5th Wedding Anniversary-December 13, 2008

We celebrated 5 years together this past Saturday. We are grateful that Matt's parents were willing to watch the girls so that we could sneak away to Nashville to celebrate. It is nice to get away without the kids from time to time & enjoy just being together.

We went to our favorite bistro P.F. Changs...somewhere we could not take the girls cause they would refuse to eat!! The wonton soup & chow mein are incredible! Saturday we were able to go to the Frist Museum for an exhibit on photography. It was nice to feel cultured ;) First time I have felt intellectual in a long time...LOL! They had a neat spot for children to make their own artwork using different mediums...so of course as with anything we do without taking the girls my mind kept wandering to how much fun it would be to bring the girsl. We ate at our other favorite spot on this day too...RED ROBIN (Yes we need to take the girls back cause they love it too!) Saturday night we got tickets for the Rockettes at the Grand Ole Opry House. I have wanted to go see this show for years now, and it was definitely worth the wait! The living nativity at the end was awesome as well. I am usually not into those type of theatrical productions, but the living nativity had me tearing up. I definitely want to take the kids back next year. Ella loves dance & would get a kick out if that. It was a very nice weekend and a great way to celebrate 5 whole years together.

Here is a look down memory lane by rewinding to our wedding day. It snowed that morning & of course being the nervous bride I freaked out. I called Matt bawling my eyes out screaming, "No one is going to come. Someone is going to have a car wreck getting there...etc. etc." You know the typical bride meltdown. It had been a stressful week with finals and getting everything ready for the big day so I was entitled to one good breakdown. I am proud to report that the evening turned out just fine and no one was injured getting to and from :)

Our wedding was held at South Green St. Church of Christ in Glasgow, KY. I am thinking around 5 pm. I actually wanted the wedding to be at 4:30, but I couldn't figure out the formal way to write that out so I settled on the top of the hour cause I knew how to write that out...yeah I know...I probably could have just Googled it...but was google around then? Okay, yahooed it.

All of these pics were taken by our friend Vanessa! She takes great pics & needs to become a professional someday!

I was so proud of my simple red roses! Exactly the way I wanted them. She even added a bit of shimmer to the petals which made them pop more in pictures.

My bridesmaids & me right before the big moment. LtoR Jeanie, Dana, Amanda, Jennifer, & Jenny.

Matt and his groomsmen. John, Andy, Alex, Greg, & Jason.

I wanted my cake to look like stacked presents, and I was very happy with the way the lady at Sweetheart Bakery made my vision come to life!

Oh what a great day. I just flew by way too fast...as have the last 5 years. If someone would have told me we would have 2 kids by now I would have called them crazy.

Major Backtrack: Mammoth Cave, November 02, 2008

I could have swore I put this link on here of our trip to Mammoth Cave. We met Nanny & Pop-Pop up there to take some pictures of the girls in my favorite Big Sis/Lil Sis tees. Amanda let me borrow her camera so the pics turned out pretty good. After my snap happiness ended we decided to take a short walk on the nature trail. Man am I out of shape! Note to self...lay off the cheeseburger combo at McDonalds & the McCafe Lattes. Oh...and for goodness sake buy a treadmill. In the words of the Barren County Progress, "A good time was had by all."

http://picasaweb.google.com/kabk1213/MammothCaveNovember08#

Opryland Hotel, Nashville TN

We try to make it a yearly tradition to go to Nashville with the Edwards family to see the lights together and just enjoy each others company during the holidays. I know the lights are the same from year to year and braving the madhouse with 4 kids can be challenging...but we still manage to have fun everytime we go!

Addie's reaction to seeing the lights hanging from the ceiling.

Looking more like Christmas around here

The finished product...


The getting it ready...

Ella & Ella Bear posing with her pink Charlie Brown Christmas tree! She loves this tree. The day I brought it home she could not stop jabbering from excitement. She took the ornaments off and on a million times because she enjoyed decorating it so much.

Got our decorations up on Sunday. Ella enjoyed helping decorate the tree! She is getting at a really fun age where she really adds to the excitement of the season around here. We have her Christmas program, dance recital, cookie exchange with close friends, and her school Christmas party next week. I love the Christmas hustle and bustle. Thanksgiving and Christmas are my favorite time of year!!

Merry Christmas to all our family, friends, and online buddies! Matt & I feel very blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people! At the top of that list are our two beautiful girl! They fill our live with joy & excitement...and the occassional stress...but in the words of John Walker, "It's All Good!" We couldn't imagine life without them. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

PS2 Fun

Matt hoooked up the PS2 that we have had forever and the girls love it! I didn't realize that they still sold games for the thing much less childrens games. We got Barbie Island Princess to start with and Ella is doing really good with it. We just need to get a memory card to save the changes everytime we turn the system. It is a pain having to redo everything when you turn the system on again.

