Mother's Day

Here are some pics of me and the kids at our "photo shoot" before church on Mother's Day :)

Renaissance Festival

A few weekends ago some great friends gave us FREE tickets to the Renaissance Festival that goes on every weekend in May here in Middle Tennessee.  Unfortunately, the friends who gave us the tickets weren't able to attend :( , but we were able to go with another wonderful family who we are great friends with as well.  And we saw several other families we knew while we were there too!

This was mine, Kraig's and Taylor's second time to go, but Rylan's first, of course.  The last time we went, Taylor was two, which was really crazy to think about and compare her this time to last time...she's grown up so much!  We got to do lots of great things...tour the castle (which was really cool!), get Taylor's face painted, look at all the neat crafts and items for sale, watch the Jousting Tournament and, of course, EAT!  I had spinach pie and Kraig had a ginormous turkey leg (Taylor and Rylan just had some chicken and fries.)

Here are some pics of our fun day:

Taylor's first bus ride...she thought it was awesome! (You have to ride a school bus to get from the festival site to the castle.)

And Rylan's first bus ride...I don't think he was as impressed ;)

Taylor and Alyssa in front of the castle.

This sign was inside the castle ~I thought it was cute!

I know this looks completely unsafe, but you can see to the right of the pic that Kraig is very close ;)

And here's the four of us at the castle.

Excuse the lady in the green shirt and look past her to the adorable little girl by the stairs :-D

And here's Taylor getting her face painted.

And what's face paint without glitter??

All three kids-Taylor, Gabe and Alyssa-sporting their new painted faces (Rylan didn't get his face painted...maybe next year-ha!)

Taylor's face paint design up close

They have a children's area where they can do arts and crafts and everything is free there, which is awesome!

Taylor made a crown.

And here we are trying on some hats at one of the vendors.  I'm sure they just love people like me who try on the product just to take pics then put it back, but that adorable hat she's wearing cost $30...um, no thank you!!!

Ah, it was truly a very fun day!

So much fun!!!

I want you to know how much fun we have around here...

Having kids is constant entertainment for sure!

Rylan is constantly making us laugh.  I mean, LOOK AT THAT BELLY!!!

And how cute is he sporting his tough guy look...

And what about that adorable little girl cheesing for us??

Uh-oh...have I mentioned how much Rylan LOVES hair?

But, Taylor knows how to fight back with tickling!

Oh, and the wrestling match is ON!

Yes, we have so much fun around here :-D

Our Love Story

On June 21, 1999 I married my best friend and the love of my life and it was, hands down, one of the best days EVER!!!

 

Our love story began in the spring of 1995 when my family started visiting New Union Baptist Church.  I met some amazing friends there and Kraig had my eye from the beginning.  Not only was he SO CUTE, but he had such a unique way about him that most teen guys did not.  He wasn't like anyone I'd ever met and I became quite smitten.  Fortunately, he became smitten as well and on June 21, 1995 he asked me to "go with him" (that was the boyfriend/girlfriend term "back in the day", lol).

We dated for the next four years, but it was evident to us both after just a couple years that we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together.  So, on July 23, 1998, we became engaged and on June 21, 1999, before hundreds of family and friends, we pledged forever.

I love you, Kraig!  Happy anniversary!!!

A little happy for your day :)

Sooooo, I'm failing miserably at regular blog posts!  I'm not one to just sit down and write/type real quick-like.  I need time to think and edit...not something I'm going to do with this post ;0) .  I have several blog posts in mind so hopefully in the weeks to come those posts that are in my mind will actually make it to the blog!  In the mean time, here's a little happy for your day :-D

I truly have the smiliest baby in the world.  Isn't he just SO CUTE???  Man, that adorable smile melts my heart every time!  (Which makes it SO hard to get on to him when he's getting into stuff he shouldn't!)

And here he is being tossed way up in to the air by his Daddy.  He totally LOVES this (Rylan and Daddy-hee hee)

He shuts his eyes real tight every time and just giggles his heart out.  Taylor used to love this too when she was a baby.  We have very similar pics of her.  It's very fortuante that Ma and Papa have high ceilings in their living room!

And here's my big girl with her soccer trophy!  That's right, she just completed her first season of soccer and she has a blast!  (Blog post on that later ;0) )

And here's a family picture at Taylor's soccer awards night.  It's tough to get a good picture of all four of us, but this one turned out pretty cute, I thought!

And a special thanks to Ma for sharing all these pics from her camera.  And a special thanks to my hubby for sharing them with me :) .  Sherry emailed them to Kraig and he reluctantly forwarded them to me with a disclaimer that they were his and I couldn't use them for Facebook.  Since this isn't Facebook, I thought it was acceptable.  (I tagged myself in all of them on Facebook after he posted them ;-D )