Friday Photo Flashback

I'm so behind...I actually forgot all about Friday Photo Flashback until I logged on this morning and saw Alicia's post. Now it's almost 11 pm and I'm just now getting to it. As I was looking for my flashback picture tonight I saw a few that I have on my computer from when I was younger. This one stood out...apparently it was in 92 since I plastered the date all over the bottom of it. Seriously....what in the world was wrong with my hair and my bangs..it looks like I was building a birds nest. Geez...I can't believe I ever left the house that way.

Head over to Alicia's to join in on the Flashback Friday!!!!

Sunday-Santasland

We had plans on our way out on Sunday to stop through the mountains in several different spots to sight see and let the kids look around. Apparently there were other plans meant for us though because as soon as we started loading the car up to leave the cabin it started raining. We got stuck in traffic and combined with the rain quickly made what should have been less than an hour trip right at two hours just to get to Cherokee. Once we got there the rain had stopped so we decided we would visit a small amusement park called Santasland. There was a small zoo there and several rides...a lot of it was geared towards the smaller kids but Lucas kept himself busy also with his favorite..the Rudicoaster. We spent several hours there and were waiting on the paddleboats for our final ride when it started pouring down rain. We took cue that it was time to head home so we rain our way with 4 kids mind you through the rain and packed it up for the day.


The first thing we saw when we walked in were Santa's reindeer and you could feed them. There was tons of food left on the floor in the barn so my kids were resourceful and started picking it up :) Guess they knew not to ask for money for deer food since Lucas just got done telling me the night before that I was cheap. I was shocked that Caleb actually left the deer eat out of his hand!


This is a set of bear cubs that they have there. They change the bears out every couple of years and this year they have a boy and a girl. They are about seven and a half months old and we were able to see them bottle feed them...they were so adorable and looked so snuggly!!! If you've seen on the news in the last few days that Bob Barker is speaking on behalf of Peta about bears at several exhibits in Cherokee this is one of them..I didn't know until we got home but found it interesting that we had just visited. I really didn't see anything harsh happening..the babies were on grass and hay and seemed happy...one of them was just laying at the gate waiting to be let in for his bottle and once in was trying to chew his way back into the open area. The older bears(1.5 years old)were in a smaller cage I believe although I couldn't see it all but they said that they would be sending them to a zoo soon so they would have more room.


I like this picture of all three of the boys..they were looking in a pond that was filled with ducks.


This was the first ride that Caleb rode and I had to physically pick him up,carry him in there and put him in the car. He said he wanted to ride but when it came time he got scared...after it started you couldn't wipe the smile off his face and he was driving the car like crazy...it was priceless!!!!!


When I took this picture I thought it was Allie's first carousel ride but I just realized that I was wrong. She first rode it at Gattitown with her Nendny one day at lunchtime. She was very wary at first when David put her on here but quickly grew excited and once it was over she didn't want to get off. What is it with kids...they're scared until you force them to do it and then once they try it all you hear is how much they wanna do it again?


This was another one that Caleb was nervous about too...I shoved him in the middle of Lucas and Jacob to make sure he wouldn't fall out and they had a blast. Love that I was able to get them all in the picture even with David and Allie.





This was another ride we got on that stopped at the very tip top..what is it with me getting on things and then they like to stop in the middle of the ride. I'm beginning to think I'm not very fond of heights.




This is the coolest thing ever! They have a lake or pond there that you are able to take paddleboats out on..this was what we were waiting on when it started pouring down rain. In the pond they have rainbow trout that you can feed and they follow all the boats around all day long waiting on food so they get fed constantly apparently. Since we didn't make it on the boats we stood out in the rain for a few minutes and fed them...I have never in my life seen anything like this. Seriously I laughed out loud and was amazed at them. When you threw food in you have never seen so many fish in one small area in your entire life. They were on top of each other trying to get to the food.....not exaggerating but there were at least 200 fish in the very small area that we were in just throwing some food in..flopping on top of each other every which way they possibly could. Never laid eyes on anything like this before...astonishing!

