She was so beautiful and had such a funny personality. She would always come off with the funniest witty little comments!

She always made Larry these delicious low-fat sandwiches with the Pilsbury French Bread during his transplant. One time I called her to ask how in the world she rolled that bread out enough to make them and she just laughed so hard! There is a seam that you can unroll the entire piece of bread and I was trying to roll it out with a rolling pin!

Brian, Pam, and the girls after the funeral Friday.

Me, Pam, and the girls.

It was so hot on Friday afternoon when we got home so we let the girls take their first dip in the pool! But they didn't get to stay long because Holly had a make-up softball game.

Anna took these pictures for me! The Bees won 16-0 against the Sand Gnats!!!

Saturday they played again against the Scappers, but got beat 19-5. I had a yard sale Saturday so Brian took her to the game and Anna and I stayed at home to man the sale.


Suse came over and brought me these beautiful roses for Mother's Day and Anna picked this other pretty bouquet for me!

Sunday morning we went to church and then took Nana out for lunch for Mother's Day. When we got home we put together our new kites and headed down to the college to try our hand at flying them.
The one Brian was using kept taking right off. Holly got to fly it way high.

Anna got to fly that one high too.

I tried and tried to get this one up, but it never happened. We just didn't have enough wind and to be honest I ran out of wind running with that thing too!!


We had a great day and I am one truly blessed Momma!

I really don't deserve to be blessed with such a wonderful family! I am so very grateful to the Lord for loaning them to me though!!!

What's in a Name?

For Kelly's SUYL this week we are sharing how we named (gonna name) our kiddos.

We've got two daughters and their names are Anna Elizabeth and Holly Peyton. We didn't name them after any other family members. We wanted them to have their own names.

It's all about the principle of individuality! :)

Anna was the easiest name we picked. It was a name that Brian had always loved and I fell in love with it too. We played around with a middle name right up until we had her! I absolutely loved Elizabeth and it went so well with Anna. I just liked the way it had an old world feel to it! Now she loves her name and it suits her just fine! A couple of months ago I was going through some daydream notes I had scribbled on while in college 4 years before she was born and Anna Elizabeth was on one of the lists. Isn't that neat?!

Anna means - "Gracious One"

For Holly's name we just kind of came up with it! I just loved the name Holly! When I was about 7 months pregnant we went on a mini-vacation trip to Pigeon Forge. While we were down there I found some bears that had names embroidered on their dresses. I bought Anna one and picked out the one that said Holly and bought it too! So I guess that is when we sealed the deal :D The Peyton just came out of nowhere really. Just a name we both loved. She loves her name too!

Holly means - "Plant with Red Berries!" Ha!

The greatest part about their names is that they are both written in God's - Lamb's Book of Life!!!

Anna was saved 4/27/10 and Holly on 9/17/10!!!