By Faith, Hope and Grace

To work or not to work!

2009-07-23T08:57:00.004-04:00

We decided to clean the back porch and plant some new plants around the screen porch recently. Well Abbie was all about getting down and dirty!

Grace on the other hand enjoyed laying on the couch in the Air condition!

Dressing Up!

2009-06-24T08:03:00.003-04:00

The girls are all about getting dressed up and doing each other's hair and makeup these days. Here are a few pictures of them after they got all done up for "Gracie's Wedding!"

Bike Ride

2009-05-06T08:59:00.006-04:00

This past Saturday we decided to go for a family

bike ride at Flatwoods in New Tampa.

We had such a great time and the girls both biked 6 miles!!!

Abbie didn't understand that what ever she biked one direction she had to turn around and bike back, so she was a little upset when we turned around at the 3 mile marker. I was glad we did because after 5 miles she was ready to give up and have someone carry her. The problem with that is when everyone is on bikes you can't carry her and her bike, so we encouraged her and went slow that last mile and she did it! She biked all 6 miles!

Gracie on the other hand had no problem biking the 6 miles she loved it and beat us all back to the car! Her and Papa had fun racing one another.

Here are some pictures from our fun day.

Getting Ready to go!

Can't forget the Helmets!

Abbie is so excited!

Half way mark! Ready to turn back.

Taking a pit stop!

Do we have to turn back?

Family photo!

My Little girl is all grown up!

2009-04-28T08:46:00.006-04:00

I can't believe that Gracie turned 7 this Past Sunday.
It seems like just yesterday Stephen was rushing me to the hospital to have her.

Where has all the time gone.

She has grown up into such a precious little girl.

Here are a few pictures of her over the years!

(I only have digital pictures on the computer since '03

so she is 18 months when they start)

Yes Gracie use to have curly hair.

I have always wondered if we cut it will the curl come back!

So excited that she was about to be a big sister!

Her first time meeting Abbie! (She is 29 months here)

3 1/2 years old!

Trip to Disney World!

4 1/2 years old! She has lost her baby look!

5 years old and still loving her Sister!

6 years old and looking all grown up!

Her 7th Birthday! Boy has she grown up!

Moyster the Oyster

2009-04-19T18:21:00.005-04:00

Yesterday we went to the beach for a fun family day. While we were there Abbie found herself a friend! An Oyster stuck to a large shell. As most of you know abbie loves animals so for 3 hours her and Moyster hung out. She named him Moyster, because she thought that was what we were calling it when we said Oyster.

She washed him, let him sit in the sun to sun bath and played with him in the sand. She had so much fun with her new little friend. She even brought him home in a water bottle.

She was so cute playing and talking with him! I couldn't believe she could have so much fun with a little slimy blob, but she did! She told me that she loves animals and when she grows up she wants to be a veterinarian.

By the way we never had the heart to tell her that Moyster was not alive anymore!

Here are a few pictures of Moyster the Oyster and Abbie!

Ever wonder what keeps me busy all day long?

2009-03-30T11:18:00.005-04:00

here they are!

Gracie stays busy most of the day trying to finish up 2nd grade!

Abbie stays busy playing and driving gracie crazy while she is trying to concentrate on school!

Parker and Kenzie keep all of us busy, since they are now crawling and getting into EVERYTHING!

And with twins it seems they never go the same direction or get into the same thing so we all spend the day running a diferent direction!

But would I change my life?

NO WAY!

I love being a stay at home mom and I love watching the twins.

My life is busy, fun and I never know what will happen next!

Rotavirus!!!!

2009-03-17T09:07:00.009-04:00

If you have never had to deal with it

believe me when I tell you

that you don't want to ever have it or be around it.

Last Thursday our life changed very quickly! Abbie woke up and within a few minutes she threw-up. I did not think much of it since she had been coughing a lot so I figured she must had a lot of mucous in her throat that needed to come out. That was of course until 15 min later she did it again. I then became a little worried and started hopping it would be over soon. Well every 15-20min for the next 8 hours she threw-up. I could keep nothing in her and she became very lethargic with a fever of a 102.5. So off to the Urgent walk in clinic we went.

They looked at her and immediately said she was dehydrated, so they put an IV in and started the fluids. She was so out of it that she did not even flinch when they put the IV in her arm. After 700cc of fluid and a shot to stop the vomiting she was asleep and I took her home. We spent all night trying to keep the fever down it was now up to 103.5 and trying to get her to drink, but she was so out of it.

