Kaylen's Baptism

Kaylen was baptized on March 11, 2012. She accepted the Lord about a month or two earlier during Sunday School with her small group leader, Brooke. They children's service did communion and explained what it meant and that we needed to ask the Lord to come into our hearts. Kaylen said she wanted to pray. Ms. Brooke asked her if she wanted to talk it over with her parents first and she said yes and went back to her seat. Then a few seconds later she decided she couldn't wait and wanted to pray right now. I am so proud of her! She has a real understanding of what this important decision means and I look forward to see what God plans to do with her precious life!!!!

She was excited for days beforehand. She kept telling me she wished it was Sunday at 4 o'clock. During the praise and worship portion of the service she hung out with her best buds, Rylie and Andrew. Here she is right before the service started.
She was squeezing me so tight, I could barely breathe! This girl was sooo excited!!!
Kaylen takes good care of her brother and he adores her. They are great friends and play perfectly together. I really enjoy listening to their conversations. She sought him out to give him a hug before things got started.

Tripp was great through out the service. I expected him to have a tough time since it was so long and Kaylen was last. He far exceeded my expectations!!! And isn't he so handsome in his church clothes?!?!
Here are my three favorite people on the planet!!! Not sure why we can never get Tripp to smile on camera... he really does smile all the time!
And it's her turn. I couldn't help it, I was so overjoyed that I bawled. She was so cute and small in that big ole baptism. Pastor John had the nicest words about us as youth leaders and what an honor it was to baptize our little girl. It was really a sweet moment and I am so glad God has given me Kaylen and I got to witness this event.
Here she was listening to everything she was being told.

Down we go!!!
And I love this picture. She is new!!! What a statement!! :) Okay, so I am a proud momma... I know. :)
And would you believe the only picture I have from our party is the one of the cake?!!?
We had lots of friends and family at the party. In fact, all grandparents and aunts and uncles were all present. Our community group really came out and supported us. And our closest friends from outside the church. We felt truly loved on from everyone and it was one of the best days of my life. I tell ya, there is nothing better than seeing your babies come to know the Lord on a personal level and make that statement of commitment in front of others. We had all in attendance sign a new bible for her so that she will never forget that we all support her in her walk with the Lord.

We all love you so much, Kaylen!

Hard Work

Okay so this post isn't really going to be interesting to anyone so only read if you feel like boring yourself. I wanted to document my stats so that I will remember where I came from and why I continue to do what I am doing in regards to my health. Many of you know that I had gestational diabetes with Tripp and pre eclampsia with Kaylen. Since then I have decided that I am going to do all that I can to keep from landing myself in the category of type II diabetes or high blood pressure.

Anyway, my work does a yearly screening and I thought my stats were interesting since last year's was right before I started my lifestyle changes.

Here goes:

Date: 2/22/11
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 142
BMI: 22
Glucose: 137
Resting heart rate: 84
Blood Pressure: 118/68
Bone density: 2.1
HDL: 56
LDL: 99
Total Cholesterol: 166
Ratio: 2.9
Triglycerides: 53

Okay after a year of eating right and exercising...

Date: 3/01/12
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 127 (15 lbs. lost)
BMI: 20 (down 2)
Glucose: 91 (drastically different... think that is due to a serious diet change)
Resting heart rate: 72 (lower from running)
Blood Pressure: 110/70 (about the same)
Bone density: 2.6 (even better than last year and both are completely off the charts)
HDL: 78 (went up 22 points... the higher the better!)
LDL: 82 (went down 17 points... the lower the better!)
Total Cholesterol: 170 (4 points higher but this doesn't matter because my ratio improved)
Ratio: 2.2 (went down by 0.7)
Triglycerides: 52 (went down by one but they were fantastic both years. They only have to be below 150)

So we will see what next year brings. I have tried hard to improve my health in the last year and I feel better than I ever have and I have been sick a lot less. Here's to many more good reports! This does help me to know that the little choices I am making daily do help and we all need constant encouragement. It seriously is hard work!

Happy Valentines Day!

