Today we are THANKFUL!

This morning was an early one for all of us. P came into our bed at 4 and never went back to sleep. All the while trying to wake us up...he succeeded too. Well the alarm went off at 5 for Bill to get up for work. Not 10 minutes later Coley was up. So we started our day at 5:15 this morning. Yep, I'm tired. Anyway, Bill got a fire call as he headed out for a truck that had flipped over on the interstate. So off he went. Not even 15 minutes later he called me. He was in an ACCIDENT. I freaked out even though he said he was fine. Well he hit some ice on the road did a 360 hit a few orange barrels that were on the shoulder and then went into the ditch. Luckily, he was NOT hurt...well he might be a little sore this evening. We'll see. And thankfully he wasn't in his truck but the fire car. So it's banged up a bit and Parker still wants to know what is going to happen to the car. He did managed to drive it back to the station after being pulled out with a loose right front tire. Not a smart thing to do but again we are THANKFUL that nothing more happened.

So since we had a bit of snow mind you at just started to snow here at home when Bill left...nothing was on the ground. About 30 minutes later this is what it looked like. A mess! I had to take Cole out to play (freeze my hiney off). Parker said it was too cold for him to play or go to school (it was cancelled.) lol Cole had a blast and actually threw a fit when we came inside. He's been going to the front door trying to get out all morning. My lense was foggy at this point and I decided to take a pic anyway and I kinda like the result.

15 months!

He's still chunky (26 lbs.), still short (30 inches), and has a HUGE head (95%). Took this photo of him today to document him at 15 months. It wasn't until I was going through all the pics I took today that I noticed the numbers on the tape measure. How appropriate, huh?!

He's talking a bit these days. Mama, Dada, dog, book, ball, What's that?, Who's that?, and bye-bye. Oh and brother. Of course he says them clear as mud, ha! He's started actually running. It's hilarious to actually see his little feet lift off the ground. And he's caught on to "I'm gonna get you!" Still a drama king and NO is really a funny word that really means you want to play a game, right?! He's a dare devil, climber, and a dancer. He's also mastered going down the stairs by himself in the last 2 weeks. Gotta love that...he slithers like a snake. lol Loves to carry around books and he also pages through them pointing at the pictures. He actually sits and listens to a couple at a time now too. So there ya have it and there ya are...that's our Coley monster.

A little practice shoot today!

So I've been reading more on the photo forums on how to improve etc. so I thought I would work on getting some good catchlights and my focus. Well I got the catchlights not so much the focus. I had my f stop too low and my ss to high but needed it high because well kids move, so they ended up with a bit grainy. Anyway, with help from photoshop this is how they turned out and I'm pretty pleased with them at this point because of how awful they looked SOOC.

P was sick the past couple days but I'm happy to say today he was fever free and has started eating a bit more.

And to throw this out...I would LOVE to take pics of "other" children (besides my own) so I can practice. Let me know if you would like your childs photo taken by me because well that would

totally make my day. lol ;)

A little bit of P!

Since I've not posted pics of P lately it's his day to "shine" on the blog along with some PROJECTS we've completed. The story behind this photo:

Bill and P were playing in the living room with the boat and Bill asked him if he has taken it in the tub before.
P: No! It'll sink.
B: Are you sure?
P: Hmm, maybe that is me that stinks? (with his nose all wrinkled up, matter of factly,out of now here)
Hmmm, maybe I need to take a bath.
B: What?
P: Hmm, I think I do stink, maybe I do need to take a
bath.

