Anniversary Dinner

I had to work late on Friday night....our anniversary. I didn't get home until after 7pm.

The girls had everything worked out for our dinner knowing that we didn't have the $ to go out to eat. Tom wasn't allowed out of the bedroom and they had been hard at work since about 5pm. They had swept the kitchen floor, prepared menus, set up a dance floor, set up a band, set the table and had everything all prepared for a nice in-home-family-restaurant.

So when I walked into the house, they took my purse and bag and had me close my eyes and led me to the bedroom. From there, they led Tom and I into the living room and onto the couch. Then the band proceeded to entertain us.

Once the band was done playing - quite well I might add, we proceeded into the very clean dining room and were presented with our own menus. Here is a tidbit of mine:

We had our choice of drinks - notice the beer selections - too funny....they must have gone into the garage refrigerator and looked at Tom's beer choices to write these down. Precious!

Here are the sides that we got to choose from.

And lastly, our dessert selections.

I must say, our waitresses were very well mannered and got a very LARGE tip from us. They did a great job and we will certainly be frequenting this restaurant again in the very near future.

The only complaint I have is that I had to do the dishes....but considering the dinner was free....I guess I can't complain too much!

I thank God every day for my precious girls!

Think we wore them out?

16 years ago today

I married my best friend!

We met through a mutual friend. Becky and I had gone to church together and she was telling me about a neighbor that she wanted me to meet. She brought him to church the next week to meet me. I had just broken up with a guy and wanted only friendship. He courted me for a while and we instantly became best friends and then developed the relationship. I remember when he proposed to me.....it was at the Virginia Beach boardwalk. He had already gotten permission from my father and everyone knew about it but me. He got on one knee and recited a poem he had written for the occasion. It was so romantic, I was brought to tears. I only had eyes for him. When he was done and I had accepted and we broke apart our kiss and applause broke out. We were oblivious to the crowd we had drawn.

We had a beautiful ceremony with about 150 people present. I borrowed my dress, he rented his tux. My sister (8 months pregnant with her son) was my maid of honor and his best friend Sam Gates was his Best Man. My attendants were Tom's sister, Kristin and Becky. Tom's groomsmen were Jim Stewart and Rolf Cuerrvou. Tom's brother, Corey was our ring bearer and Jim's daughter Lauren was our flower girl. Our family did the reception we had in the church fellowship hall. We got married at Lindale Church of Christ in Chesapeake, VA.

Today we have 2 beautiful daughters and are living our dream. Of course, we have had many bumps in the road: financial issues, surgeries and retirement; but also some joys along the way: our daughters, our home, our vacations in our camper and retirement.

Here's to 50 more years of happiness...

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Fall has arrived!

It may have looked like fall this morning, but it still doesn't FEEL like it. Yesterday it was 74 degrees...how is that fall weather? Craziness! At least I woke up this morning to the beautiful site of colorful leaves scattered over my front lawn.

Welcome Fall, it's about time!

Our 2010 Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

Here is our 2010 Christmas cards that I just finished from Shutterfly! How beautiful they turned out!

We had a family reunion a few months ago on the Eastern Shore with a private beach and I captured some beautiful shots of the girls on the beach and wanted them for our Christmas cards....I'm overjoyed with how well they turned out! I hope you enjoy it too!

Christ Wishes Religious Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

I have my Christmas card pics all ready to go, just need to order cards. Shutterfly does a beautiful job of capturing your pictures in various holiday cards and in beautiful print and color. I love to look back at our cards and see how our girls have grown, since we use them as the theme of each of our holiday cards. We've done silly ones to serious ones.


We are planning to order from Shutterfly again this year, because of their reputation for making beautiful cards. They have a variety of spectacular Holiday creative designs to choose from. There are even birthday themed cards so you could do birthday invitations or even regular photo cards. I've also done a few photo books that will take your breath away. I've done them for summers and for Disney vacations. What a wonderful way to remember a special time in your children's lives and have them show off where they've been.


Here's one of my favorite cards - very hard to choose just one:



















Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly. Click here to find out how!



Which one is a "must have" for your family?

My baby turned 8...

