Halloween

Looking back on Halloween...... The kids had a blast. The week of halloween we carved pumpkins. Reese just wanted to paint hers-she did not want to cut her pumpkin. We took our pirate and bumblebee over to a family's house (along with 40 other people)

and had a delicious soup supper then loaded up in the trailer and hit the neighborhood trick or treating.

MA's big fundraiser was this past weekend-it was a success. So many people put SO MUCH time and effort into the event. What a blessing it is to have worked on the fundraiser with so many who sacrifice their time.

Praying for Reese to feel better-she's a little feverish......oh the fun of being sick......

Fall Break & October

Just before Fall Break we celebrated Grandparents Day-it's a BIG day at the kid's school. So glad Papaw and Jo were able to come. The first 2 days of fall break were spent organizing and cleaning out the house/garage-much needed after the move. Mid week, we went to Arkansas to visit family and celebrate my Dad's birthday. Our last adventure for the week was a 1 day trip to Chattanooga to the Children's Musuem with Matthew's family. The kids had a blast together!


















Pictures: Grandparents Day, GG and Reese at Chick fil A (GG is a mere 92 years old-doesn't she look GREAT?!) the crew at the Children's museum, Reese and her 2 favorite books-read them every night!

September

I'll catch up a little

bit from August and September...... School has started and both Drew and Reese LOVE school and their teachers. The 1st major event of August-we moved! We love our new house and are blessed to have lots of friends in the neighborhood and kids to play with. Reese celebrated her 3rd birthday and got a Princess jeep. After taking out a friend's toe, running into a tree and a couple of other things....she's got the driving thing down. Drew lost his 1st tooth on Sept. 26. The tooth fairy was very gracious and left him $5. Two days later he lost his 2nd tooth and got $2. Love that cute gap in his teeth!

Our Fall Break is over and we've had a great week.......I'll update.....sometime :)

School and Moving!

Last week the kids started back to school. Reese is going part time to school while I sub at the big school. Drew's also started playing flag football, which he LOVES.

We also SOLD our house to some good friends who are moving back from Iceland and we have found a wonderful house to move into. What a blessing our little house has been to us and we can't wait to visit Sy and Dasha when they are here.

I've been busy buying old furniture and re-doing it. I have done Drew's headboard, Reese's headboard, 2 chairs, and a side table. Definately a "trash to treasure" experience. (However, I am very sore and tired from sanding..........)

It was also Andy's birthday this week. He does not like to make a big deal for birthdays. But me, I love to celebrate. Our small group at church had dinner at a friend's that night-she blew up Andy's high school basketball picture and had it displayed in the foyer. SO FUNNY- another friend added some funny comments too. He was very surprised. Brian also gave him one of those lights you wear on your head......so he doesn't run into any more brick walls in the dark at the gym and have to make another ER visit.

You know the Lone Star song " ......my blond hair, blue eyed girl with her shoes on wrong.....from my front porch looking in....." That's Reese-nver has her shoes on the right feet. Enjoy the pics!

Congratulations Coach Meyer

Did anyone watch the ESPN ESPY Awards a few days ago? Coach Don Meyer, who Andy played for at Lipscomb, was awarded the 2009 Jimmy V Award. He also has set the record for the most wins by any college coach. He has an amazing story with what's he's gone through and is going through-I've linked the video on You Tube. It's definately worth taking a few minutes to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGSCalTjpU

Summer

We are just having so much fun this summer that I have not been updating my blog. Summer started with Andy going on a mission trip to Ghana, Africa. They worked at an orphange with 48 precious kids that live in a 3 bedroom house-bunk beds are 3 high for the kids. Very happy kids and always gratful for the visits from others.

We went to the beach with Andy's family-that's a total of 17 people, 7 of which are kids 5 and under, in one big happy beach house. It was great-so neat to see the cousins together! Reese was not happy on picture night as you can tell....

July 4 was spent with friends cooking out and enjoying their neighborhood bike parade, desserts, and fireworks.

Also that week I officailly turned 30 something-31 and Drew had his fun 6th birthday party. He had a fabulous skating party-that's the cool thing in his class right now. Even Reese can skate on her Barbie skates. Shortly after the candles were blown out, my camera took a nose dive off the table. I got a new one that I'm still trying to get used to.

