Gingerbread Houses

This year I made Gingerbread houses with the kids and we had a blast! We took the easy way out and used a milk carton and graham crackers and lots of candy:) This is definatly something you should take a few minutes out of your day to do with your kids. And they are sooo proud of their creations.

First glue on the wallsRandomly taste the frosting to make sure it hasen't gone bad"Glue" on the decorations

Make sure to help the little ones:)
Beautiful works of art!

Oh Christmas Tree

Decorating the tree in their bedroom

Chirstmas Joy

Well it's December and today is a windy, chilly day and already I can feel the hussle and bussle of the Christmas season. Determined not to get caught up in all of that and miss the JOY of the season I am trying to enjoy all those fun things about Christmas...baking cookies, eating cookies:), cold days, nights with hot chocolate, trees, lights, music and on that note if you need some Christmas Joy watch this video of Caleb singing at church on Sunday it will put you in the mood!

Now enjoy the simple pleasures of the wonderful season, and spend a little time with the kidos that make it so much fun

Sorry the Video was to big to upload, but I am going to see if Dan can make it smaller so I can share it with you...I hope so it is soo funny Caleb is just singing his heart out

Laugh on us

Need a laugh? Today the laugh is on us just click and enjoy...an early Christmas Greeting

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9629142655

This may be the funniest thing you see all Christmas

Oh the days of Kindergarten

Friday was Caleb's K-5 Thanksgiving presentation, I did not know they were dressing up as Pilgrams a very cute surprise! Caleb's class recited Psalm 100 for their part in the Thanksgiving program

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands!

Serve the Lord with galdness;Come before His presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name.

For the Lord is good;His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations

Psalm 100

The program was followed with their Thanksgiving Feast and what a spread they had!

My contribution to the feast was turkey cookies, Caleb was so excited about these!

One of the things we are Thankful for this year is Caleb's school, we are thank God for providing this school for Him

When did it happen

Summer has been so long and dry this year, until last week I did not even think about Fall clothes or anything with sleves. But early last week as I looked out my kitchen window this is what I saw.

Over night it seemed the dogwood had turned from tired summer green to bright red, the sun filtering through looking more cool than the summer sun and in the back drop of the old barn it screamed Fall. Suddenly in an instant Fall was awoken in my soul!

When did that happen I thought,had Fall snuck up on me? This year I think it did I have been so busy with my schedule I had forgotten to look for the first signs of Fall. Birmingham is a beautiful city in the Fall with so many trees we get great color, and this year it is a real treat as I thought we wouldn't have any color because of the drought.

Silly Girl

This is kind of a goofie picture but, Ella walked into her room the other day with her stash of candy in her pocket. It just cracked me up, sometimes she can be such a silly girl

Baby Brunch

who does the cake maker, caterer call when the party is for Her? Her friend that was cut from the very same cloth (even though the cake had a "lean" to it). Saturday I had the pleasure to help with a baby shower for Jennifer Vines. We had a brunch to celebrate the coming of Baby Elijah, there was tons of food, gifts and fun times!We all know what a special person Jennifer is to each of us and I just hope she saw how much everyone cares for her. Congratulations Vines family...I can't wait to meet that baby.

Tricks or Treats...FUN

Here it is Nov 1st and Dan is starting his new job today, life is full of change. First let me say how thankful I am to God for His never failing provision and wonderful goodness, My God is an Awesome God!

Well since today is Nov 1st that means yesterday was Halloween. For Halloween we had a scary skeleton-mainly scary because the suit he wanted from Wal-Mart was to small. I wanted to make him one but he was sure to buy one was better, so I gave in!

We also had Dora, Ella was dead set on being Dora although she would be quick to tell you she did not have Dora hair...she refused to wear the wig! She did let me make her costume and I had fun doing that although I did wait until the day of Halloween to finally pull it all together. Yesterday I was painting canvas shoes, dying her skirt...sometimes I think I'm crazy

The amount of candy we now have in the house is obscene! When I asked Ella who was going to eat all the candy in the bag she was dragging while saying HEAVY she replied "I don't know"

But the scariest thing I saw on Halloween by far was the "Crazy Cat Lady" aka Rachel Capps...yes my sister. She won the office costume competiton I don't think they have ever seen anything quite like this before...that's our Rachel!

Ella found her so scary she refused to even hug her

Another Successful Carving

Another successful pumpkin carving!
Saturday was a lot of fun as friends, family and neighbors came out for our pumpkin carving party. The competition was stiff but the judges (Caleb, Ella had to forfeit to him since she was sick) have ruled

Rachel took 3rd with her witch
Johnathon took 2nd with the "Pick me" "Dora Rocks" design
and Jimmy came in 1st for his jester design

Caleb would have picked my spider but technically it was his pumpkin and DAD said "you can't pick your own"

The pumpkins have been carved, until next year!