We're Back

We got back on Sunday night but it seems as though I'm still playing catch up. I haven't touched my blog since Friday morning and although I feel behind I feel kinda good too. I am one of those that stresses about everything. I stress if I don't blog for a day,if I don't visit everyone's blogs everyday,if there are people that don't comment...I stress. I don't know..I'm one of those that analyzes everything and most of the time I over analyze it. For the past 4 1/2 days I have not worried about blogging or making sure I made it around to everyone's blog...I didn't even mess with it. It felt nice to sit down at night and think that I needed to make it around to all the blogs I follow so that people didn't feel like I didn't care or didn't think about them..I just sat and tried to organize some of the thousands of pictures that I have on my computer. Did I make it through all of those pictures like I had planned on....well OF COURSE NOT...but I got through some and really does life ever go exactly as planned? So I'm back in blog world and now I have lots of catching up to do..I'm going to try my hardest not to stress day to day over blogging because honestly it shouldn't be stresses but more likely than not that won't happen so I'll just take it as it comes for now.

We left Friday morning about 10 to head to Gatlinburg...good thing we left early because we ended up behind every slow person in the nation that was headed up the mountain to Gatlinburg on Friday-encountered a car fire that stalled the interstate-visited a Cracker Barrel in Hendersonville NC where David purchased a NC Tarheels hat and then mistakeningly left it on a table which he remembered when we got about 15 miles down the road resulting in a not so quick turnaround to go capture the missing hat with Allie crying in the back-a not so happy baby girl that was extremely tired. I asked myself several times on the way there why in the world we decided to do this little mini vacation.

Then she fell asleep and life was peaceful for about 30 minutes-and what a glorious 30 minutes it was.


As we were heading to check into our cabin we passed these cows walking around in the pond on the side of the road. I'm crazy but I thought it was so cool!


This is my favorite picture taken of Allie the entire trip. We were driving in downtown Pigeon Forge on the way to check in and we put all the windows down..it was the happiest she had been the entire day and it was like she was saying Alleluia-we're here! I just love this!!!


Then we checked in and headed up the mountain only to find that the lock on the door was filled with dead batteries so we had to wait 45 minutes for a maintenance man to come and replace them. After we finally got in the cabin and got everything unloaded we decided we were going to grab a bite to eat before we headed to the grocery store-only to find before we left that the satellite needed to be reset..another call to the maintenance dept and a couple of hours later we had satellite and tv. My wild children immediately broke a pool stick and of course because we can't have a trip without multiple accidents my husband(who I must note is as bad as my kids)knocked a decorative bear off with another pool stick before the first night was over. I did not make a trip to the drug store for super glue to repair their accidents!!!!
The view from our deck the first night we arrived. Pure Heaven!


On Saturday we went to the outlet mall in the morning and went back for naps. We spent alittle time in the hot tub that afternoon and then after dinner we headed to downtown Gatlinburg. Lucas decided he wanted to ride the sky lift-I was shocked he wanted to ride it since it went so high up but he insisted so we headed up. I think I was more nervous than he was...David and I went up it right after we got married but being on it without him made me extremely uneasy. It stopped several times on the way back down the mountain which didn't do my nerves any better either...Lucas was funny and asked me why I didn't think he could protect me :) We stopped and had some yummy ice cream before heading in for the night.


I absolutely adore this picture of David and Allie. I knew I loved him before she was born but the love that I have for him grew deeper than I ever imagined after I saw him hold her in his arms. I fall more and more in love with him everytime I watch him internet with her.



David and I have very few pictures together. I got Lucas to try and snap a few..most of them resulted with David's head cut off..this one came out relatively well though and I'm fairly happy with the result.



Here's the sky lift. I was informed on the way up before they snap your picture when you get off at the top that he knew I wouldn't buy the picture that they took because I was cheap. Needless to say-I bought the picture....my way of saying-In your face son :)



This was the tub in the master bedroom...it was HUGE! Seriously we could have all fit in there comfortably...we didn't try that but it was that big!!!



Sunday to come tomorrow.....

28?????????? No!!!!!

I'll admit it!...I'm horrified of getting old. I know it's better than the other choice but still I'm scared. I want to stay the age I am forever!!!!!! I'd rather get old than not be here but the thought of aging petrifies me! I've two years away from 30...I know for tons and tons of people that's not old and really I know it's not but the problem is it's closer to 40 and 50 and 60 then I'd like and it freaks me out. So as scared as I am nothings stopping it and today's the day so I figured I'd share a picture from when I was an itty bitty duckling that just appeared for you all to see. You know because your day wouldn't be complete without seeing my mom's whopper sized glasses and my dad with hair back in the early 80s :)

Slip n' Slide Time

We spent the day outside with the slip n slide about a week ago. I need to set it up again because the kids had so much fun on it!!!!! Here's a few of my favorites from the day..out of the 200 I took :) Okay..so I'm alittle obsessed!


I love this...he had a blast sliding! Took me back to my childhood..if I were to get down on the slide now I'd never get back up.


