Welcome to our blog

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:36:14 -0500

We had so much fun visiting Santa this year. Will is so excited about everything to do with Christmas especially, Santa! Take a minute to see just how excited Gracie was about that jolly old man...

She was scared to death!! Seems like torture but one of my favorite pictures of Will with Santa was when he reacted about the same. The picture definitely captures the stage they are in.
Will wasn’t scared at all this year.

He enjoyed telling Santa everything he wanted for Christmas... Knapford Station (Thomas stuff) and a Lightning McQueen racetrack.

After we finished with Santa we headed to a train in the mall for a short ride. I didn’t think Gracie would be interested but she definitely wanted to ride.

Poor Corey, getting out of that train car was like getting out of a clown car.

We had such a fun time making some fun holiday memories. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas in Mississippi

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:03:38 -0500

We had a great time this past weekend celebrating Christmas with my family in MS. On Friday we celebrated with my mom & family.

We enjoyed a large traditional Christmas dinner and then got busy opening the presents. Here is Gracie checking out her stack of gifts.

We enjoyed a good old fashioned sing along while we waited for presents to finish being passed out.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Will tickling his daddy for saying “Nick” (you know the song that goes, “Good Saint Nick”). A game we play is when you say “Nick” you get tickles.

Will was excited when we started opening the gifts. He loved his Lego blocks,

his Remote Control Big Wheel Truck,

Thomas the Train set,

and his new hat and gloves.

At first Gracie wasn’t really sure about ripping the paper off her gifts. I’m sure she was thinking... is this really okay?

But when she figured it out she loved her new dishes and couldn’t wait to get them out of the box... hurry daddy and take the picture.

Her favorite thing to do that night was push her Wal-Mart buggy around the room and put anything that would fit inside it. She was so proud of her buggy and baby!

Her new purse was also a big hit. She filled it up with all of my chocolate from my stocking before I new it. Silly girl... the one thing mommy doesn’t share is chocolate!

One of the requests that I had for the kids this Christmas was that my mom get them some Bible character toys so that they could learn the story while we played with them. Will’s favorite was the angel that appeared to Mary that said “your going to have a baby”.

Then on Saturday, after a brief trip to the doctor to get Corey a shot (yes, he was really sick) we had Christmas at my dad’s house. We enjoyed another yummy Christmas lunch, put the kids down for a quick nap and then had another sing along.

Gracie kept trying to call someone with my phone. Maybe Santa??

Then we got down to business! Who’s present is this??

Gracie was no longer shy about opening her gifts!

She couldn’t wait to get that baby out of the box.

Will was really excited about his new Buzz & Woody.

Gracie loved the new prayer baby.

And, Will was really surprised to get a new Lightning McQueen remote control car. His old one broke.

Gracie was so proud of her new baby stroller and even had to fight her brother for it back a time or too!

Will loved his new Buzz Lightyear pjs.

Here is my dad, stepmom & Will & Gracie resting after all of the fun.

So, all in all it was a really great Christmas in MS. Thanks to all of our family for making it so great in spite of a sick husband and kids. We feel so blessed to have spent time with each of you. Love you!
www.coreyandalisha.com

Gingerbread House

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:37:10 -0500

Now that Will is 3 I decided that he was probably ready to help make his first Gingerbread house. We had so much fun decorating it. I didn’t make it from scratch. I chose the easy way out and bought the kit. Enjoy some pictures of his fun.
Icing the pre-made house.

Gracie just had to watch.. no fun!

Check out that roof!
Maybe getting to play on the big chairs and stay up late isn’t so bad...

He was very thoughtful about where all the candies should go. His Mimi and he worked very hard on that roof!

So proud of his masterpiece!

We had a fun night trying something new. Maybe next year we will start from scratch... or maybe not!
www.coreyandalisha.com

Decorate, Fall, Brake, Clean, Decorate

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:42:58 -0500

Tis the season for everything to be crazy... yes... crazy. Any time you decide to bring a 10’ live tree inside your house you are asking for something to happen. I mean really, we do some crazy things so get in the holiday spirit. After the tree came home we enjoyed decorating it all night.

Gracie loved climbing the ladder.

And we even got a little silly and played on the stairs.

Gracie did think this was funny even though in the picture she looks like she’s not sure.

We finished off the night with of course, putting the angel on the top of the tree.

And then 3 days later, I come home to find this...

and this...