The next morning she woke up and seemed better. She went to the bathroom (first time in 24 hours) and was awake, but once again by mid afternoon she started throwing up and her fever spiked again. I called her Dr. and they said to go to the ER. So off to St. Joe's we went. She was lethargic again and could not sit up. When we got to the children's ER it was packed and I was so scared. She was not doing well and I was afraid we would not get to go back for hours. 1 1/2 hours into our wait things turned for the worse. She started throwing up and having explosive Diarrhea. Thank God that within 2 minutes of all this happening they called us back. They rushed her back and had an IV in her within minutes.

(She was so dehydrated that it took 3 sticks to find a vein)

5 minutes after that the Dr. was in a said they would run blood work so they could see what was going on. So Abbie and I curled up on the bed and that is how we spent the next 4 days. 2 hours of getting into the back of the ER we were sent up to a room in the Children's Hospital. That night they did some more test and she came back positive for Rotavirus!!!

For the next few days we laid in the bed with her hooked to IV's trying to get her to eat and keep her fever under control. She hated being bothered every 2 hours at night and she could never get her arm comfortable.

She was so happy that the let us go home last night. Neither me nor her had left their in 4 days so we were happy to see the outside world again. It is so funny how much you miss your shower and bed when you are stuck in place like that.

Even though she has not thrown up or had a fever since Sunday, She is not out of the woods yet and I still have to keep an eye on her now that she is not on constant IV fluids.

I must make sure she keeps drinking so she does not relapse.

I am so glad that we are over the worse part and hopefully she will be back to normal in the next few days. Here are few pictures of her during her stay in the hospital.

This is Thursday night after the Urgent Care visit! She got a cool purple bandage that she just loved!

Here she is in her hospital bed. She loved changing channels on the remote and moving the bed up and down!

Just laying in bed! That is all she could do!

Trying to get comfortable!

Gracie was reading her all the wonderful cards that friends from church made her!
She felt so special!

Trying to sleep! She is a belly sleeper and with her arm all wrapped up and cords everywhere she could not get comfortable!

This is her yesterday morning looking a lot better. Her hair was so crazy because she had not had a bath in 4 days!

They had taken her off the machine she got a bath

and we were waiting to go home!!!!

I am THIRTY!!!

2009-03-10T09:30:00.001-04:00

Now that I am thirty I decided to look back at my twenties and remember all the things that stood out to me! So here are the things that I can remember about my wonderful twenties:

· I married my wonderful husband Stephen
· Had two wonderful girls
· Got a AA in Early Childhood Education
· Got a BA in Criminal Justice
· Was the North Florida Director of The Princeton Review
· Was a surgery scheduler for a Women’s OR
· Lived in Gainesville FL
· Traveled out of the country for the first time to Jamaica
· Owned 7 new cars
· Was a telemarketer from home
· Bought my first house
· Sold my first house
· Moved to Tampa
· Got my first speeding ticket (57 in a 30)
· Took my first trip to New York
· Saw my first Broadway Play –Beauty and the Beast
· Lost my father-in-law to cancer
· First memorial service and funeral
· I Was pregnant or nursing for 5 straight years
· Wrote and produced 2 Christmas plays
· Organized and raised thousands of dollars for different charities
· Started a new Children’s program at church
· Stared in a commercial
· Sang on the worship team at church
· Was in my first car accident when Stephen hit a deer
· homeschool my girls
· Watch twins
· Been on more antibiotics and had more procedures done to my kidneys and
bladder then I can count
· Burnt down the Kitchen in my Apartment
· Saw and heard an angel (Neat story let me know if you ever want to hear about it)
· Have changed hundreds of diapers
· Had many sleepless nights
· Stood by Stephen’s side as he went through EMT school, Paramedic school,
Police Academy and College
· Racked up $30,000 in loans for a college degree that I don’t use
· Last but not least all the wonderful times I have had with my family and friends!!!

I guess I did a lot in my twenties I can only pray that I have as much fun and excitement in my THIRTIES!!!!

I conserve Water, Do you?

2009-02-28T16:25:00.010-05:00

Here is a copy of the commercial Abbie and I did.

It is going to be playing on normal channels

throughout the day plus it is going to be on

the Season Finale of Grey's Anatomy!

Disney World!

2009-02-25T11:00:00.004-05:00

My mom and nephew wanted to spend there birhtdays this year at Disney world,

so this past sunday all of us got up really early and headed to Orlando.

Here are a few pictures from are fun day!