During all of this I was in the kitchen just laughing. I finally chimed in and told P he could just say hey Dad I want to take a bath please. He was like ok. And well LOVES the boat and it really shoots water out the hose. Thanks Uncle Drew you did good!
One of the projects I worked on this weekend. Sunday I got the bright idea to recover a bench that we got from my mom awhile ago. It somewhat matched our room, but the fabric was ripped and really kind of ugly. Anyway, I headed to Hancock Fabrics and scored some awesome upholstery fabric for it for 3.99 a yare. WOOHOO so I came home and recoved it in just a few hours. No pics yet as I'm staining the bottom of it. Well then I threw the fabric up on the cornice
boards and I was like whoa I kind of like that. Well turns out Bill did too and we went and bought the rest of the bolt yesterday and recoved those. So for a mere $24 I recovered my bench the buttons too ;) and recovered the cornice boards. Totally makes our room look more "done" and we put up a new ceiling fan last week so that helps too. Now to get our comforter back from the cleaners and we'll be set...except for a chest of drawers still need that (2 years later).

color is a little off here
Last nights bed time stories.
Another project we finished yesterday. My desk. Yay, I couldn't be any happier. I've had this idea in my head since August....yep August. Anyway, we closed it in so the kiddos or monster child wouldn't be able to get to my scrapbooking stuff. I can put up a baby gate on the right side. We used magnetic paint on the whole thing but I tell you IT DOESN'T WORK totally not worth the money at all. Yep, there is even 3 coats of it on there. So we got a big piece of metal for the magnets and I tell you what Coley LOVES it. He also loves chucking the magnets across the room and throwing them onto my desk...lovely. I also painted it with chalkboard paint, but P told me today the wood is too hard to color on...grrr! I wrote just fine on it. Anyway, that is that.

Playin around

I've been spending A LOT of time at www.ILP.com lately taking in all the fabulous photography tips and tricks and what not. Today I played with my CS2 program and made this brush...there are people out there that STEAL photos off of blogs etc and post them as there own, so I want my photos marked. I'm thinking the copyright symbol is a little dark...need to lighten the opacity. Anyway, just playing around. This pic is of Cole last night in the tub...I was having fun
playing with the bath paints. lol

Valentine photos...take 1

The youngest had no choice today whether or not to take or not to take photos. The oldest however, did NOT want a tattoo on his arm but did want his photo taken. I managed to take
a couple quick shots of him. I told him I would take more if he would let me put a tattoo on his arm too, but that was a no go! So here is Coley and oh my you should have seen his face as I handed him this bowl of conversation hearts. He LOVES candy and was grinning from ear to ear chomping away at them. At the same time the flood of 2008 came out of his mouth. No my child did NOT hold still for longer than 1/8 of a second for this shot. Mommy and Daddy were holding him very gently! ;) Temporary tattoos I found at Walgreens!
The only shot with him looking and the tat in the same shot. Oh and I didn't get this
adorable shot either...BILL DID!
Pretty self explanatory...click to enlarge!

Uppercase Living

Here are the 2 I have in my house. I do have a welcome sign of theirs on my front door too, but I posted a pic of that a while back. Anyway, the 1st on is in our bedroom (the color is totally off in these pics) The expression is in the color- soft silver. Upclose pic...color still totally off!
The 2nd one is in our living room. I totally LOVE this one. It is a 2 part expresson which means you get to pick 2 different colors. I chose mocha brown for the HOME and berry red for "where your story begins"
And an upclose picture.
I sent an email to the out of towners today and forgot to put www.uppercaseliving.com is the website. LOL silly me
To those in town I plan on sending out my invites tomorrow and my party is January 31 at 6:30 so PLEASE mark it on your calendars and come. You'll LOVE there stuff.

A little bit of Coley!

Lol isn't he the cutest?! Took this one of him the other night. I was going through the attic and found P's old cowboy boots. They happen to fit Coley perfectly. Mind you P wore them when he was 2 and Cole is 14 months. Big boy, huh!

And he is feeling much better. His appetite finally came back full force about 2 days ago and all of a sudden he needs 2 snack times during the day too. I cannot keep the kid satisfied. :) When he's hungry he goes to his chair and whines, screams, or fusses until I feed him. It's really quite funny.

Prayers needed!

I'm not going to air the dirty laundry here, but if you could keep my brother Michael and my mom and dad in your prayers I would be forever grateful. Michael made a very unwise
decision yesterday and is in a heap of trouble. Pray for wisdom for Michael that he realizes what
a terrible decision he made not only yesterday but the past few months. And pray for strength and peace for my Mom and Dad to get them through this "tough" season in their lives.

