Emily and Ryan come to visit

I love having family and friends come visit!

Emily and Ryan came down this weekend. They graciously agreed to let us have their kitchen table (we sold our table at the garage sale!) so they brought it down with them. They have been on a hunt for a new table and thought giving away the old one would be a great motivator to go find one.

They hit up the furniture stores around us and though they didn’t find a table, they did get several beautiful new pieces for their home.

We had a fun time catching up with them and enjoying a late (at-home) movie – The Social Network. It was really good – just don’t ask Emily about it. She fell asleep halfway through it!

Thanks for making the trek to come see us!

Emily, Jackson, Philip and I headed to Publix to get dinner supplies. As we were leaving, Emily snapped this adorable picture of Philip chillin' out in the cart.

Dinner at Benihana

Recently, Wesley and I have been working with the college kids/young professionals at our church. We have really loved it.

We have developed great relationships with the students in the class, and were so excited when we were invited to the birthday celebration for one of our new friends.

The dinner was at Benihana and was delicious!

Happy Birthday, Brandon!

(Wesley, Leanne, John & Jackson Shamblin, Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, Brandon and Victoria)

The Underwoods were in town and kept Jackson and Philip for us. The boys loved spending some time with Mrs. Edith and Mr. Larry. With all the craziness of the past few months, we haven’t seen them in awhile. It was nice to catch up.

More Jacksonisms

• Friday, we played Disney World and he wanted to go ride “Funder Fountain” (Thunder Mountain) and have his picture taken

Weeeee...

(see the Disney map beside him? He goes all out when he plays these days!)

• “Mommy, I am going to have a ‘bless you’ in my nose” (a sneeze)
• Overheard singing: Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah. someone’s in the kitchen I know oh oh. Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah….scrubbing on the old band joke
• He was playing with his grocery cart and wanted to get to the kitchen. I was blocking his path so he said, “Excuse me, Sweetie, I need to get by.”
• This was told to me by his school teacher, Mrs. Mary:

Mrs. Mary: Jackson, you need to listen

Jackson: I can't. My listening ears are in Philip’s pocket

(at least we now know where they are!)

Friends!

It’s happening – Philip and Jackson are becoming friends!!

Over the past week, they have really started playing together and it is so fun to watch. They will just play and laugh and my heart is filled with so much happiness watching them together!

Now that they are playing together, the mess they leave behind has gotten bigger...oh well! I really don't care how much of a mess they create, I just love watching them together!

I wonder if this little one will enjoy coloring as much as his brother? At least we know he loves crayons!

I had to include this picture of my blue-eyed baby with his two adorable teeth!

Unusual visit to Krispy Kreme

Friday night after the garage sale, Wesley and I were exhausted! The boys, on the other hand, weren’t. We knew we needed to get out of the house and do something to keep them entertained and us awake!

Jackson had talked about going to see the doughnuts. Susan had just sent me 4 coupons for Krispy Kreme so we decided to head to Buford for the evening. The 15-mile journey took us over an hour – crazy Atlanta traffic!!

Side note: I always thought it was a joke that kids would repeatedly ask from the backseat “Are we there yet?” but turns out that does happen. Jackson perfected the question in the 60 minutes we were in the car!!

Anyways, once we arrived, we went in to find the restaurant under construction. We asked if the doughnut maker was still working and it was. Jackson and Wesley went to go watch.

There were two construction workers there and we believed – since it was 7:00 on a Friday night –they were cleaning up for the day. Wrong! They were just beginning…to remove the tile from the floor!

Not 3 minutes after we arrived, the jigsaw came out and the whole place was filled with the loud noise of the saw and dust. We looked around and thought – are you serious? Is this really going on with customers around? We weren’t the only ones with puzzled looks.

Jackson was as happy as he could be watching the doughnuts come down the belt…while covering his ears. Philip was not so happy. He was screaming. Though no one could hear his screams over the noise, I decided to take him out to the car.

