I lied

No new blog for tonight. Joyce wanted some photos of her and Mario, but that fell through because he didn't want to take off work... so maybe next week.

Tomorrow I have to drive to Bristol to get some stuff. Fun times.

I'm sleeping on the floor tonight... my back is out.

Long Day, no pics

Long day, we had a lot to do. Dentist, cell phone, and more.

We did get to go see Sonya and the girls even though I had forgotten (some friend eh?)

I'll have a good blog for tomorrow...

Summer Memories...

Do you remember being a kid and eating fresh fruit by the basket full? We had a peach tree, plum tree, and apple tree while I was growing up. I remember picking fruit, running from the bees and feeling the juice running down my face. It was pure heaven.

We don't have any fruit trees right now. But we do have an AWESOME local farmers market, and they do have great prices if you find the right people... Today we ran by there to get some:

Watermelon:


And some peaches:


The boys didn't even wait until we got home to dig in! (I'll get a picture of Rory eating some later today.)

Spiders Everywhere!

Ok, so as many of my readers know, we have Black Widow Spiders all over the place... Today while we were cleaning up the yard, we found one... It was just a little one, I am hoping to have my camera on me when I find a bigger one.


I also got to see this beautiful guy (or gal)

Brithdays, Breastfeeding, and Fun!

Monday is Jax's 2nd birthday; today, his wonderful Abuela and Aunt threw him a Birthday Bash at Fun Depot.

The Cake was fablous (as all of Jodi's cakes from Short Street Cakes are).

It was a BLAST! All of the kids had a great time! Boy as an adult I find it overwhelming! I feel like coming home and turning into a hermit after all of the excitement! Phew, I swear it gives me an anxiety attack being around that many kids and adults.

Arden spent most of his time in the soft play area playing with Jax.



Rory got to ride the indoor AND outdoor go-carts! He and dad even got into a cart accident!!



While Carl and Rory finished up a round of mini golf, Arden and I sat on a bench and shared a goody bag while I nursed Canyon... and apparently ruffled the feathers of a rather prim and proper old lady... Joyce had the luxury of seeing her looks/expressions about it! LOL! As you probably guessed, I just smiled and kept on nursing...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAXON! And thanks to Mario, Joyce, and the rest of the family for being so wonderful!!!!

Not much of a day...

Hmm. Not to much to tell. Today was a lazy day...

We went to add my dad to our family cell plan... YEY, PaPa is entering the 21st century. Carl has to go up to sign the paperwork...

All 3 of the boys got baths... which of course means water, EVERYWHERE... and 6 towels to clean up!



The last two nights in a row Arden has had issues sleeping. Wed. night he had a mild, low-grade fever and kept crying and waking all night. I let him sleep in the extra bed in our room, but he was still up every 30 minutes or so... fast forward to 3am this morning... puke... everywhere. And again he couldn't go back to sleep. Well he refused to nap today, and then fell asleep while I was trying to get dinner on the table. Now I am hoping he sleeps through the night because man, I could use the sleep.

Moments...

What is it about children that make us see the little things that are important? There are so many things that I just over look or ignore as I go about my busy day trying my best to get things done... But the kids, they stop to see everything and ask us about everything...

Rory wanted me to take a picture of their feet... I hadn't really thought about it, but here they are. Man, even my kids toes are perfect ;)


And here are a few others I took while I was at it.

A blog a day: My first "self" portraits.

I am attempting to do a blog a day for the month of September.


This is the first time I have attempted to take my own picture. I took them this morning.



I like how it came out! I will have to take family photos more often!

Toddlers, photos, and pregnancy...

Today I took the day to take some photos of a pregnant friend.

Things went rather smoothly, seeing as we had 4 kids under 4 here while trying to take them! Boy was it nuts trying to get them all to stay out of the shoot. Joyce will have to come back with her husband for some nice family photos next time...

Here are some of the photos, Joyce, you are a beautiful mama!

Let's Go Tourists, Let's Go {clap clap}

So last night we decided to go to one of the last Tourist games of the season with some friends and the boys, and boy was it crowded!

I have been to quite a few games, but I guess since this was a holiday weekend, it was CRAZY. Sold out crowd, LONG lines, sold out of water bottles, no good seats left, but tons of fun none the less.

The Welcome Rain, and Unexpected Consequences

With drought being so prevalent in the eastern United States this year, we welcome rain; any rain or moisture that comes, no matter how much or in what capacity, is a blessing to us.

But with the rain comes unexpected and sometimes tragic consequences.

Yesterday, as the rain started to fall, I was excited as to what it meant for everyone in the area. Rain means more water in the wells, a chance to revive produce in gardens, a chance to maybe let the wildlife and plant life here come back to life... and honestly, I was a bit selfish and hoping it meant kayaking for Carl and myself, and river play for the kids.

While we are thankful for the rain we got, it is not near enough to get our water tables back up.

Pretty soon, I began to realize, we might be getting a bit more rain than we can chew... our front drive/road was now a roaring stream... our yard was running with water... I could only imagine the flash flooding on the rivers. There were reports of tornadoes and horrible car accidents.


There was enough water in our drive for the kids to play with their huckers in the rain...





Early in the evening, some friends called. They decided (MUCH AGAINST THEIR BETTER JUDGMENT) to go kayaking, and run "laps" on a local run. The river flashed on them. They are lucky, they are only missing boats and gear, not their lives.

Right now there is at least one kayaker missing in the Smokey Mountains.

We now know that this incident has been reported a fatality. Please send prayers and positive thoughts to the kayaker, his friends and his family.

As someone who has lost a close friend on the river, this will be a hard time for all involved. Please think of the friends and family over the following weeks.

Issac Ludwig will be missed. http://isaacludwig.com/

Yogi in the Smokies

A few weeks ago, Carl went out to do some work at "Yogi in the Smokies". He came home incredibly excited and telling me we HAD to go with the boys...

So we did. Here is our weekend in photographs. They boys had a blast, I'm glad that Carl decided we needed to go!

The weekend was a camp wide celebration of Yogi's 50th birthday.



All three of the boys had a blast and loved Yogi and BooBoo, but Canyon was so incredibly excited that he was unable to contain himself! He would start "spazing" every time he saw BooBoo!



BooBoo was a trouble maker and stole Vince's hat...

Yogi and BooBoo drove around the camp every day meeting the campers...


Our little "home away from home"



We went on "Yogi's Ride Wagon" and Arden was the only kid to sing!! (And he didn't even know the words to the Yogi song!)








The park had a great play set and pool:



Yogi CampGround is also located on the Raven Fork...

Of course the boys were not without the company of their Lil' Huckers. We had a blast! We even got to see a hellbender that was over 2 feet long!!!












And it looks like I have 3 fishermen on my hands now... Rory is the best caster out of all of the Gittings men! He was routinely casting across the river!