Pumpkin Patch

Can't believe it is that time of year again, Saturday we made our yearly trip to the pumpkin patch. This year we went to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden AL instead of the Old Baker Farm. Two other families from church came with us and we had a GREAT time.

Ella was not satisified until she found the smallest pumpkin, Caleb of course wanted a BIG one!

Dan carried them all both Big and small

Hay Maze Fun

Rememer when

Remember when sleeping like this did not give you a permanent kink in your neck?

Happy Fall

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin.

God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff -- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc.

Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.

This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now, it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch.

Happy Fall!

Another one

So ok today I started a blog for my parents to post their farm news, recipes and what they have available on the farm. Check it out and see some great pictures of their farm. I look forward to helping them with this.

http://waterberryfarm.blogspot.com/

Six years and still strong

Whew this weekend was a whirlwind...we had about 10 different things going on all at one time and on top of all that it was our anniversary. Six years ago Saturday on a lovely evening we got married on my parents farm. Life since then has just flown by and here find ourselves with 2 beautiful,wonderful kids, a house in the works, and very happy. God has blessed us so richly!

So Saturday we blew off the wedding we were supposed to go to and spent some quality time together over some good food at Bottega. It was a nice cool evening, perfect to just sit outside and enjoy each others company...something we don't do nearly enough. We look forward to the next six years and all the adventures they hold.

As long as we have each other we can face anything!

Update on Stewart Babies

This is an update on the Stewart family I posted about a few weeks ago, check out her my space to see real peace in the face of hard times oh how God is alreay being Glorified through this.

Hello friends,

Several of you have asked recently how we are doing and if there are any updates.First, let me say that Paige and I appreciate so much the prayers you are praying for us and prayer lists of others that many of you have gotten us on. On more than one occasion, we've heard how people who don't know us personally are praying for us, and how people in so many different states are praying for us, and it is just awesome to know that all of this is going on. We know that so much of the peace we have right now is the direct result of prayer.

We had a second appointment with Dr. Biggio in late August. At that visit, he spent close to an hour doing an ultrasound. This was much different from the first visit, at which a nurse did a brief ultrasound and Dr. Biggio basically just confirmed that the twins were inseparably conjoined in a manner that "would not be compatible with life".

During the second visit, he looked closely at the babies and told us as much as he could about their development at that point. Although it didn't change the expected incompatibility with life, the details of how they are conjoined are a bit different than we had previously thought. The ultrasound showed that there are actually two spines and the babies are apparently facing each other conjoined from just below the shoulders down; we had thought that they were more side-by-side. The ultrasound appeared to show 4 arms; we had thought that there were only two. On one side, each appeared to have an arm that was developing normally; and on the other side, they each appeared to have a smaller arm that was abnormal in development. We already knew that there is only one heart; it was too early to tell much more about the heart, but we did hear him tell the technician to put down "abnormal four chamber heart". Dr. Biggio only saw one stomach, although at a later visit to our doctor in Northport it looked like there may be two stomachs. Dr. Biggio could see one kidney - possibly two - but wasn't sure. At the pelvis the spines seemed to come together. There are only two legs, and he said the feet looked to be clubbed. There is fluid accumulating around the skull of both babies and down the spine of at least one; at a later visit to our doctor in Northport it looked that the fluid may have subsided some from previous visits.

We asked about the probability of whether or not the babies would live to birth. He said that the heart doesn't currently seem to be having any problems pumping blood for both babies, and at that point he didn't see any reason to think that they would die in the next few weeks. That was about 4 weeks ago, so a few weeks have passed. He indicated in a later e-mail to us that he thought the 8-10 week period following that visit would be the period at which the single heart might encounter problems keeping up; I guess we're still a couple of months away from that period being behind us. Since there is nothing that they are able to do to help our babies, he'd basically given us a choice of whether we'd want to keep going to appointments in Birmingham or if we'd prefer to just go to the doctor in Northport. We told him that if the babies live long enough to be born, we would want for the delivery to be at UAB. He said he sees no reason for us to keep coming to him regularly right now.

Currently, we're just going to Dr. Smith in Northport for monthly checkups. If the babies are still alive around 25 weeks, then we'll get in touch with Dr. Biggio's office to schedule the next appointment.After our first visit to Birmingham, we'd honestly kind of hoped that if the babies weren't going to live that a miscarriage might occur sooner rather than later. Since the second visit, we are now hoping that the babies will live long enough to be born and for us to have a little bit of time with them, even if its only a few minutes or hours. Dr. Biggio seems to think that we might could consider a delivery as early as 34 weeks; but obviously we've got a ways to go before making it to that point.

