my birthday

for my birthday, joel and the boys surprised me with a trip to the mountains. we ate at a restaurant with a beautiful view...we put the camera on the hood of the van and were surprised that this picture came out so well!

then we went to the park in blowing rock.

ellen was really cracking up going down the slide! she loved it!

my cuties!

monkeys.

then for yummy kilwin's ice cream. joel and the kids...

me and the kids...

ellen drinking my milkshake.

just having fun, taking pictures. my kids acting crazy. it's what we do best!

ellen still drinking my milkshake...

i had a great birthday!! the next night joel and i got to go to dinner with our sweet friends. and later, i got to have breakfast with my friend debbie. it was a nice birthday week! (isn't that how i should do it stacey? celebrate my birthday week? :) )

lane's birthday part 2

after we went to tweetsie for lane's birthday, we went to mcdonald's for dinner (the birthday boy's choice, of course) and then back home for a 'party'. the simmons came over to have cake with us. i did not make this one!

birthday boy!

us singing and lane licking his lips.

ready to blow out the candles.

the morning after his birthday, joel took lane fishing in the kayak. they had a great time! lane caught two fish!! :)

lane's birthday part one

we've had 3 birthdays in the last couple of weeks! lane's was first, and instead of a party, we spent the day as a family and went to tweetsie railroad. it is a small theme-park type place in the mountains- perfect for little ones. yay! lane is three!!lane and daddy in jail.

the silly things we will do to encourage our children to do silly things...

they loved the gift shops!

ellen having a great time!!

by the steam engine.

getting ready to ride the train!!

here we go...

the have a place to do "gem mining". they loved it!

lane showing you a rock, er, gem.

collecting our gems to take home.

riding the rides.

flying an airplane.

lane loved these rides. it wasn't too long ago that he would have refused to do this. he is getting so big!

we had a great time at tweetsie! the boys are already asking to go back!

another family update

our family update

we have had a fun couple of months. father's day was fun. my parents came for a quick visit. we enjoyed the fourth. then we were sick for like 4 weeks with a few different viruses and passed things back and forth. went to see a 33 miles concert in asheville. played in the pool in the back yard. fun.

davis asked if we could take a picture of our family the other day. it wasn't half bad... (by the way, davis is twirling my hair, this is not the cool new nc style)

the fourth of july. downtown near the farmer's market. having a tea party with ellen.
grooving to the beach boys (or beach brothers, as davis likes to call them) lane always plays the bass.

davis is all about safety while paddling the canoe. in our front yard.

enoying daddy's new toy. (we usually don't make a habit of playing in boats on dry ground, but i am just not going to explain why it seems to be the theme here.)

playing army.

crazy man jumping into the 'pool'.

so, here is what has been going on with our firstborn.

. my mom got him some nerf flip-flops during her last visit. davis calls them his "narfs." he hasn't quite mastered running in flip flops, even though he has a couple of pairs. one sunday, they flew off twice while running back to his seat after the 'children's minute' at church.

. he has started to help me "babysit" lane and ellen. he really is a big help with them!

. he is really quite the little artist. he loves to draw and write and is good at it.

. he is anxiously awating starting school.

. has become a fan of atlanta for several reasons. 1-we went to the georgia aquarium last year. 2-some teenager friends of his just got back from a mission trip in atlanta. 3- the 1,002 things that aunt and dee dee brought him from the georgia welcome center. thanks for that, aunt and dee dee. anyway, he often speaks fondly of atlanta. it's funny.

lane. again with the canoe in the grass...

when i was taking a picture, i told them to say cheese. he said "wait!" and ran to the grocery cart and grabbed the plastic cheese slice and held it up. "cheese!"

new haircut. (sniff. no more curls.)

so, lane

. is getting better around people. he no longer shouts "i don't need you!!" to strangers when they approach him. boy am i glad about that one.

. is hilarious. constantly doing funny things or saying things in a funny way to crack us up.

. wants to be just like davis. just the other day, davis got up from his bed at 'rest time' and said "my tummy hurts, mom." 30 seconds later, lane got up and said the same thing. davis said "your tummy does not hurt, lane." with out missing a beat, lane said "my face hurts, mom."

. doesn't really like change. it takes him a while to get glad about things. he is his mother's child. (with this and the shouting at strangers.)

. finally will eat peanut butter!

our little pirate. she already loves to dress up. too bad her choices are pirate, batman, sherrif or a clone trooper.

putting sunglasses on...

ellen ...

. is allergic to any type of penecillin. that was fun to discover. thankfully it was after the pink eye and ear infections and before the terrible cold that lasted 2 more weeks. this place has been an infirmary.

. loves loves shoes.

. when she is caught with something she shouldn't have, like my cell phone. i say "ellen!" and she throws said item and runs the other direction.

. loves to spoil her brother's hide and seek spots (and mine to.)