I am still finding little pieces of this all over the place...

I was sad about this one....

And this because it was the first one Corey ever gave me...

But, at the end of the day I realized that it is just a tree and doesn’t even compare to some of the craziest things we may face. I had been having a hard week but, when I saw those broken ornaments it clicked (again), broken! It is only through something broken that God can make something beautiful and something great. Thank you God for teaching me... everyday!
BTW- the tree is back up and you would never even know that such a thing had happened a few weeks ago. Whew, Crazy!!
If you are reading this on Facebook and want to see pictures go to www.coreyandalisha.com.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:31:53 -0500

One of our most favorite things to do as a family is sing, especially Christmas music. Will put a little something together for you. Enjoy!

So, where to begin...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:06:46 -0500

I haven’t given up on blogging. I just had to pause while I waited for our lives to be turned right side up again! To say the least life has been crazy the last few months and sadly I haven’t been able to share any of the moments with you. So, when deciding where I should begin I think it best to start with right now. Don’t worry I will catch you up on the last few months as we go but, since Christmas is upon us I want to share what we are up to right now. So, here we go!
Oh, Christmas Tree...
In Huntsville we always cut down a Christmas tree at a local Christmas tree farm. It is one of our favorite traditions! A few weeks ago we started talking about where we should go to get our tree in ATL. Then we noticed this Frosty the Snowman sign that appeared at the entrance to our neighborhood that said Christmas trees this way! So, after Thanksgiving we decided to scout it out and to our surprise this place is almost across the street from our neighborhood and had the most pretty trees we had ever seen! We could practically walk over and drag our tree back home. (We didn’t choose that method because we were afraid it would look like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree by the time we got home!)
Our new house has much higher ceilings than our old one so Corey wanted to pick a huge one. We settled on a perfectly round 10 footer. Will and Corey had fun cutting it down (mostly Corey with Will watching, of course). My mom was in town so she got to enjoy this tradition with us too! Enjoy some pictures of our adventure.
Let the hunt for the perfect tree begin:

Will thought that one of the trees in the woods next to it would be perfect. He even picked one that had no leaves on it!

Then he figured out this is where he was supposed to be looking!

A little break to love on Gracie! (She didn’t want to walk out there! Such a girl!)

Could this be the one? It was hard to pick because they were all so perfect.

The guy that owned the place was so nice. He brought a rug for Corey to kneel on and showed him were to cut.

Time to get to work.

Timber!!

Look at our tree. Will is so proud!

All of us. Will and Gracie aren’t happy because they slipped off the side of the truck and it scared them. We caught them but it was still scary.

We had a really fun day and enjoyed decorating all evening. Great memories! Just, WAIT until you here about our tree falling a few days later!

Lots of firsts...

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 16:21:36 -0400

We have had so many fists in the last 2 months that I think my head is still spinning a little. Here is a little sampling:
~ We moved out of our 1st house and signed a contract to sell it.
~ We saw our Gracie take her first steps.
~ We learned to sit patiently (well kind of) during lots & lots of traffic.
~ We turned a movie theater into Will’s room & a work-out room into Gracie’s room. (Did I mention we are staying in an awesome place?)
~ We watched Gracie get her first haircut.
~ We said goodbye to a dear friend and cried along with his family and friends at his funeral.
~ We learned (still learning) how to live in someone else’s house with a 3 & 1 year old.
~ We explained to Will about having two houses. One where his bed is in Huntsville and one here in Atlanta.
~ We went house shopping with two kids. Not fun!
~ We are learning to line up lots of babysitters since we are actually having to figure out how to survive with out Nana & Pappaw right around the corner.
~ We made an offer on a house, countered & then signed a contract.
I’m sure there are more firsts that I can’t even think of right now but you get the picture... lots of transition! So, when thinking about what to blog about for the first time in a month I really wasn’t sure were to start. So, I decided to start with present day and work my way back. Sorry I have been gone so long but I’m looking forward to catching you up on our life and catching up with your lives too (fellow bloggers).
Our most recent 1st is buying a new/old house. We built our last house so it was interesting looking at lots of different styles of homes around Atlanta. We made an offer on a house on Monday and then we were so excited yesterday when we heard they accepted our offer. Here are some pictures of our future place. We will call these the before pictures since it is not our stuff or paint colors inside the house yet.

We love the front porch on this house. Perfect for two rocking chairs. I’m thinking of painting the door and shutters black.

