Happy 14th Birthday Freddie!

We had a "little" party for our big 14 year old today. I can't believe he is already 14. I remember the little 9 year old that I met for the first time and later became the mother of like it was yesterday. I have watched a shy little boy turn into a wonderful, self confident young man. He continues to make us proud each day while maintaining the typical aggravating characteristics of every teenager...I am so proud to be his mother and I look forward to many more years of watching him grow up. By the way, the choice of cake was his request as was every part of this party. I guess it goes to prove that men do love their toys:-)

Our New Home.....well, at least for the next chapter in our lives.

We are so pleased to have found this home. It is a 5 bedroom/2.5 bath/3200sq.ft. home that we will live in at our next duty station. I can't say anymore regarding exactly where it is....sorry! We are so excited because not only is it a new home but it is located in the exact school zone where we want our 14 year old to attend HS. The HS is amazing! The pictures that i have posted are of the owner's decor, not ours. We are pleased with their choices of paint so we will probably leave that alone. I can't wait to move our stuff in, decorate and post pics of the WHOLE house. We have always been blessed and continue to be blessed with wonderful homes for our family no matter where we are sent to serve. We will be making our move in the next couple of months so I will keep you all posted. Thanks to all of you that have prayed for us to find a home and location that would be a blessing to our family. God does answer prayers. Have a great weekend!

Hubby's Favorite Saying....at an adorable store to boot!!

I can't believe how cute the Southern Belle Store is and they even have my hubby's favorite saying on an adorable t-shirt.

I couldn't resist posting this one.


Or, this one.


Enjoy and have a great rest of the week!

Potty Training...Christian style!!

I couldn't resist posting the pic from Christian's first potty success. I tried to make sure it was as unrevealing as possible but I must confess, it was too cute for words. The potty book in his hands wasn't staged. He actually asks for that book every time he goes to potty. Right now, we are just getting him used to the potty and keeping low expectations for success on each attempt but I wanted to post his first one. He is a lot of fun and I hope we will look back on the "early" potty days and smile.

What a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

These are the beautiful flowers from my husband.
He also gave me this beautiful necklace and bracelet made by my friend, Karen, at Funky Junk Designs. Please stop by her page and give her some business. She is extremely talented and makes beautiful jewelry as well as other cute stuff.

This is part of my gift to my hubby. I had M&M's personalized with our engagement pic and our first Christmas portrait on them as well as a saying on each one of them. This gift far exceeded my expectations. He was blown away. He also got some weight lifting things that he asked for. Sorry, no pic of those. I hope each of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day and was able to spend it with the one you love. Stay tuned for a "potty" post from Christian.

2 year check up and last visit with Dr. Ashley :(

The life of a military child can be very rewarding but also has it's sad parts. Today, was one of those. Let me explain. Christian has the most wonderful Pediatrician here at our beloved duty station. It is very rare to have a civilian doc at a military clinic but we got very lucky and landed Dr. Ashley ( purposely not using last name and besides Christian calls her this). She is adorable and is just a wonderful doctor to all of her little patients. She gave Christian a clean bill of health, said he was way past his developmental milestones and she let him play with her stethoscope the entire visit (well, except for when she needed to use it). She gave us the ok to start potty training but said do not push it because we are moving in the near future so there could be potential setbacks because of this. We love her casual approach especially when it seems so many people are potty nosy and are always asking us when we are going to potty train him. Believe it or not, experts agree that girls typically train earlier than boys because boys just don't care about it as early as girls and 2.5 years old is about the time they all agree is a great starting age. Now, if you are reading this and your child trained at 18 months without any "accidents", woo hoo for you, you are very lucky and blessed. I, however, am going to casually offer the potty to him now and not force the issue. We'll keep you updated on his progress. Ok, now back to Dr. Ashley, this was our last official time to see her since we will move soon. I pray that we are blessed with a wonderful Pediatrician at our next duty station. Thanks Dr. Ashley for the great care you have given to our children. We will miss you more than you know!

Happy Birthday Christian!

We faithfully prayed for the day to come.

When God takes the best from Mommy and Daddy

to make into one.

Our prayers have been answered

and the miracles have only begun.

A blessing is born!

We thank God

for you -

Son.

It is so hard to believe that two years ago today, God blessed us with such an amazing, loving and precious little boy. I remember as a little girl, dreaming of growing up to be a wife and mother, one day, but I can honestly say, Christian, is more than I could have ever dreamed of. His loving heart, kind ways and little boy spunk is certainly a gift from God. We are very fortunate to be his parents and as you can tell from the poem that Fred wrote to him before he was born, we prayed for the gift of him long before we saw his sweet face. We hope to always be parents that not only he is proud of but that God is proud of. Happy Birthday to our sweet boy! May God continue to bless your life and may you always seek His guidance as you grow into a wonderful man! We love you Son!

Diane at A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words tagged me to do a photo Meme. The directions are to look in the 6th folder of your My Pictures folder, post the 6th picture and write about it.



This picture is from Christmas 2007. It is of my hubby and sons at a Christmas party in Japan while we were stationed there. I love this picture of my boys and the picture swap was fun to do because you don't know what picture is the 6th one in the 6th folder and so you get a surprise out of this as well as your blog friends. I hope you all enjoy the picture and even though I am required to pick people to do this, I hope you all choose to partake in the picture swap.

I would like to pass this on to:

Life of a Southern Belle
Confessions of a Southern Socialite
Sippy Cup Chardonnay
Muffy Martini
Magnolias, Marriage and Manhattan
CLEMSONGIRL AND THE COACH

I hope you all enjoy sharing your pictures and have a wonderful week!