Dragon Park, Nashville TN

Dragon Park (that is what we call it) is right up from Vanderbilt and Ella was dying to take me and Addie there after her eye visit. Matt took her there the time before when we weren't with her so she was anxious to share. So we all braved the bitter cold to make Ella happy. Funny how kids are immune to the cold because they never noticed. After we got to go to Chili's...yum!!

We saw our first snow while in Missouri

Ella had a great time making snowballs with Gpa to throw at daddy. I think daddy threw his fair share too. Ella also had fun eating it. Oh well kids will be kids!

Thanksgiving in Missouri

We spent Thanksgiving in Missouri this year. We all had a really good time seeing both sides of Matt's family. We spent Thursday in Mexico with the Hawkins side and Friday & Saturday in Salisbury with the Kunkel side. In between the trip to Salisbury on Friday we squeezed in a little Black Friday shopping in Columbia. Katie and I were in line at Toys R' Us by 4:30 Friday morning. This was my first official 'get up way before the crack of dawn to stand in the line and freeze your booty off' Black Friday experience. I think everyone should do that at least once in their life! Thanks for going with Katie!

The girl's favorite part off the trip was having adjoining rooms with Gma & Gpa in Moberly. Nightly popcorn parties ensued!

We will be making a second trip back shortly for Christmas...gosh can't believe it is already here.

Everybody now...Do the pee pee dance...

Warning: I know potty stories only interest and excite the parents themselves...therefore, if it makes you sick to hear a parent gloating about their child's bodily functions please skip to the next blog post.

With that said...

Addie went pee pee on the potty today!! I am in shock. Ella was 3 before she did the same. Addie is 21 mos. She was gleaming from ear to ear. She thought it was so cool to get up there on the potty like everyone else. She kept saying "Momma, pee pee. Momma, pee pee," the whole time. Then she kept wanting toilet paper to wipe herself. I really didn't expect her to go the first time I put her up there so I was surprised when she did.

I knew she was getting close to trying to potty train, because she can not stand a wet or dirty diaper. On several occasions she has taken changing her diaper into her own hands. In my opinion there is not a sound more frightening than that of the Velcro being ripped open on a fully loaded diaper at the hands of the diaper wearing diva herself. And even more frightening is having said toddler running up to you from across the house carrying in her hands an open poopie diaper. Yeah...try retracing those steps making sure "no poop is left behind." Not my shining moment.

Ella was almost as excited as Addie about the occasion. She said, "Mommy can I hold Addie's hand?" This is something we have to do for her sometimes when she is on the potty. Then she kept saying in her high-pitch squeal, "Addie! This is so exciting. You get to go pee pee on the potty for the very first time! Good job Addie! So proud of you Addie!" Then in typical Ella fashion she picked up her guitar and wrote Addie a pee pee on the potty song and performed it on the spot. My little Taylor Swift in the making .

As soon as Addie was done and had a diaper back on she ran to the other bathroom and started patting the potty in there saying, "Pee Pee!" We will see how long this lasts.

Jesus born in June?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3687843/Jesus-was-born-in-June-astronomers-claim.html

I have heard this at church since I was little, but I never looked for research on it. Thought it was neat to find on digg.com. Not that the specific date is what matters. Isn't it funny though how much time people spend trying to prove or disprove biblical events?

Technology in the Hands of a 21 mos old=Happiness!

This is Addie on the way back from Missouri. It kept her satisfied for part of the trip. Matt had hooked his IPod into their Fisher Price Headphones and it made for a great sanity saver. Ella used it part of the time to listen to Taylor Swift, and then of course Addie wanted it too so when Ella was asleep she got it. She was happy as a lark. She loves anything that looks mature and typically out of her reach. But, of course she is our little engineer and she figured out how to get the hold off the top so she kept turning it off. That's Addie. One smart cookie! An Ipod should definitely be on every 21 mos. old's Christmas list.

Ella's Surgery is Scheduled.

We had another visit at Vanderbilt on Tuesday with Dr Donahue and scheduled Ella's eye surgery for Jan 26th. The test he did Tuesday revealed that the condition is getting worse (which is normally what happens). When looking in the distance her eyes are almost 100% of the time floating outward. Close up she still has pretty good use of the eyes.

Her brain does not communicate correctly with her eyes, and there is nothing they can do about that part of it, but this surgery is to loosen her outside muscles on both eyes. By doing this the doctor hopes it will make it easier on the brain to hold the eyes into position. This will never permanently fix the problem (she will always have it) but hopefully it will lessen the number of times a day she has it...and best case scenario we would rarely notice it again nor would she have to go back in for follow up surgery. We dread so bad seeing our baby go through this. But, it has to be done, because she would eventually lose vision in her weakest eye (basically, the brain would get tired of struggling and give up on pulling the weaker eye back into position). Once the brain quit using that eye the vision would quickly deteriorate, and eventually cause blindness in that eye.

I will keep everyone updated as things get closer.

X-Mas or Christmas?

I always thought it seemed disrespectful to use an X in place of Christ, but then I saw a thread on a forum I view and this really makes alot of sense now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

I will still probably always spell out the word, but it may make me cringe a little less when I see X-mas now.