After a few minutes, Wesley and Jackson made it to the checkout and joined us in the car. Jackson was upset because he didn’t want to leave, but it just got too loud.

So…we spent our Friday night, in the car eating Krispy Kreme (the plus side was the doughnuts were free thanks to those coupons!!).

It ended up being a fun adventure, but Wesley and I did say we should probably call first before heading out to Buford just to make sure Krispy Kreme is in working order before we make the trek!

Enjoying our "Hot Nows" from the car

The football doughnut tasted just as good in the front seat!

Everything is an adventure to this kid

Philip enjoyed eating dinner (and his first taste of doughnut!) in the front seat with DaDa!

Garage Sale

Once we put our house on the market, our realtor encouraged us to do some cleaning out. He said the more open the home is the move inviting it is to potential buyers.

We knew we had a lot of stuff in the house, so we rented a storage unit and de-cluttered. Anything we didn’t need on a daily basis went away.

Wesley rented the storage unit for 3 months. We had an agreement that if our house didn’t sell within those three months, he was canceling the unit and we were selling the stuff.

We have no buyer in sight so when the end of the three months approached, Wesley set a date for our garage sale.

Thursday, he unloaded the unit – I was amazed by how much he had crammed in there! – and we set up shop Friday and Saturday.

We now know why very few garage sales happen in the winter – IT WAS COLD! It was so cold, the boys couldn’t be out for long so I ended up staying inside with them for the two days and Wesley was our salesman.

He did a great job! We got rid of a lot of things we no longer used or needed and made a little too!

Philip helped sell for a few minutes Friday morning!

Date Night

Tonight, our church hosted a special event for the couples at our church. Wesley and I signed up to go and were excited about having a night out. Our friend Minutha traveled from Athens, GA with her boyfriend, Aleem to watch the boys for us – they are AWESOME! The boys had a blast and so did we!

We finally left the house!

Once Friday came around, we were all ready to get out of the house. Wesley had an appointment downtown and left around 9:00. The boys and I were heading to the mall for an outing and were getting ready when Wesley called.

The streets were still icy! He couldn’t believe it. Traffic was so slow and backed up, he was turning around. He knew we were headed to Alpharetta and volunteered to take us.

That was fine by me – I was fine not driving around just yet!

We met up with Kate and her boys for lunch and a ride on the carousel.

Kate offered to take the older boys on the carousel and I watched the little guys.

Philip enjoyed a little reading...

And Jack just smiled. This kid has had his picture taken more than once! When I pulled out my camera, he just struck a pose.

Soo adorable!

Sam, Jackson and Kate on the carosel.

They started out safe on the stationary seat, but midway through the ride...

Jackson wanted on the horse. Kate helped him up while...

Sam continued the ride from the seat.

Brothers and Friends!

Wesley was working at a nearby table so I asked him to snap a picture of the 6 of us. At least we are all in it!

After the carousel, I talked Kate and Sam into riding the train with Jackson and me. Wesley watched the littlest ones while we climbed in. We were about to take off when we spotted our friend Priscilla and her daughter Addison joined us for the ride.

Bath Time

I am so behind on updating my blog. I am working to get things up but until then, I thought I would just share a picture of my boys. Too cute!

Smile!

Wesley and Philip sent me a cute picture from the Apple Store. What a nice surprise when I opened my Inbox:

Atlanta is shut down by snow!

By the time we left Charlotte on Wednesday, the snow had pretty much all melted. Some of the back roads had signs of the winter weather but all of the main highways were clear. It was like this all the way through the Carolinas and into Georgia.

All that changed though once we exited I-85 onto GA 20. We were amazed at the amount of ice still on the roads. We drove by an empty Mall of Georgia and noticed most of the local businesses were closed. It was a crazy sight – Atlanta really was shut down!

We expected to see remnants of snow but were astonished when we saw a thick layer of ice covering the ground.

We talked to our neighbors who said almost everything was closed Monday – Wednesday around town. If businesses were open, they closed early because of the “refreeze.”