Other than that, we've that we have spent our free time at the pool, traveling

to visit family, VBS, work..... School starts in just 2 weeks-wow. Also, we are house hunting in town-looking for the perfect deal with some more space!

Graduation

Sigh.......Our baby graduated from Kindergarten. WOW.......... Drew' school does a big and wonderful Graduation Cermony-real caps, gowns, the whole real deal!! After Graduation we celebrated in Kindergarten style-lunch at Red Robin with his buddies from class and playing in the water spouts at Bridge Street. He also got a DS and a game. A perfect day in the life of a 5 year old.

Saturday, we spent the day with my parents, Amanda's family, and Cory and his family, moving their stuff to storage and grilling out. The rest of the weekend we went to the high school graduation and ended the holiday with a trip to the lake with lots of friends from MA. I survived the tubing-only thrown off twice. (great efforts were made to throw off us "big girls" in front of the high schoolers!)

April 2009

Below-Kerron, one of Andy's players was named Mr. Basketball for the State-That evening we went to dinner with his family to celebrate. HUGE Accomplishment! We are blessed that Andy's players let our kids "hang out" with them. They love the "basketball boys" as Reese calls them. Look for him at Belmont on the court next year.

Easter Sunday-We had a great time of worship with our church family then joined our "adoptive" family for Easter lunch and the "Great Egg Hunt" We have some dear friends that we spend holidays with when we don't get to travel to see our families. This year the Easter bunny brought roller skates. Luckliy, no broken bones yet!

Drew is playing soccer this spring and loving it. Last week we had a warm day and Drew broke in his new swim suit at the water spouts at an outdoor mall we were at. Reese passed, it was a little too cold for her.

Saturday we traveled to Pops and BarBar and spent time with 2 of our cousins. The girls are 8 weeks apart and had lots of fun together (except for the few "girl fights" over sharing....:) )

Life

Receiving the 2nd place trophy at State Tournament

Coach Drew and Cheerleader Reese

Mom and Drew after the Fun Run-Drew ran 35 laps-he had a blast!

Our good friend Dasha who was back here visiting from Iceland. We hosted a baby shower for her.

Reese and I went to Build a Bear and she made "Monkey." Monkey is dressed in a Little Mermaid outfit. Monkey goes everywhere with us.

Blogger Slacker, I know....

Basketball has officially ended. Andy's team made it to the State Finals. The past 2 years he's coached, they've won State. This year, they came up 8 points short. But, what a great team we had and we couldn't be prouder of them. Our girls team also made it to the finals and they lost a heartbreaker. Last week we spent the week w/Andy in B-ham-the kids thought it was vacation for them. What more could you want than an indoor pool, the entire girls and boys basketball teams just few doors down, and no set bed time. As we came home I heard several times, let's go hotel, not home...

Drew started soccer this week and we will soon start to attack the "to do" list that was avoided during the season. I think Andy is still looking for excuses to avoid it.... Spring is coming-warm weather and flip flops-yes!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Cousin Stephanie and I.

Papaw and Jo with the kids (and Christmas pj's-a tradition)

Our family Christmas morning in Arkansas

Reese and cousin Allie

The family in Tennessee at Pops and Barbar's.

Visit w/Santa at Santa's Village. Reese is scared of Santa, so this is our Santa pic 2008. Lovely, huh?! (our power at the house had gone out so we quickly decided it was a Santa's Village night and loaded up and went to Santa's village. No cute christmas outfits!)

Decorating the Gingerbread House. I'm loving these pre made kits!

Merry Christmas to you! We had a wonderful Christmas and were able to travel to both Tennessee and Arkansas and see lots of family-what a blessing!

In Tennessee we spent time with Andy's family-7 grandkids in one house means lots of Christmas craziness! We had a blast. Barbar pulled out some of Andy, Matthew, Michael, and Amy's old toys-Star Wars men and ships and carebears. The kids loved them.