You can see how small Caleb truly is in this picture. Allie actually weighs more than he does and is 15 months younger than he is. He eats constantly and doctor says he's healthy as can be but he's skin and bones!


Caleb was actually very nervous on the slide. After about 45 minutes he finally ran down it but ran off to the side as he got towards the bottom. Eventually he went up and started trying to drink the water but then decided he was happiest in Allie's pool.


Have I told anyone lately how much I adore this little girl?


I've figured out that Jacob doesn't take a bad picture. His skin tone is absolutely perfect...he takes after his Daddy and tans perfectly very quickly. I'm so jealous!!!!


I like this one of Luke too...he saw how Jacob was laying to get his picture taken and of course had to join in :)


I am amazed at these two. There are days I sit and just watch them interact. When we brought her home from the hospital I was so nervous at how Caleb would react to her but he surprised me beyond belief. I am so fascinated at their relationship...they absolutely adore each other. I can't wait to watch them grow together...he is so good to her!


At the very end as we were getting ready to go inside and go to where else...the ballfield..Allie decided that she wanted to drink the water too....adorable..she makes me laugh!

What a View

This will be our view for the next 2 days. We are in desperate need for a family vacation and are so excited to be heading out of town. I have scheduled a couple of posts for while I'm gone to try and catch up but unless I come into some internet access I won't be visiting blogs while I'm gone..maybe that's what I need is a break. My husband constantly complains that I'm on the computer at night..that's the only time I get to myself though..anyhow that's another story. There were several cabins we were looking at and most of them had internet access however it was important to us that we got a cabin with everyone on one level and no stairs inside to have to worry about Allie on so the one we ended up picking didn't have internet. I'm hoping to get all my pictures organized while I'm gone so I can get them on cds or another hard drive just in case. I'm terrified of all my pictures being on my computer and then have something happen to them. So until we get back...enjoy the view :)

Friday Photo Flashback

Alicia started this meme for those of us that have older photos scanned into our computers. I love to look through old pictures so this is perfect for me. Most of mine that are in my computer right now are from when my older kids were babies because I don't have any really old ones scanned in right now but it's amazing to me looking back at when my kids were so tiny.

This picture is back from when Jacob was younger. I believe he was under 2 at this time. We were at Freedom Weekend Aloft watching the balloon festival. It's amazing to me looking at this picture...I can't even remember what it was like to only have two kids. Lucas was at my parents this particular weekend and honestly I can't imagine how it must of been to only be caring for one child at a time. Tons of you tell me how much Caleb and Jacob look alike. In this picture Jacob is alittle younger than Caleb but look at how similar they are. It amazes me to look at the two of them...two peas in a pod!

We Want Some More Smores'

This truly shows how far behind I am...The night before the 4th we decided we would do smores one night for dessert. I absolutely love smores and for some reason it had been forever since we had them. When I was much younger(like in school younger) I used to come home and make them in the toaster oven. I'd put mini chocolate chips on one side of the graham cracker and mini marshmallows on the other side..put them in the toaster and let them get soft and gooey then stick them together. They were oh so good but I won't tell how many I consumed at a time. Sometimes I forget that we need to put forth the effort to do simple things with our kids...it's little memories like this that they will carry with them forever.


I've found as I've been organizing my pictures that I don't concentrate as much on getting pics of the older kids when the babies are around. Probably because they're off outside or watching a movie and the little ones are right in my face 24/7. I'm making more of an effort to get pics of all of them as much as possible...and my husband thought I never put down the camera before :)


Here's my Caleb...with one huge marshmallow stuck in his tiny little mouth. I absolutely can not get enough of him...he's just the coolest thing in the world..minus the 2 year old attitude of course!



Caleb was not so sure about smores. He studied it for a few minutes...


Maybe if I lick it I can tell if this is good or bad....


Surely anything with marshmallows and chocolate together can't be too bad..might as well take a bite and see...I haven't found anything I haven't liked yet so why not?

Okay well the hunt is over...I found something Caleb doesn't like...that's right...not big on smores at all! He took one bite and put it down. Ate marshmallows the rest of the night.


Jacob actually only ate one..he was too busy swinging. He said he liked it but he left it sitting for a while before he came back to it. Me..once it's done I'm all into it and it's gone before you know it. Maybe that's just one of my flaws :)


Lucas absolutely loved smores...I believe 3 was his final tally.



Of course..what's a post without Allie. She didn't get left out of the fun..she spent the entire time swinging with her Daddy feeding her chocolate whenever her little heart desired! She's got it made!!!