Suprise!

In April, Russ and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, but June 29th marked our 7th anniversary of when we were sealed together in the temple. My sweet in-laws invited us to have dinner with them to celebrate, but when we pulled into the driveway...we saw many cars and trucks that took a moment for us to recognize. The dinner turned out to be a big suprise party for us!! It was so sweet and lots of fun...not to mention yummy!!! My sis-in-law Tara made this gorgeous cake in likeness of the Nashville Temple...isn't she talented?!?! Thank you all for your friendship, support and love. We are truly blessed!!

PS-For more information on temples, please click here or here.

I just had to show you my cute nephews, Garret & Michael.

As you can see, all Michael wants for summer is his 2 front teeth!

Summer fun

We were fortunate to be able to have a special visitor for a week or so. Katie Baxter (aka Sister Baxter) served part of her mission here in LaFollette 3 years ago and was just one of those people who instantly becomes your friend. I truly enjoyed the time I spent with her and Sister Shearer while we were out visiting investigators. This time, we got to spend time together exploring East Tennessee. We...okay...I got us lost one day and we ended up in Pigeon Forge...which was totally fun!! We spent a couple of days in downtown Knoxville where we visited this neat memorial to all the fallen soldiers from E-TN, got virtigo at the top of the Sun Sphere and acted like totally, cheesy tourists on UT campus! :~) She also joined us for a fun-filled day at the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. Come back anytime, Katie. The girls already miss you!!

Happy Birthday Brooky!

I asked Brooklynn what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday and she said "Cheesecake" so I made a real cheesecake but also made this cheese-cake. It's supposed to be a cheese-wheel with a slice set on top with 2 little mice playing around on it. At home it looked pretty good, but by the time we got to great-grandma's house, the icing started to melt and...well...let's just say that it tasted better than it looks. Oh well! At least I tried. :)

The party was alot of fun, but we did have one minor tragedy...Izzy and Michael where walking around Great-Grandma's house when they happened to pass by a hornet nest. Apparently the hornets were NOT happy about this. Michael ran over to us and allerted us to what was happening...I ran around to the side of the house where, to my horror, I saw my baby screaming in pain and holding her face while hornets swarmed around her! I ran over to her and yanked her off the stairs by her clothing and ran her inside. Let me tell you...it was a major adrenaline rush! Luckily, she was only stung one time on her left cheek. You can see from the picture that her little face and eye began to swell up. Papa drove to Walgreens and got some childrens Benedryl just to be safe. Within the hour she was happy and helping open birthday presents, so all was well! It's so cute to hear her tell the story of what happened. She says "Bee...bzzzzzzzzz...Izzy face...boo-boo...cry".

Kindergarten Graduation

Brooklynn graduated from kindergarten on Tuesday and we were all so proud...

...especially Izzy!

Valley View Elementary. Go Bob Cats!!

Year End Luau!

The day before graduation, Brooklynn's class held a LUAU to celebrate all the summer birthdays. It was alot of fun! They played games, ate yummy food, ran around and danced. Brooklynn was totally getting her GROOVE on and making us laugh and laugh.

How low can you go?

Petting Zoo Field-Trip

The last full week of school, the kindergarten classes took a field-trip to "Little Ponderosa" petting zoo. Brooklynn begged to have her first bus ride with the rest of the kids so Russ, Izzy and I followed behind in our car. At the end of the day when we got home, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was...the horse ride?...feeding the goats?...petting the huge snake?...the silly monkey?...Nope! "My favorite part was riding the bus!" Mmmmm...maybe I'll skip the aquarium for her birthday and just take her on a bus ride downtown for alot less money.

Whatcha think?

Izzy, Haleigh & Brooklynn.

Izzy was in ANIMAL HEAVEN! She is such a lover of animals...too much, actually. She tends to get a little over-excited at times and gets a little too rough with them. Needless to say, we always have to stay real close to her whenever she's around any kind of creatures.

Brooklynn kicks b***!!

