My monkies

The boys have been in Georgia, visiting my family all week. It has been a wonderful week with J but I realized that if we did not have children I would spend my time 1. working 10 hour days and 2. coming home to a clean house. I worked late every night this week (next time I won't plan this week at the end of the month) and when coming home, there were NO messes. The house was exactly how I left it when we left in the morning.

Regardless, I would take my rowdy, messy kiddos that allow me to work part time hours any day of the week over this different kind of busy, hectic week. I miss my babies SO much. The first few days were so nice but I'm ready to have them back under my roof, loving on their Momma!

Tomorrow I'm leaving to head down to Georgia for the weekend. I can't WAIT to see my babies and my family! The boys both started swimming this week while they were gone. This is a huge deal, I am so happy for them. They have been slightly terrified to swim, now they have let go of their fear.

Please pray for safe travels this weekend while we are on the road!

talkative tuesday

Yes I just decided to name this Tuesday post - talkative tuesday. I thought it had a cute ring to it. I have random things to discuss today.

1. First off, I have a serious celebrity crush on Adam Levine. I mean is he not just the most beautiful thing you have seen. I think he's rather short, I'm not a huge fan of short men, but he is absolutely beautiful and I think he's totally HOT on the Voice. When he sang on the Voice a few weeks ago I thought I was going to come up off the sofa. I was so embarrassed he struck me all of the sudden and right in front of the hubs!!

2. Sunday we took the boys to meet my Mom half way, so she has them all week in Georgia with her. Sunday night we didn't know what to do with ourselves, it is so quiet in the house. J thought he would make me feel at home while we were watching T.V. that night and he yelled out "boys get back in your beds"... we cracked up laughing! I miss them with all of my body, I can't wait to see their little faces in a few days. Being home alone with the hubs and just doing what we want to do is SO much fun though! I totally fell in love with him all over again and it makes me remember the reasons why we fell in love, 10 years ago!! (yes, sadly sometimes I needed to be reminded).

3. You know our boys LOVE to go swimming, but they are terrified to let go and swim off. They seriously are terrified. We are going to have to do swimming lessons again this summer and I think I know where I'm going to put them. I hate it for them, it totally freaks our pediatrician out because it is much more dangerous for them to be scared to swim. With them being scared to take off and swim it hinders them to be able to acually "swim". - confusing I know, it confuses me to watch :(. One day I will have choice words with the person that put the "Fear of God" in them regarding swimming... For now I will pray for their little worried minds and just help them along, they do have a ball in the shallow end so right now they think they don't need to take off and swim... UGH!

I think that's all of the non-sense I have for today. I need to get back to work...

Hope y'all are having a blessed Tuesday!

Happy 5th Birthday to my Luke!

 Luke,

On this day, you took our breath away! From the moment I found out about your little life, I knew you were the second best thing to ever happen to me.

Seconds after you were born...

1 year old! 

2 years old!

3 years old!

4 years old!

and now sadly... 5 years old!!

Lukie we can't believe our baby boy is now 5 years old. It seems like time has flown by, I remember laying awake with your Daddy the night you were born, us both balling because we made this beautiful child together. We love you more son than you will ever know!! You and your brother are our lives.

My prayer each night is for you to continue loving the Lord, learning more each day, staying funny and laughing at anything, enjoying life and just being true to yourself. We could not be more proud of you!

Happy 5th Birthday son!!

(this post is 4 days late... better late than never) 

Marriage Refs...

Today I decided to link up with Kelly's Korners SYUL since it is on the ever changing, unique but also perfect topic, Marriage.

**Have y'all ever seen the show Marriage Refs, we think it is hilarious!!!!**

This past March the hubs and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. (I'm honestly pretty proud of that, thank you very much!) Marriage is the hardest thing I have ever had to constantly work on, beside raising two boys to be sweet, kind, loving, hardworking gentlemen and let them stay boys too.

The best advice we have received on marriage and it's something we have always done and agreed with is you just NEVER mention or say the word divorce. (even though my hard head has got in the way and I've thought it, we have never ever said it or even mentioned it) Times will be difficult, you will have peaks and valleys, but you just deal with them, you never allow your mind to go to the "D" word. You always know in the back of your mind that it is just not an option for us and you deal with your problems head on, together! Sure we both can be hot tempered but luckily the older we get the less often it happens. Yes I say things to get on his nerves because I know they will, yes we have arguements about topics we can't even remember afterwards. It's just reality, it's life! Once I let go of the "perfect" marriage and life expectations I had for ourselves, I was a happier person, which in return made for a happier family.

In the beginning of our marriage, everything I didn't agree on, I let him know immediately. It caused many, many arguements just trying to make him think just like myself. Finally someone told me, "sista that aint ever gonna happen"  So I stopped trying to make him the way I wanted him to be and we put the Lord first in our marriage, since then things have been so much easier. We respect each other more and more each day and we cheer each other on in life. We honestly want nothing but the best for each other and our family!

Spending time alone is so important to us. On our anniversary this year we took a quick trip together, just us. We still talk about it all the time and say it is our favorite memory together as a couple, thus far. With every day life it is easy to get into a groove or routine. This trip allowed us both to fall in love with each other again. I remember looking at him one point on our trip, saying to myself  "I remember this feeling all too well, I never want this feeling of complete love to fade away again". Not that we ever stopped loving each other before our trip, we just did not take the time to remind each other how important we are to the other.

We are so blessed to of found each other so young. I love this man, he loves me and what works for us is to just love one another, never stray away from our Lord, respect the other and pick and choose your battles.

Oh and now that kids are around, when I see my husband playing with the kids right now... it makes me love him even more than the minute before!

HE is our world!!!

Lately

 On the 4th of July, my father's family does a family reunion each year. My Grandparents (who are no longer alive, but we still use the home) raised their 5 children on a lake in a small town in Georgia. Today, that town is pretty big, the house has been completely redone AND they have a wonderful home that we all are able to come enjoy when we would like too. We use the home especially for the 4th of July weekend. Everyone, all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and the children get together for this special occasion. Their property is absolutely beautiful and just so happens to be only about 200 yards from the towns firework show. You can just imagine how special that time is for me and now having my own children to lay down on our quilts, eat good food and watch fireworks. To me it's pretty magical and amazing that I have a husband and boys to share memories.

This year though, we decided we would stay home with the hubs family, enjoy time with them and I was 100% totally fine with it, UNTIL the weekend came along and I could not help but be depressed that we were not there spending time with ALL of my family. :) So the hubs promised me he would make that weekend special for me and make memories for our family, so I perked up and have a fantastic weekend with my #1, most speical family of my own!

So we went to Cracker Barrell.. it's seriously my favorite restaurant. There's just nothing better than pulling up to Cracker Barrell, buying a few things out of the gift shop, letting the boys pick some toys out, eat some good southern food and wabble out to the car, full as a tick!



Luke and Mommy eating yummy lunch at the Cracker Barrell.



 And I might add that it was a special memory with our boys, they really enjoyed that day together!

Daddy and Will at the Cracker Barrell.

We topped that day off with spending time with the hubs parents and going to spend way too much money on our own fireworks.

Another day we went to the hubs brothers house and let all of the cousins play together all day! 



(I don't know why this picture is to the left?)  Here is the cousins having fun playing in som water!



And poor Lukie was DONE from the busy, hectic weekend.

Poor Luke is done, had enough fun for the night.

Somewhere in this post I lost a picture of J and I, I will post that another time. Me and this new blogger is just not working out well. I pray y'all are having a great week thus far, I can not wait til the weekend!