what's new?

well, it has been a while. lots and lots has happened!
started to give updates, but decided to just post pictures...
here are the kids playing limbo. it is their favorite game to play!

davis wearing his 5K fundraiser tshirt and pretending to run. (my battery was dead on the day of the actual event.)
climbing a tree on souteastern seminary's campus. we had a super fun visit with the henkle's in october.
sweet lane.

lane one day at lunch time.
ellen at halloween.
our sweet girl...
i am 21 or 22 weeks along...i can't quite remember. feeling good, but starting to get winded by just walking from one room to the next. we are having a boy! we are super excited!! his name is evan thomas. seems like a long time before he will get here, but i suspect the next few months to go by pretty quickly.

our house is under contract! the picture below is the house that we have signed a contract for. our closing date for both houses is on or around jan. 12. i am thankful that we have time to spend the holidays in our house before we have to start moving! God has been so good to us. i am so thankful.

well, that is it for now. i will try to blog next time when i am in a more chatty mood. :)

joel's birthday was yesterday, but i have no pictures to prove it.

joel turned a year older yesterday, but i can't make too much fun, because i am a year older than he is. i am double old. we celebrated by having a yummy dinner, yummy cake (it is even yummier for breakfast!) and a low key night at home. family wii night! the kids were overjoyed! i didn't take one picture all night. ugh. i thought i would put some pictures up of something fun joel did recently...

we went to a crawdad's game with our friends the ballentines. (for those of you not from hickory, the crawdad's are the minor league baseball team in our town. it took us a while to get used to the name crawdad, especially since i have never even seen a crawdad around these parts and you know, that they call it a crawDAD.) it was a really fun time! davis got to chase the crawdad across the field, and joel and andrew got to dress up like a big hamburger.

they had to race to build a hamburger. joel is the bun on the ground. andrew had to run back and forth and put the burger, lettuce, pickle, etc. on top of joel and then jump on to complete the burger in the end.
they lost to some teenagers. it was super close in the end. but it was really funny to watch. (at least i thought so.) :)
just one of the reasons why baseball is america's favorite pasttime.

and just one of the reasons why i love joel. happy birthday a day late to my very favorite hamburger bun. love you.

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