Broklynn loves Taebo...I mean LOVES Taebo! She does it almost everyday. The other day she came to me and lifted her shirt up and patted her forcefully protruding tummy and said "I'm starting to get a big belly...I better go do my exercises". I've been trying to workout every day during the week, so watching her helps keep me motivated. She does all the moves and seriously works up quite a sweat! Her birthday is next month so maybe I should get her a punching bag. What do ya think? :~)

Happy Easter

Here are my 2 precious Easter girls! I had to bribe Brooklynn with Easter candy to get her to let me curl her hair...and it's not for the reasons you'd think...not because she doesn't like to get her hair done...but because she then worries about it getting "messed up" all day long!! She gently touches her curls all day and asks if her "curls are still there". She even plays softer at recess so they wont get messy. Can we say "high maintenance"?

They had so much fun discovering new hiding places that the Easter Bunny used this year compared to last year. Everytime Brooklynn would find an egg or a treat she would say something like, "Oh! I just can't believe it! This is the luckiest day of my life!" Truly we are BLESSED!

The next day I stuck my foot in my mouth when I asked the neighbor kids if the Easter Bunny came and visited them...to which the oldest replied "No. Why? Did he come to your house?!" There are 4 boys in their house and they are WILD & ROWDY so I figured maybe the Easter Bunny "skipped" them this year due to bad behavior...but then the oldest boy told me that the Easter Bunny has NEVER visited them...even when they "were little babies and were good!" I felt horrible for even bringing it up!!! After that, Brooklynn and I went through the girl's candy and picked out some treats along with a new box of sidewalk-chalk that we wanted to give them for Easter. It made Brooklynn's day to be able to give them presents and I could tell it made the boys' day, too.


Saturday morning we had breakfast and an egg-hunt at church. This was the first year we attempted to combine the egg-hunt with a branch-social and it went very well. The adults & kids really enjoyed themselves.

After the social/egg-hunt at church, we headed to Oak Ridge for a Easter party with Great-Grandpa Williams. Buster's brother, Russell, came along with his wife, most of their kids and grandkids. It was soooo nice to get together with the "Williams Clan". Especially since we don't get together nearly enough!! Thank you "Pa-Pa Wei-Wei" for being such a sweet and loving patriarch!!

Happy 10th Anniversary!

On April 3rd, Russ and I celebrated our 10th anniversary by spending a couple of days alone in a cabin in the Smokey Mountains. We chopped down branches to use as firewood in our fireplace, we caught fish in a nearby stream and cooked them for dinner and went on a 5 mile hike to the top of the mountain. Aaah! It was great to get back to the basics!

YEAH, RIGHT!!! Can you see me "roughing it" in the woods by choice??!! The cabin part was true, but this cabin had leather couches, jacuzzi tub, pool table, hot-tub on the deck with spectacular views and it even had it's own private, heated pool in the basement!! Now that's what I'm talking about!!! Russ and I almost never do anything for our anniversary or Valentines Day or anything like that...maybe dinner and, if I'm lucky, a movie. So I decided last September to plan us a little weekend get-away. It was alot of fun! Although, just as I suspected, we missed the girls tremendously and were thinking about them almost the whole time. We've decided that we HAVE to go back some day and bring the kids. Having their own pool with their own pool-hours would just be too much fun!!! We decided to save our money so we didnt go see any of the umpteen shows in town and we didnt eat anywhere fancy...we just enjoyed each other's company and swam to our hearts delight.

Truly, I am so very blessed to be married to my best friend! He has made all my little girls dreams come true. I know that sounds cheesey...but it really is true. All the important things I dreamed about when I was a little girl are mine because he is in my life and because he is the GOOD MAN that he is.

*Is he a goof-ball? Yes.

*Do his burps make the windows rattle? Sometimes.

But he makes me laugh and he loves me in spite of my many imperfections. Nobody's perfect...but he's PERFECT for me!!!

Love you Babe!

That's right!! I didn't make the bed!! And...do I feel sorry about it?? DO I??!! Not a bit!!!

Just plain cute!!

This is Brooklynn and Isabelle's idea of "helping" me make cupcakes. They weren't much help, but they are always good entertainment!!