Wesley and Jackson sledding in the backyard.

Making a snow man

This was quite a sight. In the backyard was 4 inches of snow covered by a thick layer of ice. As soon as Wesley or I walked out there, the ice cracked and we felt snow. Since Jackson is so light, he couldn't break the ice and literally just walked around on top of it. It was crazy! Here he is sitting on top of the snow...

And here he is in the sled.

While in our backyard, Wesley could throw him around on the sled and he would float over the ice!

Snow time in Charlotte

Wesley was asked to speak at a YMCA event in Charlotte this week. At first, the boys and I planned on joining him but after the unexpected travel of last week, I decided just to stay put. I started rethinking that decision when the local weatherman said to expect wintery weather for the week. Usually, I don’t give much merit to these forecasts but I realized that if it did in fact snow, the last place I wanted to be was alone at home with two stir crazy little boys.

It turned out to be a very wise decision!

We left after church on Sunday morning and by evening, Atlanta was covered in snow. We arrived safely in Charlotte around dinnertime. Wesley dropped us off at his sister’s and headed to his event in the Blue Ridge mountains. The snow starting falling in North Carolina early Monday morning.

Thanks to Cole and Macey, Jackson and Philip had a blast! They played in the snow, watched movies, and Jackson even went to school with Teacher Macey. Shannon and I enjoyed chatting and coffee every morning and I didn’t leave the house until Wednesday when Wesley came to pick us up!

I am so thankful Shannon was up for visitors because it was so much fun to have company as we experienced this beautiful winter snow.

The snow quickly accumulated on Monday morning.

We bundled Jackson up to go play with Macey, Cole, and Uncle Ron

Cole is so good with Jackson

Philip had to watch the fun from the window...next time maybe I will remember to bring him some snow clothes!

But I don't think he minded being loved on by Aunt Shannon!

Cole, Jackson, Macey (on the rope swing!) and Ron played in the back yard

Cole offered to go down the hill with Jackson. Jackson LOVED it until the end when a little bump sent snow flying into his face. Poor boy, it was so cold! That immediately ended his time outdoors.

Happy Boy doing his new favorite activity - playing in baskets

Philip and Cali teamed up to help Shannon with the dishes each night. They were a riot together and quickly became buddies (mischievous little buddies!)

Sweet cousins!

I brought with me all the ingredients to make a yummy dessert my mom and dad made for us back in December - Gingerbread Cobbler. It was so good and especially tasty with the snow cream Shannon and Jackson made!

Philip is 11 months!

Wow! This year has flown by. I can't believe Philip is already 11 months old. He is such a sweet addition to our family.

This month, he celebrated his first Christmas by taking 3 steps! He also started waving bye-bye and singing along to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

He will eat anything – except broccoli, green beans, and chicken fingers (Jackson’s staple foods!).

He is a beautiful, happy boy, and we are all in love! Can’t wait to celebrate his first birthday in a few weeks!

Wonder what this bear said to him?

Philip loves walking behind his new walker, but usually....

he scoots it from his knees!

Monkey Joes

Today we headed to Monkey Joes with Kate, Sam and Jack. We picked the perfect day – ½ priced admission – and time – there were only 2 other kids around!

Jackson and Sam had a blast playing. At one point, we were alone in one of the bouncy houses so I decided to let Philip have a turn playing. I think he liked it, too.

Holiday Party...a little late

The last day of school before Winter break, Georgia experienced a small dusting of snow. Though it didn't stay around long, it cancelled school, which meant Jackson's holiday party was postponed.

We received an e-mail over break that the first day back to school in January would be the pizza Christmas party. Philip and I were invited to join the fun. I think Philip enjoyed being in school and I know Jackson enjoyed showing Philip his room.

Jackson loves playing "life"

We will hear him in his room pretending to be at school or Publix. He loves to make believe Disney World or Sunday school. While at the party, he LOVED playing "Mrs. Mary" for his student Philip!