. is a flirt.

father's day... we went for a hike at riverbend park. it was so fun!

joel got a kayak. a new kayak and being married for 10 years to me? he is the happiest man alive! :) he has enjoyed taking the boys out in the kayak ON THE WATER. he is a cool dad like that.

me and the boys on our hike.

flowers from my boyfriend on our anniversary. i got in some people all confused once for calling joel my boyfriend. some high school kids from the christian school i worked at overheard me and the whispering started. ("i thought she was married!?" it really wasn't as scandalous as all that, but it makes for a good story. well, now that i have typed it, i'm not sure that it does. oh, well.) i loved my flowers from my sweet, thoughtful husband.

so, this past month or so i have been in a slump. no reason to try to type why. i don't even know if i know why. i am really seeking the Lord about what He would have me do about some things. and i am trying to be mindful of why i do anything these days. what are my motivations behind doing facebook? reading blogs? sometimes this over thinking is good for me and sometimes i end up in a bad place with all of it. enjoying the fact, even though it is hard, that the Lord is really the only one i can dump all of this junk on.

what's that? you are really curious about how i have done on my new years resolutions? well, let me tell you! in lew of writing big explainations about each one i am just going to give myself a grade. it is nice to use this blog as accountability, even if you didn't sign up for that- ha.

1. less tv = A- the minus because i still miss it sometimes, but am better off w/o it.

2. spend less = A trying to do well here.

3. eat less = B+ do great as long as there is nothing yummy to eat around here. :)

4. exercise more = B took some time off during our month of sickness and then it turned into 2 months off. oh, maybe this should be a C.

5. get in the Word = D- (this one makes me sad, but gotta be honest with you, pretend accountablity partner.) joel and i are going to be starting a book study that will really help with this. i am excited and thankful that joel wants to do this with me.

6. engage more as a parent = C-. this one has had it's ups and downs. i think lately i am on a down.

7. read more = D or B. i haven't read much at home, but i read a lot on vacation. i am giving myself some slack here. i enjoy reading when i actually have the time to read.

8. declutter our house = B we are on our way to having the whole house done! feels great.

9. shut up more, listen more = B i am really trying to work on this one. before i meet with a friend, i really pray through this one. lame, to be sure, but i am such a verbal processor, i tend to dominate conversations naturally. feel like i am getting better about this.

so there you go blog reader and friend. have a happy day. :)

maybe this is how i'll pay for christmas

well, maybe not. :) i signed up on swagbucks. it is a search engine (like google or yahoo search) and every time you search for something, you have a chance to win a "swagbuck." after using it for about 3 weeks or so, i have accumulated 48 swagbucks. you can redeem these points to get gift cards or electronics and on and on, but i am thinking that some amazon.com gift cards or starbucks gift cards every once in a while would be nice. you get more points if someone signs up under your account- so, if you choose to sign up under my account, everytime you win a swagbuck, i win a swagbuck (up to 100) which is where it's at, if you ask me. :) if this sounds like something you would want to do, don't hesitate to ask me about it. it has been pretty easy. you can put a toolbar on your internet explorer or make it your homepage or whatever. it has been pretty fun- and it's just a little something to get excited about while searching around on the computer for the perfect lunchbag for your soon to be kindergartener. (or whatever it is that you search for.) so, here there is a little widget doodad on the side here and you can click it to get going. or here is a link with my referral link whatchamacallit. (aren't my computer skills so impressive?) http://swagbucks.com/refer/angiesparker

another observation about my girl...

sorry for the lack of posting. is anyone even reading this? i have been way too busy grumbling at my laundry, trying to find the end of the internet (that is what joel always asks me when i am wasting time on the computer- "you find the end of the internet yet?" sometimes it feels like i have, unfortunately. anyway, back to what has been keeping me from blogging. um, some sort of eye infection rendered me utterly contact-less, and this is only a huge deal because i am so blind and don't enjoy glasses, um, sick kids and cleaning my room, you know the kind of cleaning where you are fed up and decide to pull everything out and reorganize and then two weeks later you can finally walk across the bedroom floor without tripping. (the same room that was so super clean that your children decided that it needed no less than one thousand toys strewn across it to make it feel more like home again, and said toys and children that made me more than a little berserk once realizing the situation) so there are a couple of the reasons. please forgive. okay, i forgive. no! i forgive! no! i forgive! (oh, sorry, i got a little confused. this is what apology sessions look like around my house. not between me and joel, have you, but between a certain 5 year old and almost 3 year old.)

so, the reason i posted... a cute little example of how i find ellen much different than my boys. the dishwasher. my boys loved the dishwasher, to be sure. but more in a climb in it kind of way, or a how many things can i throw on the floor kind of way, or can i pull this whole rack off of it's track so that i can fit in here a little better kind of way.


ellen likes the dishwasher so that she can help me set the table. lately, she has been taking silverware out of the dishwasher and putting it on the chairs at the table. isn't that the cutest? my boys never did this. (and, yes, mom, this means ellen was walking around carrying a fork. don't worry, she was supervised :) )

well, today while she was doing this, she stopped to be sure that this little pile of cars had a fork, too. awww. she didn't want filmore, sally and mario andretti to be left out.

she is such the little hostess.

so, coming soon... an update on each member of our family and we will see if i have kept any of my new year's resolutions. it will be riveting!!