I did homemade valentines day cards this year. It was a fun and fairly easy project! I haven't had much free time lately because I have been in project overload. But I managed to get this done just in time! I hope everyone has a great day today!!!




Here is what I have been working on lately. Tripp switched over to bunk beds and that changed the entire color scheme in his room. I had to re do just about everything in there! Here are the curtains I made and the new blinds. Notice his new rug as well! I also put together a wall mounted lamp for under his top bunk so that we could see to read books at night. I embellished it with some nautical knots I looked up online. I will have to put a shot of that up sometime soon!

Kaylen's Kindergarten Favorites

Kaylen is 6!

Kaylen had a great birthday this year. Here she is on the morning of her actual birthday. It was the first day of school. She got to wear a crown all day and Allen and I brought her lunch and cupcakes. Aunt Christy, Mamaw and Tripp all checked her out of school early and went to Chuckie Cheese for a mini party. She got to do the ticket blaster, which she talked about wanting to do for an entire year! We ended the day with a meal at Outback.
On Saturday we had a party at the Matrix. She has a special friend these days. Eric. Oh my! She is smitten. Every day it is something new. He came to her party and she didn't leave his side. She told me yesterday that he told her it was okay if she wanted to get married. The day before he asked her if she had a crush on him. She said yes. He said that was okay with him. She has had this crush for months! Apparently he is a really great kid. He has learned to be a gentleman and hold the door for ladies and let them go first. He also asked his teacher if he could say a pray before the snack time. So I don't want her to like boys yet but I am glad she is learning how she likes to be treated. :)


The next two are an attempt to get a picture of Tripp playing in the foam pit. It was next to impossible!!! He is cute anyway! :)


This first video is me playing at the party too! The matrix is way too much fun!


Here are my sweet little ones jumping too.

Christmas

For some reason I took a major break from blogging so I need to catch up a bit. We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas. My pictures are a little jumbled and all from my phone so you can tell I am not as organized as I once was.

So here goes: This is our trip to Santa's Village. By this time my kids had seen Santa so many times, they were over it. Kaylen wasn't that way so much but Tripp was.

Kaylen was so happy to be there and finally see snow. Bless her heart she thinks it should be snowing like last year. I keep trying to tell her last year was special and that doesn't always happen.
Tripp was wild as always! He had the best time! He kept taking those candy canes off their posts though. But he was all smiles!!!!
Kaylen and Rylie gave each other a little jewelry for Christmas this year. This is the best friends necklace Rylie gave Kaylen. They love to wear stuff and be twinkies. Sweet girls!

Our trip to Gatlinburg was awesome. We stayed an extra day and I think we all really enjoyed the extra time. We went to Wonder Works (the upside down house) and then a magic show that evening. It was all so much fun and there were so many things to do. Kaylen and I rock-climbed and did a high ropes course. That girl is so brave! I was a proud Momma! Tripp was absolutely wild in there and Allen gets the Best Dad of the Day Award for keeping up with him! We also ran into these characters on the strip in downtown Gatlinburg. My kids absolutely love people in costume. Always have!
It is a tradition that Uncle Wayne makes us all breakfast one day and we all sleep in late and laze around until the afternoon. It is such a relaxing day in the midst of all the chaos of the Christmas Season. This year Kaylen helped with the pancakes. She loved it! She felt sooo big!! She flipped them all by herself!
This is the first time we saw Santa this season. And what a great Santa he was! We were walking around at Bridge Street and there he was just hanging out! Tripp wasn't with us so only Kaylen got to see him.
Here are my beautiful babies on Christmas Eve about to walk into church. They were so good during the service. They both went in and enjoyed it with us.

