Capturing Things I Love

Today I’m getting back into the swing of things by linking up to You Capture over at I Should Be Folding Laundry. This week’s theme is  Things You Love. That’s super easy! So jump on over to check out the weekly challenge. She always posts the next week’s challenge so you can start getting your pictures this week.

This pictures shows two things that I love – my honey, Ron, and my FSU Seminoles!!!

With Mamaw and Papaw (my parents)

And this one also has two of my faves – my kids and my parents!

This is my Mamaw with what she loved, flowers! I’m pretty sure my Mamaw hung the moon and lit the sun every morning.

My gorgeous children having fun during their senior pictures! I love all of their senior pictures and could fill up pages and pages and pages of this blog full of them. But these shots are just in my top 3 favorites.

And last but not least I love this little Shih-Tzu named Faith! She puts a smile on our faces every day.

That’s just a quick collection of things I love. Next week’s theme for You Capture is Shapes. That will be fun! I’ll start snapping pictures today!

This Is What Family Does

This month’s NaBloPoMo theme is Relatives. I agreed to participate and THEN I thought about how many days I was gonna have to write about my family. 29 days! That’s a lot of family. I then began thinking through various ways to write about family and what I might say about each one. It became a daunting task. But then I thought about what is going on around me. We have had quite the eventful month on our street.

We live in a young subdivision on a culdesac. Our culdesac makes up a wonderful group of friends who care about and support one another like family. When one of us needs something all we have to do is ask. Each home represents a branch on the family tree. I’ve always said that good friends are the family that you choose. In this case God chose each of us and planted us in houses next to each other. Now there are some “family members” who choose not to participate in “family” activities. But then that’s really not much different than a family related by blood, is it?

As I said earlier, we have had a lot going on in the court the last few weeks. One family in particular is really struggling right now. I wrote a few weeks ago about one of our neighbors whose 3 year old son had a seizure. This same family is going through another indescribably difficult time now. To remind you Katie (the mother) had thyroid cancer in the early stages of her recent pregnancy. She was able to have surgery to remove it but was unable because of the pregnancy to treat her with radiation or other treatments. A couple of months ago is when their 3 year old had the seizure, which I wrote about at the time. In the last 2 months of the same pregnancy they discovered that her cancer had come back. A week ago tomorrow she had the baby – a healthy baby girl at birth. However a couple of days later the baby began having some problems and was moved to the NICU where she is still staying. In the last couple of days her husband and their 3 year old son have come down with RSV. So, let’s get this straight Mom discovers that her cancer has returned, the healthy baby girl goes to NICU, the dad and son have RSV and is unable to visit. Katie is staying at the hospital with the baby.

And this is where our Cul-de-sac family comes in. We are currently putting together a plan for meals and a means of getting items from home to the hospital for Katie. That’s what family does! When a family member is having a crisis then the other family members step up and pick up part of the burden to make the load lighter.

I really can’t explain quite how great each member of our family is and how vital each family is to the care of the overall group. I’ve never lived somewhere like this. We are bonded. We are family. And this is what family does.

So Much More To Be Thankful For Than To Complain About

It’s time to be thankful once again. Last Monday I ended on #46. This week I decided to share pictures of what I’m thankful for. Just trying to shake things up – cause that just how I am.

47 - One Half of My Clean Office

The Other Half of My Clean Office

48 - The Piano Our First Church Gave Me As A Gift When We Left - 15 Years Ago

50 - My Favorite Bible (NIV Life Application Study Bible)

51 - My Awesome Parents

52 - The Most Amazing Husband Ever

53 - A Son Who Doesn't Mind Singing To His Mom When She Is Down

54 - A Beautiful Daughter Who Always Makes Me Laugh (and sometimes makes me pull my hair out)

55 - Our Season Passes to Nashville Shores (lots of fun family time ahead this summer)

56 - Reminders From God That He Loves Us

There are so many times that I could get totally overwhelmed with how blessed I am. When I am overwhelmed with negative things in my life I need to stop and remember this list of 56 items I have created so far for Multitude Mondays. I need to realize that I have so much more to be thankful for than I have to complain about.