Then we were off to Arkansas to celebrate with my family. We were able to see all our cousins and family from SC, GA, and FL. My parents showered the kiddos with gifts-they loved it. My brother and his wife have a 2 month old baby-Reese loved "taking care" of her.

Santa brought Drew a wii (which we all are enjoying!), skateboard, and 2 wheel scooter. (Visions of scrapes and ouchies are dancing in my head!) Reese loves princesses and Santa delivered- she got a 3 wheel scooter and a set of 7 Disney princesses-she loves them!

After a delicious Christmas meal at my 91 yr. old Grandma's we opened lots of great gifts then hopped in the car and drove home. We were up and at 'em early the next day with the team over at the house at 7am and a game at 9am. Our guys played great-the won the first game and lost to Butler HS by 2-Butler's ranked #29 in the country by ESPN-we were so close to a win! Andy's team is having a really good year and they are fun to be with.

Most of all we enjoyed the chill time with family-it's nice to slow down. It was great to spend time catching up with family that we haven't seen is a while. Lots of fun memories!

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season and make sure you watch lots of football and basketball!

Rewind

Here's what's been going on with us...the pictures are from most recent to past pictures..... Drew has started playing basketball-he LOVES it. He's #1 in the picture. He's hilarious-he acts like he's a high school player on the court-yelling plays, pointing, pressure defense....you can tell he's grown up on the court. In the next picturue Drew is hanging out with the reindeer at Santa's Village on his field trip. It was a COLD day!

Reese loves playing dress up-everything was pulled out of her dress up box and she's inside of the box!

MVP of the basketball tournament-she took these from one of the girls.

Drew has resumed his coaching spot on the bench with Dad

I'll put some Christmas pictures up soon....

Opportunity to help someone

I have a quick prayer request/ opportunity to help with you....Just a few minutes ago I talked with a life long friend, Brittney (Barber) Cornwell. Some of you know them, some of you do not. They have have been on a tough road over the last few years, but are remaining faithful that God will provide.

Brittney and her husband Tim have 2 sons: Cooper who just turned 5 and Christian who is 1 1/2. Cooper was born with a cleft lip and cleft pallette. And about 1 1/2 years ago was diagnosed with Autism. Last year, Brittney and Tim moved their family to Tampa, FL for Cooper to attend a special school for Cooper. Tim is working two jobs to make ends meet. On Tuesday, Cooper will be having some much needed specialized tests done to help with further diagnosis. Unfortunately, it's not covered by insurance.

Making ends meet month by month is a big struggle for them right now-Cooper's school and diet are very expensive. They are taking a leap of faith that some way, some how the money to pay their rent and make it through this month will come in the next week.

I know with the economy so slow, times are tough for many. My question to each of you is to:
1. Pray for them-especially Brittney as she has been "the rock" over this past year and she is growing weary.
2. Can you help them in any way financially? ANY amount will help them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and pray for Tim, Brittney, Cooper, and Chritian Cornwell. If you feel led to do this, please write your check today and put it in the mail tomorrow morning. What a blessing it would be for their mailbox to overflow with encouragement and financial blessings.

Their address is listed below if you are able to send them anything and there's also a link to their website.

Tim and Brittney Cornwell
10129 Haverhill Ridge Dr.
Riverview, FL 33578

http://coopercornwell.com/

Happy Halloween

First, let me start by congratulating Andy for surviving me being gone for 4 days on a trip for work. I work part time with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. We had a training camp in Kansas City where the FCA home office is. This is a picture of me and the girls I work with on the porch overlook ing Arrowhead Stadium-Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals Stadium . We had a great time but we were glad to get home to our family!

Andy managed to juggle Reese and Drew in the midst of lots of stuff going on. Drew even got to spend the night with a friend on a school night (big deal for a kindergartener) One morning Andy had practice at 5:45am...Reese joined him there and they didn't get home till 11pm after the volleyball state tournament-what a day it was for them! I made it home and everyone was still in one piece.

Happy Halloween from the Cowboy's! We trick or treated with friends in their neighborhood then went to a Halloween party at a friend's house. We roasted marshmallows, bobbed for apples, and played games-what a fun night! (Drew is making his "cowboy face" in the pics.)