Here is a sneak peak at what Santa brought the kids this year. K got a trampoline and since it was outside Santa sent her on a scavenger hunt. She looooved that! She couldn't believe that Santa had been all over the house and in her room!!!! The kids jumped out there even when they were shivering cold! We had to make them come in!Tripp got a train table. He actually has played with it a lot! You never know if the toys they get are going to be things they will actually enjoy or not. :)
Santa was good to us all this year but we tried to focus our thoughts on giving instead of receiving. I tried to make sure K knew that we give because God gave the ultimate gift by sending his son for us. So this year, Kaylen did a 12 days of Christmas knock-n-run thing for Rylie where she left gifts each day with a little poem about the gift. It was really fun and Rylie caught Kaylen before the end but they kept it a secret. ;)

One day during the break I came in to this. The kids had gotten on my iPad and chosen a song and Tripp was dancing up a storm! So I videoed him without his knowledge. Cracks. Me. Up.

Christmas Photo Shoot

Well, Emily and I got together and took pictures of each other this past weekend so that we could get our Christmas cards out. To say my kids were challenging would be an understatement! I don't want to spoil our cards for anyone who might get one so I am posting a picture of our girls. They are so cute together these days! They play so well together. I think they are both such beautiful little girls!

Tripp

This is such a cute video of Tripp. I love talking to this kid! He is precious.

Go Vols!

We decided on a whim to head on over to good ole Knoxville and catch the Tn/Vandy game. It ended up being a great decision. The game was soo exciting all the way to the last play of the game. We won on an interception that we ran down the field for a touchdown during overtime!

While we were there we picked up a jersey for Tripp. He so wanted to wear it immediately. We made him wait until the next day but look how happy he is to have it on!
Tripp didn't actually get to go to the game. He stayed home and my parents came up and spent the weekend with him. Kaylen, Allen and I, and his parents and Aunt and Uncle all went to the game. It was a night game so we had plenty of time to walk around and take it all in. Kaylen had a blast and is really getting in to the actual event of it all. Last year she didn't really seem to care but this year she kept asking me... "What just happened?" every single time people clapped. Before the game they have this area for kids with inflatables and face painting. You can see her T in this picture. Also while in the bouncy area a little boy asked me if that was my daughter. I told him yes and he said, "Well, she's kinda beautiful." Sweetest thing ever! He was around her age... maybe a year younger.

She looks so old in this picture with her daddy. I am so glad she loves going and cheering on her team! It made the whole day a great memory.
This is about an hour before the game. We got to our seats a bit early. She was so pumped!
On a side note, her other bottom front tooth is very loose. Last night she took a bite of corn on the cob and that really helped things along. We didn't even know it was loose until then.

Also, she told me multiple times that if Eric (a boy in her class that she talks about ALL THE TIME) knew she was wearing that Tennessee sweatshirt he wouldn't like it. He cheers for Alabama. I am wondering why this is important to her... hummmm. sigh. Apparently all the girls think he is funny.
This last video is of Kaylen playing before the game. The girl's got an arm! :)

Halloween

My babies were Minnie and Mickey Mouse this year. There are more pictures of Tripp because he had a program at school and K didn't. But... K dressed up and went to a special event during our Disney trip so her extra photos were earlier. Tripp loved his "guhbes" (gloves).

Here he is walking into his program. Never a smile from that face when he sees the camera!
I couldn't make it but I heard all he did was sit and stare out. No singing but no crying either.
He was sitting by his good friend, Joseph. I am so glad they are in class together!
Here he is trick or treating at school. He is so good to speak up and say, "trick or treat".
Here's my beautiful Minnie! She is so precious right now. The two of them were so sweet together.
And can you believe that is almost a smile from my little Mickey?
He was so good to keep his costume on and carry his own basket. He wanted to do everything by himself.
We went trick or treating with the Bolton's and they were so cute as the firetruck and the fireman.
Here we are at the Willowbrook festival. They had swings this year and my kids loooved them!
All smiles from both of them!
Our token family shot. I try to get at least one each year. It is usually pretty hard to get everyone focused even for a few seconds! You should see the out takes!
My two playing together.
Kaylen loves the bouncy inflatables. She slid down like a champ!
My two bouncing it up. I love Tripp's tail. Too cute.
Here we are eating dinner at around 7:45. We played and collected candy until we were famished and then went and had some chili. It was a great night!