 

Fired Up Family Night

Last night we had a terrific family night. We all went to a local place called Fired Up. You chose an unfired piece of pottery and paint it. Then you leave it there and the owner fires it through the week. You go back in a week and pick it up. And if you don’t finish is the first time you can come back as often as you want to complete it. The evening was a culmination of Ron’s birthday celebration. We all made bowls – like for ice cream. The bowls are the same size but we each painted ours in our own style. Ron and Michael didn’t finish theirs. They will have to go back to finish them. Lauren and I completed ours last night. We will pick ours up next Friday. Here are the pictures of the night.

Lauren drew on her pattern. The pencil marks do not show up after the firing process

work work work

Finished Project

Michael working diligently

Finished for now

My turn

All done!

All Done! I also painted a purple Fibro Awareness Ribbon. It comes with a black corded necklace.

Ron working it out

Deep concentration

Didn't quite finish

SUCCESS!! A fun family evening

A Beautiful Sunday With My Parents/Family In Pictures

So my Mother’s Day gift this year is a new HD Digital Camera. It is a Panasonic Lumix HD DMC-ZS7. The pictures it takes are amazing!! The only drawback is that I have to do it old school by loading the pictures onto the computer and then putting them on my blog or post them to twitter. HAHA How old school! I just got really spoiled sending them straight from my cell phone. But the HD quality of these pictures is amazing. I just wanted to share a few with you.

Faith collapsed in the sunshine this morning for a nap.

Michael and Hannah at dinner

The kids with my parents at lunch today

Prettiest girl on the soccer field

Three generations of girls

Me with my parents this morning

Michael in action in his game yesterday

My parents

Just a few of the 240 pictures on my new camera. So proud to have my parents here this weekend. Time to take my Mom shopping for a bit now. Thanks for coming by so I can show off the cool pictures from my new camera. There will be plenty more to come. I even have next Friday’s Skywatch Friday picture already chosen and ready. For now this has been Sunday in my City! Jump over to Mami’s blog and share Sunday in your city!

Perfection Can Last An Entire Day

Yesterday was Easter Sunday! And I think it was just a perfect day. I made it to church with my family. That doesn’t happen very often but this weekend it did. I am so grateful that it did too. I was proud to walk in and sit with them all by my side.

Together for Easter

Well I should add that as soon as Lauren saw her bestie, Amelia, she got up and went to sit with her. But I had them all with me for about 5 minutes.

My Sweeties

I will admit that I had to tell them to act like they liked each other for this picture. Why do kids do that? I just hold on to the hope that one day they will be the best of buds again like when they were little. I haven’t seen it for a long time. But I can have hope!

Me and my man

He’s kind of a cutie! He makes me look good. I keep him around for that reason.

After church we went to dinner at our friends’, Phil and Jeanie’s, house. We had a great meal and a great time! I’d like to go back for leftovers for lunch.

The day was just perfect all the way around. The service was beautiful. The music was amazing! God was there in our midst and everyone was freely worshiping – including me. If there’s anything I love more than worshiping the Lord I haven’t come across it yet. It was a glorious day to celebration the resurrection of Jesus!

My Perfect Moment Monday entry for this week was an entire day! Beautiful, fun and perfect! You should jump over to Lori’s blog and share yours with us all.

The Family That Plays Together….

In trying to choose my picture for Semi-Wordless Wednesday I decided I couldn’t choose just one. Last year we got some professional pictures made. I’ve been wanting to share them. You see one of them every time you come here. The header is one of our pictures. Here are a few others:

Those three make up my heart!

My sweetie!

Time for a smooch

My goofballs!

Being serious for a second

Had to have one with Faith

This is just a few of the pictures with these outfits. We had a change of clothes with us. I will share those maybe next week. All of these were taken at Centennial Park in the downtown area of Nashville. It is beautiful there.

Now I’m gonna hop over to Flip Flops & Pearls blog to check out more Semi-Wordless Wednesday posts. Join me?