Thank you for your continued prayers. Today, the babies are at 19 weeks and 3 days. They are girls. Their names are Avonlea Rose and Lily Anna. We have good days and bad days, but right now the good days seem to outnumber the bad; we attribute that to your loving prayers and God's faithful love.

Love,Craig and Paige

PS- Paige occasionally posts updates to her MySpace page @ http://www.myspace.com/paigestew. I usually find her posts inspiring to me, just seeing her heart in her words. You can check there, too, for updates if you'd like.

No as easy as it sounds

This weekend we were invited to a birthday party for Caleb's friend Kieth. The party was at Playstation and included rollerskating and laser tag.

Caleb was sooo excited about the roller skating...sure he could do it even thought he never has (don't know where he gets that from). Soon after putting the skates on he realized it was a little harder than he first thought.

He gave it a good effort and I think with a little more time he could be a skating fool - like his father who also had a very good time!

Of course laser tag was his favorite, but what could be more fun to a 5 yr old than running around in the dark shooting your friends...yes dad had a fun time with that also.

Guess what I have ????

I got something this week I have been waiting on for a long time, and better than anything it came as a surprise. Now I don't want to brag because that is not a becoming trait but let me tell you this really is special. On Sunday after I came home from a Bridal Tea, there they were in all their glory CABINET DOORS! Now for those of you who don't know about 2 years ago the renovation of our kitchen began. And my sweet husband put many long hours into building the cabinets, well he installed them minus the doors as he still needed to finish those and this weekend that finally happened...well on the bottom ones anyway. Still waiting on the top, but progress is GREAT and they are beautiful!

Ella is slightly amazed by doors!

just for fun

I meant to do this last week but never got around to it...you all know how that goes! Just for fun I wanted to compare these two pictures of Caleb and Ella they are about the same age and on the same train. You can't deny the fact that they are brother and sister but I can see the differences...can you?

First time for everything

OK so our lives have been a bore lately...noting new to report just our day to day routine breakfast, carpool, lunch, carpool, dinner, bed and do it again.




This weekend we broke out of our same old same old and walked in a 5K race! Yep the whole family and it only took us 50 some minutes.



Caleb was so excited about doing this, he lost that excitement at about mile 2 but after a little rest (ride in the stroller) he was ready to go again. He was very proud of finishing and "winning" a t-shirt, now he can't wait to do it again. So that was my first 5K race as well as Caleb's and Ella's. The only thing Caleb did'nt undersand is if it was a 5K race why weren't more kids his age there!



Ebsco is trying to raise awareness of good health in their employees that was why they hosted this race, with that in mind we did not understand why they handed out PORK snadwiches when you crossed the finish line...yes they really did, pork sandwiches at 9:30 in the morning ...Gotta love the South!





After the race we had a fun time playing in the park...it was a good morning

Seasons

I love the changing of seasons I am always ready for the change about the time it comes around. And today as I laid out at the pool-Ella sleeping in my lap- I closed my eyes and listened to the last sound of summer. Today was the last day the pool was open, and I just laid there and listened to the sounds of kids playing. It made me think this was the last day Ella would be at the pool as a 2 year old, before I know it Caleb will be 6. Just like the seasons change so do my kids, oh that I could just stop time for a little while and hold on to them a little more. I love my kids just the way they are now what a joy! But I know they too must change and grow such is life.

Thought for Today

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." -
Harriet van Horne

First day of School

click on pics for captions

Nervous, Excited, Scared...Kindergarten

I'm ready to go was the announcement I heard from Caleb this morning as he got out of bed and proceeded to lay down on the couch.

The big day has finally arrived and I can hardly believe it after so much talk and planning here it is Kindergarten. Nervous, excited, scared, worried and a little sad were all the emotions I was feeling this morning as I packed my BIG boy's lunch and helped him get ready for school.

If he was nervious he never showed it...he sat right down and kept to himself lost in the crowd of children. As I watched him in morning assembly I got teary eyed but refused to cry because no one else was crying and did not want to be the one responsible for making all the moms cry!

After the assembly he lined up with his class and marched off lunch box in hand...my baby in Kindergarten!

More from the beach

Back to reality...and school starts in 2 days so we are living on the vacation high for a few more days.

remembering our walks on the beach...

sand in our suits...

fun in the jacuzzi tub...

and just the fun we had being together!