I just can't fathom that my baby is already 8. WOWSA...will be even worse when Sami turns 5 this month. Where has time gone...weren't they just babies? 8 days after my due date, I remember Tom and I eating dinner at Denny's (I know...) March 15, 2001 before going to the hospital. When we got there at 8pm, they gave me meds to soften my cervix. The morning of the 16th about 7am, they gave me pitocin to start the process flowing. I was only 1 cm dialated at this point and had been for weeks. Contractions started almost immediately. I had visions of laboring without drugs. Around 2pm, I got the epidural and was progressing nicely. Finally at 10cm, I started pushing. 2 1/2 hours of hard pushing, she still wasn't coming out. I have a rounded cervix, so she wasn't coming down. They made the decision to do a c-section and they just gave me a higher dose in my epidural. Off to the OR I went. Tom and Charlene were able to be in there with me and see the whole process. I kept waiting for her to cry, that way I knew she was out and all was well. I got worried when I didn't hear the crying. Tom and Char were almost on the other side of the room watching. Hannah came out not breathing, so they were doing everything possible to make her breathe. They took her into the other room and got her breathing and I could hear her little screams...talk about the longest moment in my LIFE! Tom finally brought her over to me, a perfect little angel. I got to kiss her and then they whisked her away to the nursery, along with Tom and was able to tell Tom that was his birthday present. Did I mention that Tom's birthday is March 16th too...what a gift. My baby was born at 10:41pm. The main thing I remember after they left was hearing the staff count all the items.....1 scaple, 5 gauses, etc...at the time I thought it was funny...but working in the medical profession now, I realize they were accounting for everything to make sure I didn't aquire anything "extra" before they stitched me up :)! I can certainly appreciate that! I spent almost 2 hours in recovery by myself..which is how I wanted it..I wanted Tom by Hannah's side and not let her out of his sight.

I finally got to my room and THEN was able to finally see and HOLD my baby girl. She was perfect....I checked for the obligatory 10 fingers, 10 toes, perfect in every way. Every test that they did for her, her 1st bath, etc., Daddy was right there. They would come in to take the bassinet and he'd make sure he was right there beside her walking down the hallway. I can honestly say for the first 3 days of her life, Daddy didn't let her go anywhere without him. Several naps were taken on the pull out bed with Hannah on his chest. Very very sweet.

On our way home from the hospital, we stopped at Walmart to shop. My c-section was so easy and compared to most, a breeze!

Fast forward to March 15, 2009 - Hannah and Tom's party. But does he really get to celebrate his birthday much...nope, but he did get a candle on a cupcake! :)! She had a great party and a great birthday the next day.

Happy 8th Birthday Hannah and Happy 36th Birthday Tom!

Pictures: In order from top to bottom:

1) Hannah's first Mother's Day, May 2001

2) Us singing Happy Birthday to Hannah on her 8th Birthday (baseball themed of course)

3) Kids playing twister at Hannah's party

4) Party room

What will you celebrate?

You know you are a Disney fan when you blog about an awsome Disney Celebrations box you got in the mail before you blog about your husband/daughter's birthday party and your front door/storm door that you finally replaced after 11 years of being in the house!

Ok, onto my box. I entered an essay contest that the Mickey Mom's Club had a few weeks ago and WON....well 1,000 of us did..so I'm not that special. They were mailing us a party package so that we can host our very own in home Disney Celebration. Let me just tell you how wonderful the items in the box are.....the girls were just as excited as I was to open the box and peek at the contents! It came in a beautiful red box..unfortunately, it looked like fed-ex had dropped the box a few times, so the end was smashed which in turn smashed the beautiful colored fortune cookies in the box...but we had fun eating the remnents :)! There were 11 "goody bags" that are canvas bags that say "Celebrate Today" and inside are a mickey ear straw, magnets and a sheet for the magnets to stick too. Very awsome. Also there are 11 things to go inside the goody bags...that includes a mickey hat (like Burger King Birthday hats), coloring book and crayons. There are Disney napkins, beautiful lithographs for the Mom's of the birthday kids, fortune cookies (what's left of them..hee), balloons you can blow up for the party, a bingo game, trivia cards and a wish maker kit. There were also Hannah Montana magnets for all the kids, a WDW DVD vacation planner and a beautiful photo album for the hostess - ME! ALL in all, it was a wonderful surprise.

Samantha's birthday is April 16th, but we'll be camping that week for Spring Break, so we are doing her party on the 11th, day before Easter and doing a big Easter egg hunt in the backyard (pray for good weather for us...when I post about Hannah's party, you'll understand). So she'll have an Easter Disney theme for her party...she's very excited and was listing all 19 kids in her class. Explaining to her that she cannot invite all of them was a bit difficult, but hopefully we'll work it out!

For the rest of the 999 Disney souls that recieved the box, hopefully you are just as excited as I am :o)!