Thank you!

Jinxed myself!

Right after typing up my post last night guess who WOKE up? If you guessed Cole your absolutely right! I kind of knew it would be too much for him to feel so yucky and actually
sleep soundly and all through the night. So he was up and had another fever. Again gave him
some meds and it went down after 2 hours. He slept with us and then we were joined by child #1 sometime during the night also. So we both had either a head or feet in our backs through the night. Our children have a habit of always turning in our bed...well P anyway. Coley doesn't normally sleep with us.

So Coley is still VERY fussy and still running fevers off and on. It looks like he has a virus on top of the ear infections. The doc said he wasn't the only one with those symptoms the other day, just the 2nd to have an ear infection and that there is a virus going around that seems to be affecting children under 2. He said the temps were lasting 4 days and well today is day 4 so quite honestly it better end today. I'm tired of it.

I'll end on a good note. I scheduled my Uppercase Living open house for Thursday, January 31 at 6:30 p.m. I'll be sending out the invites in the next few days. And for you out of towners you can check out their stuff on their website which is www.uppercaseliving.com I'll email you the token and id# so you can get on. They have a new catalog out which has some AWESOME stuff in it. They have also added 3 new colors to their palette. Seriously you NEED to check em out.

Just browsing...

through my pictures tonight and I found this one. How on earth did I skip over editing this little guy many months ago? Looks pretty much the same just has curls now. Coley still wasn't doing to well today. He was up A LOT last night according to Bill...I actually got to sleep through the night. Bill and Coley ended up sleeping on Cole's bedroom floor. Needless to say Daddy was super tired today. Cole had a temp when he woke up but it went down about 2 hours after I gave him his meds. He was SUPER fussy today, A LOT more than the past few days and is still not eating hardly at all. He did manage to eat a couple strawberries tonight and a few spoons of yogurt. He's been sound asleep since 6 and hasn't made a peep. Lets hope he'll be feeling better tomorrow.

Double ear infection...

is what my little Coley has. He started yesterday at church with a fever and it didn't go down except for an hour this morning during a luke warm bath then spiked back up again. Ibuprofen wasn't touching it. Called the doctor this morning and got him in. It's antibiotics again for another 10 days. Doc also mentioned tubes if he gets another ear infection. He's not been sleeping well tonight at all, but his fever is gone...thank goodness. Please keep our little guy in your prayers if you will. We miss our little guy zooming around the house like a little "tornado."

More beach photos!

Papa and the kids!
Peyton...love this one!
The Hadley's....love this one too...PERFECTLY IMPERFECT!

Finally some photos!

In no particular order- Drew (Bill's brother) and his girlfriend Kateri Cole at 14 months!
The grandkids...love this one!

My sweet Coley at the beach for the first time!
Daddy and Coley
A pic of us taken by Jenn (Bill's sister)
A maternity pic of Jenn at 6 months

Brrrrr....

umm it's only 57 degrees INSIDE MY HOUSE! It's been that way through the night and now into the afternoon. I discovered the heat pump wasn't working last night right before I went to bed. It was 66 then and the unit was running constantly with COLD air. FUN! Woke up and it was 57 then and still is. We do have a guy looking at it now but gee whiz it's really cold. Pretty
bad when you have your hubby and little ones walking around with their winter hats on. Hopefully it'll be putting out some HOT air shortly because my hands are like ice.

Home at last!

We've been home about an hour and it's feels SO GOOD! We went Savannah, GA for 5 gorgeous days to have christmas with Bill's family. It was really a GREAT time and the kids got along FABULOUS! So we are home and I'm so looking forward to my king size bed without my chillins sleeping with me. The weather was in the 70's and humid. Went to the beach yesterday for a bit. They loved playing in the sand and Coley just wanted to run into the water and play. It was a little too chilly for that though. I'm hoping we got some good pictures. My family doesn't seem to ever "want" their picture taken and fight me so we'll see how they turn out. Anyway, I have hardly slept at all since we left and I am so looking forward to a good nights sleep.

pics tomorrow