Finally!

This is what I got for my birthday / Christmas and I am just beyond excited. I cant wait to take some fabulous pics of my little love, as if I didn't take enough pics already with the point -n-shoot!!




it has a fabulous video feature and I love how the screen folds out on the back, so excited to learn more about it!!!

A long week ...

I know this may be TMI, but Lilliana has taken on a new hobby and one I am not fond of. She is doing really good with her potty training and has about mastered the pee pee portion of it. Well, when it comes to pooping that is another story. There are times when she will poopy in the potty but for the most part, she will go in her pull-up first thing in the morning. I say all of this because she has started to play with it before we hear her wake in the morning. I know, totally GROSS and I don't know what to do about it. It is horrible and has happened 4 times this week!! There are times we have walked in there and she has finger painted poop all ober the crib and other times when it has been on the floor. The problem is she KNOWS she is doing wrong. She will repeat after us "Do not poopy in the bed", "Do not take my clothes off in the bed" and so on and so forth. I just don't know what to do with her, it is driving me crazy. I hate to blog about things like this but I would love some advice if anyone has experienced this before and it is the little quirky things I don't want to forget. :)

Black Friday

I don't usually partake in the Black Friday madness, but this year was different. I had certain things that I wanted to get for Lilliana and while the opportunity arose to get it at such a great deal, how could I pass it up.

I actually went out with two of my good girlfriends at midnight on Thursday to head to Toys-R-Us and the Disney Store. Now to say that Toys-R-Us was crazy would be an understatement. The line was about a mile long and after being informed they would only allow 50 people in every 15 minutes, we decided to forgo and head to the Disney Store first. We did make it back to Toys-R-Us shortly after 1:00am and the wait was still ridiculous but so worth it considering I got this for $35.00!



We were also very successful at the Disney Store purchasing a great tea set, some Princess dolls and lots of Minnie Mouse stuff. Overall, I was able to purchase all of Lilliana's Christmas gifts for around $70.00!! I was very pleased and actually had a lot of fun in the process. Thanks so much to Tracy and Rachel for joining me, wouldn't have been nearly as fun without you. We should make it a yearly tradition!! I can't wait for Christmas morning :)




this is the tea set Miss Priss is getting :)

School Day's - November 23

Today I sent Lilliana to school with some fun goodies for her teachers which consisted of some wonderful Banana Bread and some sugar cookies. I love to bake goodies for people and since Lilliana now has teachers helping take care of her, I feel it is the least I can do.

She still loves school and talks about her teachers all week long. She can't wait to get there on Monday mornings and play in her room and sleep on her mat. I still can't believe MY child sleeps on that thing but I guess in some cases peer pressure is a good thing! We are still talking about changing her to 2 days a week but since Clay is still out of work at this time, it's not really an option yet. All though we have been on the waiting list for month's of course the one time an extra day was offered to us was on the same day Clay lost his job. I guess I would rather it be that way than us have just signed up for it and not be able to keep our commitment. Hopefully by Spring we will be able to add a day, I know Lilliana would enjoy it and it will be nice for this Momma to have a day to get things done since Monday is spent sleeping :)

(By the way, I do realize this is my first pictureless post when it comes to "school days", well I am going to blame that on Clay Walker since he was in charge this am, since I was at a meeting for work :( )

Blogging Hiatus

I have heard from a couple of my most loyal readers that I have been MIA lately and missed! How sweet that is and makes me feel so good. I will say that there are some reasons for my latest hiatus and the main one is due to some happenings in our life lately. Just a couple weeks ago, Clay was laid off from his job, which makes the 2nd time in 15 month's! Such a trying time and added much stress to an already stressful time of the year. We know that Christmas will be up on us soon along with Lilliana's birthday and I was really looking forward to thing's being different this year. I have just had a hard time being positive and laying things out there for all to hear so I have decided instead to be silent and let my emotions build-up inside of me. Probably not the best idea and I wouldn't say that it worked so well for me but, I hope that I can come back to the blogging world now. I realize that I still have so much to be thankful for and thanks to some wonderful friends and family members I realize that life does go on and that above all, I still have a healthy almost 2 year old at home and a family that loves and supports us through the good and bad times. Continue to scroll down or click here for a little more detailed post and I promise there are lot's more post's on the horizon and many already in the works :)

School Days - November 16th

Convictions ...

The last couple Sunday's while in our small group class I have really felt convicted about some of the thing's we have been talking about. Last week the discussion was on things that you do in your life that you waste your time on. There are many areas in my life that fall into this category and when the question was asked about whether or not, over a long period of time, it would bother me when looking back I wasn't able to say no. A few of those things that fall into that category are; television, Karen Kingsbury books (chosen over biblestudy that is) and the biggie would be facebook. I can say that, besides my Christian novels, the other 2 things haven't made any type of impact in my life and I would say I could completely do without if need be. If I was to look back today at the amount of hours I spend surfing the net or playing on facebook vs. the amount of hours I spend with Lilliana, I would never say, "I wish I had spent more time on FB." Mind you, I try not to get on the computer when Lilliana is awake but the good ole iphone makes that somewhat difficult. It is something that I want to change and make other things that are way more important in my life my complete priority. I guess you can say that I am just going to try to work on reprioritizing my life. We'll see how that goes :)