Foyer

Dining room. I will have to work on that light fixture & paint.

Formal living across from dining. Needs paint! I asked to keep window treatments so that is one less thing to make.

The kitchen is very white which will be hard to keep clean with two little ones. We hope to paint walls, do a glaze treatment on cabinets (maybe), granite (please, please.. if we can swing it) and black appliances.

Large eat-in with deck out the french doors.

2 story family room.

Master bedroom upstairs.

Sitting area in master bedroom.

Master bath.

Maybe Gracie’s room? (needs paint)

Maybe Will’s room? (really needs paint)

Maybe a guest room upstairs?

Basement. We will get to keep all of this furniture. They offered it to us as apart of the deal. It has this movie room, 2 possible bedrooms (more likely a guest room & music studio), a full bath & another room that will be a good play area for now.

Backyard right off of basement playroom. Smaller than we are used to but very shady and room for a play set. The neighborhood also has two playgrounds in it.

Back deck off of kitchen.
We are so excited about this house and hope that everything will work out during this next month before we close on it. So get ready to come for a visit we have a place just for you! : )

A few pictures from our week in MS

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:18:16 -0400

We had a great time visiting with family this summer in Mississippi. The kids loved playing in Great-Grandma Shirley and Great Grandpa Willie Joe’s backyard.
They loved that kitty.

And the doggie!

Will loved the water and the fish that were in the water. He is showing his Mimi all about it.

Playing in the water!

We also had fun at the park that week with Grandpa Penny.

Gracie loved the swings.

And the cookies that her Grandpa gave her. (She is putting the whole cookie in her mouth!

Playing peek-a-boo with mommy.

Will mowing the grass later that night with Grandpa.

We had a great week with all of the family. We love you guys!

Will’s Birthday Part 111

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:02:41 -0400

Last one, I promise. (The pictures at the top of each of the birthday posts are from his 3 year pictures we did at Big Spring Park.)
We had the most fun having some of Will’s friends out to our house to celebrate his birthday. It’s the first birthday that he was really was old enough to want to have a party with his friends.
Nana, came over early that morning to help us decorate the cupcakes and get the house together.
We had a Nemo water party in the backyard. We blew up 4 kid pools and put 2 of them up to the slides in our backyard. We also had sprinklers going, bubbles and all of the usual outside toys.
My sweet birthday boy!

Abby Kate & Jordan

Jackson & Betsy

Lawson

Austin

More playtime!

Dinner time! Kid table: Noah, Abbie, Bailey, Calli, Joshua & Will. We had pizza and chips.

Grown-up table! I am so glad they are getting old enough for us to have one of these.

Family picture before the cake. We had great weather for the party.

Nemo cake. I am so proud of this one. Did it all by myself!

Singing happy birthday and having cake. We love all of our friends and are going to miss doing this every year with them!

We finished the night with a Nemo pinata. The kids were so excited. No hitting this one, just pull the strings one at a time until the candy falls.

There it is! Lots of candy.

We had such a good time celebrating Will’s birthday this year. I love you Will and I’m so proud of you!

Will’s Birthday Part 11

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:33:51 -0400

Will’s birthday post got published a little sooner than I had planned (I was only half way finished with it). Corey was helping me fix a problem and he thought I was done with it. So here is part 11!
Scene: Residence Inn, Nashville (for Wedding). Will’s birthday, first present of the day. (He got his bike later that morning -see last post.)
He was so excited about his digital camera. (I got it really cheap after Christmas.) He loves to take pictures like daddy!

The hotel was awesome for many reasons but my favorite thing for the day was the teddy bear waffle maker they had at their continental breakfast. Will loved it!

We had cookie cake for snack that morning in our room. I let Will pick out any cake he wanted. He picked the one that had pink butterflies on it, of course. Since, he really wanted that one I talked the lady into changing the picks out to fish. Whew! Daddy would have died if I had brought home a butterfly cake. : )

Swimming in the hotel pool! All he wanted to do that day.

My 2 best guys dressed up in their best. I think they are pretty cute!

Will was so tired on the way home that he fell asleep eating his Arby’s kid’s meal. You can’t tell in the picture but he actually had his hand in the bag when he fell asleep. Bless his heart... we really wore him out that day!

Now, because I have about a million pictures of his friend birthday party I am going to save those pictures for the next post. Watch for part 111 coming soon!