Meredith Turns One

     It's hard to believe but our sweet little Meredith turned one on Monday!  While she isn't walking yet, she has no trouble getting into everything!  We kept our celebration low key.  James did a wonderful job decorating the Christmas tree and ornament cake I made.  I wrapped little mini candy bars (one of the many treats our neighbors keep us stocked with) and placed them under the Christmas tree cake.  Meredith enjoyed eating the wrapping paper and the boys enjoyed playing with Meredith's presents.  Thank you to everyone who called  and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.  Her little face  lit up each time someone sang to her and  she had lots of fun dancing to all the different renditions of "Happy Birthday." 
    On Tuesday, Meredith had her one year check up and received 4 shots including her second flu vaccine.  John was terribly upset.  He didn't want Meredith to have to get shots.  Apparently he is the only one who can torture Meredith!  (  =  She is in the 50th percentile for weight and head circumference and 70 percentile for height!!!! 


Yum!  I love wrapping paper!






Our beautiful Christmas tree cake!

Meredith's ornament cake!

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"Hmm...I wonder if I should save room for cake?"

Bella's Christmas Program

Bella and her friend, Sara!

Bella in her costume as "Mom."  Isn't she ADORABLE!!!!

Meredith: My Little Helper

Favorite Photos of the Week

Clark Park

Our sweet Meredith!

Our fashionable Bella!

JACKSON!!!

Our sweet little Cardi!

Our little energetic Johnny...once again with left over chocolate on his face!

Dad vs. The Kids!

James was REALLY busy this week!  He had to run experiments for 36 hours.  On Tuesday he was up by 4:30 am and out the door.  He came home briefly (on Tuesday)  for about an hour or so  - so I could go to a meeting for Cardi's after school program.  I didn't see him again until 11 am  the next day.  He slept a couple of hours and then went back in around 7 pm or so and got back home around  midnight.  I am so grateful that I am married to a WONDERFUL man.  He rarely complains and works so hard! 
      We had open house for the girls' school on Thursday.  Cardi and I volunteered to help out at the book fair which was a lot of fun!  Both girls received lots of compliments from their teachers and a few from some of their classmates parents!  On Saturday, we took a family outing to Clark Park about 15 minutes away.  We tried to hike one of the trails but it was uneven and had not been used in a while so we headed back to the park area (which the kids were really happy about).  (  =    The kids have fall break this week and of course the floor guys decided Monday at 9 am would be a good time to replace the floor in the bathroom!  (sigh)  So much for sleeping in...

Family Outing

So, not much has happened in the last month or so.  Cardi and Bella joined Girl Scouts (Cardi has since decided she doesn't want to go).  Bella is continuing to work on her book.  She has 43 pages so far!  Meredith had hand, foot, mouth disease...not to be confused with "foot in mouth" disease.    She is pulling herself up and getting into everything!  Last week she crawled into the dryer while I was loading it.  By the huge grin on her face she thought she was very clever!  She has several new teeth on top.  Jackson and John are enjoying preschool but we haven't had it for the last 2 weeks on Friday because we can't seem to all be healthy at the same time.  The boys and I had lunch with Cardi a week ago and now Jackson is very excited to go to school.  They were both a big hit in the lunchroom...John wore his spiderman costume and Jackson was a mighty dragon.  The kindergartens especially loved it!  Cardi lost 2 teeth.  I have rearranged our house for the hundredth time...when I finally get it the way I want it, it will probably be time to move!  (sigh) 
We have been soooo busy with just the mundane things in life that we have been to busy to do much of anything else.  Today we finally got some much needed family time together.  We packed up and headed to the University of Tennessee Arboretum which is just a short drive from our house.  The arboretum was great but  I really miss the Finch Arboretum in Spokane and of course Manito Gardens...Oh and Marilyn's doughnuts...alas no Doughnut Fest for us...But  James and I actually got to talk for a few minutes without interruption as the kids walked a head of us (unless you count Meredith who was in the back pack and screeching...very loudly).  But it is probably as close as we are going to get to hanging out alone at least for a while.  But we did have  a LOT of fun!  We took a lot of photos...the "dirt" on John's face is actually a chocolate brownie he had right before we left.  (  = 


Our cute, cute Meredith!

We had LOTS of fun!!!

John was having lots of fun collecting acorns!

Cardi and John leading the way!

Who couldn't LOVE these faces?

Home Decor: Our Little Red Preschool

Our Little Red Preschool!

This year we decided to do a preschool at home for the boys.  We have 2 groups of kids that come over on Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 am to noon. 

Our fun wall calendar!

We have lots of fun working on letters and numbers!