Never Say Never

A little over 2 years ago we started a new adventure as a family.  We packed up from our small town in Anderson, SC and moved to the suburbs of Detroit.  This blog was created because of the realization that in life the things you say “never” to, God uses his sense of humor to stretch and grow you in new ways.  When Kevin took his current job in his department, which is headquartered in Farmington Hills Michigan, everyone asked if we would be moving to Michigan.  Our, or at least my response was always, “I will never move there!” Although we may have been hesitant about our move to Detroit, God blessed us beyond our beliefs.  Even though today our time there feels somewhat like a dream, a part of my heart will always be in Michigan. 
I feel if nothing else from our move to Detroit we did learn to be careful when saying “never”.  However on occasion that word accidently slips into your vocabulary. 

If your eyes have not failed you and you have passed our eye test then you can rejoice with us in announcing that we are expecting our third sweet child around April 7th of 2014!  I do not recall either Kevin or I ever being adamant about us “never” have another child but I do recall that word slipping out our mouths a time or two in moments of weakness.  Regardless, we are very excited about this little blessing from God!  In an even sweeter blessing, both Chase and Leah are so excited about getting a new little brother or sister.  Chase say’s that it is a boy however he continues to call the baby a She.  Time will only tell .

Paradise

Paradise for me is a little place on the gulf coast called Madeira Beach.  It is where Kevin sent me for my 30th birthday.  My parents were going for their annual trip there this past week so I decided to take the kids and join them for part of the week.  Chase is in preschool three days a week so I decided to wait until he was out of school on Wednesday before we headed down.  The timing worked out really well, with the drive taking about 9 hours we were there just in time for bedtime so we would have two full days of beach time.

The kids were so excited to be at the beach and to make it more fun Grandma and Grandpa were there to add to the excitement.  Grandpa gave the kids lessons on bate catching and fishing….

My sweet little Leah was fearless of the little bate fish and she loved feeding them to the birds.

Grandpa helped Chase catch his first fish…

And then it was Leah’s turn…

Grandpa caught a fish that matched his shirt, at least I thought so…

We spent the mornings on the beach fishing, swimming, colleting shells, and playing in the sand.  After lunch we spent most of the afternoons in the pool.  After the first day in the pool Leah learned to put her head underwater to swim and each time she opened her eyes underwater.  She was so proud of herself but unfortunately the chlorine was so strong that her poor eyes were red and swollen. So the next day she wore her goggles…

Chase who is a pretty strong swimmer now had fun diving for rings in the pool. 

We had so much fun of course we didn’t want to leave when our two short days were up.  We can’t wait to get back to our paradise!

Princess Party

Our sweet baby girl will be 3 tomorrow on the 13th of September and I cannot recall where the last 3 years have gone.  Our sweet princess is so grown up and brings such great joy and love to our lives everyday.  This year to celebrate Leah’s birthday we wanted to her to have her very own birthday party.  With Chase and Leah’s birthday’s being so close together, we have gotten away with combining their birthday parties into one big birthday.  But not this year, we were going to celebrate Princess style.  Leah was sold on the idea when I told her she would get to have her finger nails painted!  Now that the party is over I can say that I did enjoy planning this one, it was just a little more stressful combined with everything else going on in our lives at the moment.  First we had to make royal scrolls to deliver to all the knights and princesses that would be attending the party.

We just printed the grand announcement on card stock paper and used a tea bag around the edge of the paper to age it a little and then rolled each one into a scroll and hand delivered them to the proper kingdoms.  Leah was very excited when her special day finally arrived.  While we were waiting for everyone to arrive the kids had the choice to color a giant princess or play in the Castle that King Kevin built.

Once all the kingdoms were represented we divided the knights and princesses for separate activities.  King Kevin took the knights outside where first they had to earn their swords.

They did this by tossing a bean bag though a hole in the door on the play set.  Once they completely their task, they were knighted and given their sword.

Lots of sword fighting ensued to protect the castle and I have to say, it was well protected. 

The boys also enjoyed bobbing for apples.

The grandpa’s found a safe spot outside and held up camp for safety…

While the boys went about their craziness outside the girls had their princess activities inside.  We had a seek and find rice goodie bucket for the girls to dig for surprises…

And they certainty had a lot of fun digging though the rice.  We also painted each of the girls nails…

As you can see in the picture above they also decorated their our tiara's and magic wands.  If the girls wanted to they could strike a pose with some other princesses…

After the individual games were complete all the kids came together and played pinned the lips on the frog prince (thanks LeeAnn for drawing me the foggie!).

 After a much needed break for dinner the birthday girl blew out her candles and everyone enjoyed cupcakes and cake pops.

After cake we took a few whacks at the princess crown piñata.  First for safety we had to get all the kids sitting down.

I didn’t get any shots of the actual piñata since I had to put the camera down to keep the kid from swinging the bat from going crazy and hitting something or someone other than the piñata.   The kids loved it and we had a great time doing it.  Leah in crazy birthday party fashion opened all her presents and with a grateful heart thanked everyone for the great gifts.  It was a whirled wind party and the princess of honor had a spectacular time! Happy birthday to our energetic, loving, sweet 3 year old!

Go Tigers!

Labor day weekend was also the first Clemson football game.  Our friends LeeAnn and Preston are huge Clemson fans so they traveled up from Georgia for the weekend to hang out with us and go to the football game.  Preston was the one lucky enough to have a ticket to the sold out game but the rest of us agreed it would be fun to head down and tailgate for a while.  Luckily my 7 passenger van proved to be able to sit 8, at least for a short period of time.

I’m just glad I got shotgun .  We also maxed out the jogging stroller…

We hung around Preston’s tailgating spot for a while and the kids played some corn hole. 

After hanging out for  a while we headed over to show the kids the football stadium. 

As we were walking around a guy offered to paint the kids faces.

We had a great time and the kids loved hanging out in Clemson!