Here we are at the start of the day! Stephen was in the bathroom so he missed out on the picutre!

The four Cousins~ David(it is his 2nd Birthday), Gracie, Sam and Abbie

It is only lunch time and they are tired all ready!

Honey I shrunk the kids play area was so cool. Abbie though she had really shrunk!

Mom on her 57th birthday with the girls

Our Family! We were waiting in line for Toy Story Mania ride!

It was so awesome well worth the wait!

Me and Summer we look nothing a like!

Abbie’s First Commercial

2009-02-19T09:14:00.004-05:00

Yesterday abbie and me were in our First Commercial! It was very fun and quite interesting on how everything works behind the scenes. I guess you could say it was a bit of an educational experience.

The commercial is about conserving water. I was the neighbor in the commercial who comes in and pulls the mom away from washing the dishes during a party. Abbie being the 4 year old who is all about conserving water sees the water running, drags a stepping stool out of the closet and climbs up and turns the water off. Now we all know that there are not many kids let alone 4 years old who would go through that much trouble to turn off the water but it was very cute.

Abbie had so much fun being the star of the day. Here are a few pictures of her through out her day of stardom.

Abbie Getting her Hair and Make up done!

Lots and Lots of Ringlets!

Getting ready to start! She is so excited!

Dragging her Stool to the sink!

She was to short behind the island so she had to walk across a plank while holding the stool!

She had to balance without looking down! It was very hard for her. By the 40th take she was so tired of carrying the heavy stool on her shoulder.

You are all probably wondering where Grace was during all of this! Well she was not in the commercial but she had lots of fun having her make-up and Hair done over and over again all day. So she definitely felt like a princess!

Happy Birthday to Me . . .

2009-02-17T11:29:00.002-05:00

IN 21 days!

For all of you who have known me forever know that I always start singing Happy Birthday to myself weeks and sometimes months before my birthday. I know you guys always thought I was a dork, but all of you eventually started to sing a long with me!

So in honor of my last 3 weeks of being in my 20's I felt that I should start up my singing count down once again!

So here we go with my song!

Happy birthday to me in 21 days!
Happy birthday to me in 21 days!
Happy birthday to me
Happy 30th birthday to me in 21 days!

Butterfly!!!!

2009-02-04T18:11:00.006-05:00

Well for 7 days now we have been looking at boring Chrysalis that looked like this.

There was nothing exciting about it. All they did was just hang there. Well this evening Gracie was walking by and noticed something different. One of the chrysalis had opened up and we now have our first Butterfly!

So we ran downstairs and got some fresh flowers and sugar water and placed them inside the net. So now we are just waiting for the other 4 to break open and join their friend. I will post some more pictures once they are all out!!

My Little Girl is . . . .

2009-01-25T19:50:00.003-05:00

Growing Up!

Today Gracie decided to get her Ear's Pierced. We always told her that when she was ready she could get her ear's pierced well we were at the mall and I was looking for earrings and after a little convincing. She decided to go through with it. She whimpered while the lady was getting ready, but sat completely still and did not scream at all. Afterwards she let out a little cry because she was in shock and two minutes later you would have never known what had just happened. She is so excited and can't wait till she can put new ones in in 6 weeks. Unfortunately since this was not planned we did not have a camera on us to take while we were there, so here are a few pictures of her from tonight.

The Caterpillars are getting . . .

2009-01-24T09:22:00.002-05:00

Bigger

and Bigger!!!!

Long Awaited Christmas Present!

2009-01-18T17:35:00.004-05:00

I know Christmas ended almost a month ago, but Abbie has been waiting for her present to arrive in the mail and it finally did! You see my sister aka Aunt Summer always gives us really neat Christmas presents. You never quit know what to expect from Summer. I have a kitchen full of every gadget you could imagine. Many we didn’t even know existed, but leave it to summer to find it and buy it. Well this year Abbie got the live butterfly garden from her Aunt Summer. So a few weeks ago we mailed off for the baby caterpillars and they arrived yesterday in a nice little box. Abbie was thrilled and could not believe that she is now the proud owner of 5 baby caterpillars. She caries them everywhere and they even sleep with her. Thank goodness they are sealed in a bottle or she would probably have killed them by now.

So now the wait is on. The caterpillars will stay in the Larvae stage for the next week while they grow bigger. And believe me we have only had them 24 hours and they have already quadrupled in size. Then for the next 7-10 days they will live in their chrysalis and after that out will come 5 beautiful Butterflies.