Then, this past Sunday we spoke about financial freedom's and giving our worries over to God. I can say that this is one of the biggest area's of struggles in my life right now. Since the loss of Clay's job, 2 weeks ago I have allowed our financial woe's to completely over take me. I am angry with Clay all the time and frustrated over the extra hours I am having to put forth at work. Clay asked me the other day why I don't smile any more and instead of smiling or just talking things over with him, I just lashed out at him and put the blame on him. I know that he is trying, but I am just not sure why I am so frustrated and angry over this latest lay-off. That is until today, I realized very quickly that with everything that is going on in my life I have allowed myself to wander from the One that I need the most. I have allowed my anger to spill over and it has taken a toll on every aspect of my life. My relationships with friends and family, my job, my marriage and most of all my spiritual growth. I have put the blame on the fact that I am tired all the time and every spare moment is spent with Lilly. The last thing I want to do is do my devotionals when I could spend that time catching up on things that are "more important."


This morning our Sunday School leader spoke on Matthew 6 and what God says about worrying.

Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

This is exactly what I have been going through and just the answer I needed. I KNOW that I need to give it over to God and I KNOW that my problems are too big to handle on my own but, I have always had a problem with control, and so it continues to affect my life. I am so glad that God placed me there this morning to hear this message, to gain the knowledge from it that I need at such a time as this. I KNOW that so many marriages fail over financial woes and I DON'T want mine to be one of the number's. Just please pray for Clay and I. For us to seek first His Kingdom and to trust Him above all other's. For me to be less stressed over the hurdles we are facing at this time and to be thankful for what we do have. Afterall this is supposed to be a time of Thanksgiving and celebrating.

23 month's young!

Oh My Precious Little Love,

You are turning into quite the little lady these days. You are such a bright spot in our life and we love you more than you will ever know. I can't believe that in just 4 short weeks you will be turning 2. This year has just flown by and I have loved every minute we have spent together.

We are really working diligently on potty training these days and you are doing so wonderfully. We are wearing princess pull-ups at this time and wearing your big kid trainer panties when we are home. You love to tell me when you need to go pee-pee and seem to have about mastered that but we are still working on the other bodily function!

Your newest phrase is to ask "why?" I feel like it is really early for you to be questioning why I ask you to do things but I guess you are just a smart little stinker and want a reason for why things are like they are.

I feel like you have had a slight growth spurt in the last month and you just may be over 20 pounds by now! You are still facing backwards in your car seat but since you don't know any difference you don't seem to mind. You still love Minnie Mouse, and have a new found love of Sesame Street. You love Abby and after our recent purchase of some Zoe New Balance shoes, you love her too. You love shoes, but don't like to wear them in the car. You are constantly taking off your shoes and socks the minute we try ot go somewhere.

You love shopping at Target with Momma and, going on our weekly runs. You are still doing wonderfully at school and you just love your teachers as they do you. You are still the smallest one in your class but you tend to have the most spunk. You were Minnie Mouse for Halloween and you did great wearing your costume Mommy made you. We were able to wear it on many occasions because we did all kinds of things to celebrate Fall in October. We first went to 2nd Baptist for their Fall Festival, then we had a Halloween party with your friends at home and then we went to Zoo Boo and to Germantown Baptist on Halloween night. You now love candy and I would say your favorite is M & M's and candy corn. You choose between both of those when you go potty in the big girl potty and you know just where to find them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when candy corn isn't in season anymore? I guess I need to go ahead and stock up for the winter! :)

You are such a little Chatty Cathy and you love to tell your Dadda to "stop Dadda." You still choose Momma over him but I am pretty sure it is just a matter of time before that changes. Momma just switched to working on Friday and Sunday nights which allows me a little more time with you since I don't need as much sleep. I love having Saturday nights at home with you and Dadda and being able to go to church as a family on Sunday mornings.

You are the best thing in our lives and we can't imagine a single day without you!!

Love you,
Momma

School Days - November 9th

Germantown Baptist Fall Festival

On Halloween night, Clay and I took Lilliana to Germantown Baptist, where my mom goes to church, for their Fall Festival. It was so much fun and Lilliana had a great time playing games, doing the cupcake walk, sliding down the big inflatable slide with Momma and riding on the hayride. I was so glad that I was able to go with them because I was supposed to work Halloween night but a wonderful friend went into work for me for a couple hours so that I would be able to enjoy trick-or-treating with my little love.

Playhouse Disney

On Sunday, Clay and I took Lilliana down to the Canon Center to see Playhouse Disney. We had bought these tickets a while back and knew that Lilliana would have such a great time so decided to just go ahead and enjoy ourselves. We did do good by avoiding purchasing any of the unecessary stuff that was out on display since Lilliana still doesn't really know any difference. I am sure this will be the last year we are able to get away with that!

It included the 4 main charachter's associated with Playhouse Disney which was Handy Manny, Mickey and Friend's, The Incredible's and Winnie the Pooh. We had seen all of the charachter's via television besides The Incredible's which they were pretty cute too. Lilliana was so cute dancing to the music the whole time and she was so incredibly excited when Minnie Mouse came out. She kept calling for toodles and asking where Daisy was. I am not sure why she wasn't there but her and Pluto were MIA.

We ended our day with a fun ride on the Memphis trolley back to our car in the parking garage. Lilliana thought it was so neat and kept saying choo choo train the whole time. She loved it and we really enjoyed our day out as a family.