Here is a pictures so you can see how the Caterpillars started I will update the site with pictures every few days so you can see the wonderful process of a Painted Lady Butterfly

Family Vacation!

2009-01-06T09:10:00.010-05:00

A few months ago Stephen came home from work and said that we needed a vacation. A long awaited family vacation to the mountains. So I agreed and we decided we should leave the day after Christmas for a nice week of relaxation.

So Stephen worked extra hours and I found us a cabin in the mountain. The day after Christmas we were off on our adventure. The girls survived the 8 hour car drive with lots of movies and snacks.

We got there and fell in love with our cute little cabin in Hiawassee GA. The first day was very rainy so we did not go out much. The girls did go out for a few minutes to play with the leaves. You would have thought they had never seen leaves before!

The next day the sun came out and we were on our way to have some fun. Our first stop was Cabbage Patch Land. Where we saw hundreds of Cabbage Patch dolls and how they are born. Abbie even got a Cabbage patch doll named Parker!

We then headed to go put-put golfing in 40 degree weather. We were the only crazy people out there and boy were we cold! We had on a couple of layers, thick jackets and scarves. You could definitely tell we were from Florida!

After that we decided to be even bigger tourist and climb to the highest Mountain in GA. It is Brasstown Bald and it is 4900 feet above Sea level and you can see four states from up there (GA, NC, SC, and TN). Well between a steep hike straight up the mountain and the freezing cold weather I think we were all about to die when we got to the top. But the view was totally worth it!

On the way back to the cabin Abbie got car sick and threw up everywhere so we decided to take it easy the next day and just hang out at the cabin and play wii. (Yes, the girls got a wii for Christmas and we could not possibly leave it at home so it came with us.)

After our fun day of staying in we decided to venture back out and hike 1.2 miles down the side of a mountain to a waterfall. The girls just loved hiking and wanted to keep going. They did not realize that whatever we hiked down we had to hike back up, so we stopped at the 1.2 mile marker and returned 1.2 miles back up the mountain. Boy did they get tired pretty quickly on the way back up. But we made it and had lots of fun as a family.

On our way home on New Year’s Day we made a few stops along the way. The first stop was to the American Girl store where the girls and me where in heaven. They each got a new outfit for their dolls and Gracie’s doll got her Ear’s pierced. After hanging out in the store for an hour and spending way too much money on doll clothes Stephen knew that we are in the wrong line of business.

Our next stop was to Snow Mountain where we finally got to play in the snow. The girls had so much fun. Even though it was man made snow it was 3 feet deep and very cold. We all had fun Building snowmen, throwing snowballs, sledding down the hill, making snow angels and even sitting around drinking hot chocolate.

For six straight days it was nothing but Stephen, me and the girls and we enjoyed every moment of our time together in the mountains. It was a wonderful family vacation with lots of memories. We will never forget watching the girls fall asleep to a roaring fire or watching them climb there first mountain, and build their first snowman. But most importantly we will never forget to stop and enjoy our family and to take time out of the day to just have fun and we will never forget how precious our two little girls are.

Oh Christmas Tree!

2008-12-24T14:07:00.007-05:00

My Mom, the girls, the twins and I all went out looking for a beautiful six foot Alpine Christmas tree last week to put upstairs for the kids to decorate. Well the only tree we could find this late in the season was a 3ft Charlie Brown Tree.

We decided we would take it home and hopefully we could spruce it up with lots of beautiful ornaments. So we got some popcorn and cranberries and off to work we went. Well two adults and four kids later we had our tree.

We had a few mishaps like the twins tried to eat everything and Parker pulled the tree over, but in the end we have a beautiful tree for all the kids to be proud of and enjoy! Above are some pictures of the crazy afternoon!

Noah

2008-12-24T13:52:00.003-05:00

I have always believed that Christmas is about Jesus being born and not about Santa Claus. I grew up always knowing from a very young age that Santa is not real and we get presents because it is baby Jesus' Birthday. I have gone over this with Grace and she completely understands that there was a St. Nick who delivered presents, but we don't focus on him on Christmas but on the birth of Christ. Abbie on the other hand has not questioned yet who this Santa person is so I had not told her yet.

Well a few weeks ago we were walking in a store and Abbie ran up to Santa and was screaming "NOAH, Look Gracie I found Noah" Abbie was so excited that she finally was meeting the old man who built the ark from the bible story she loves.

Well needless to say she now knows all about Santa and that she really has not met Noah.