Oooo Big Presents

My parents sent presents for the kids that they could surely enjoy and use before Christmas. What did they get you ask?

Big comfy comforters! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Hand! They sure will keep them warm at night.

Christopher......The BIG 5!

November 29, 2003
1:54 PM
8lbs 2oz, 21in

Christopher turned 5 this year, so hard to believe. We had a great party for him on his birthday and he loved every minute of it. He got lots of great gifts, including clothes, speed racers (one of his current favorites) and Cars items.

We served hot dogs and subs and of course cake.

And yes this year I actually made the cake.

We also rented a jumper for the kids to play in. All the kids loved it!

Happy 5th Birthday Christopher!!

Mommy and Daddy love you!!

Thanksgiving 2008

I'll just make this a really quick post. This year, like all years we have a lot to be thankful for. But this year, we are most thankful for the safe return of Jesse, our own hero. It was so great spending this holiday with him again.


We had a combined Thanksgiving with a bunch of friends, our military family. There was so much good food. The kids all enjoyed being together as well.


All the kids, minus Nate (who pretty much clung to his mom).


I know I have a bunch of posts to put out, bear with me, I will get them done before we leave for Michigan. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!

Halloween 2008

This is quite late but I wanted to get one up none the less. First off, I had planned on getting up a blog of Grandpa and Grandma's Jones visit but my camera disappeared. I waited hoping it would show up, but unfortunately, it has not yet (I'm still hoping and praying).

Thankfully a couple friends of mine that we went out with had cameras and let me borrow them as well. So here are our kiddies all dressed up.

Emma, our southern bell.

Christopher, our pirate.

Matty, our skeleton, who did not like having his mask on.

And yes, even I dressed up this year.

Oops, I almost forgot the pumpkin.

Our Hero Has Arrived!!!

At about 2am ish November 14, we welcomed Jesse and his unit back home!

While the kids each had a sign to welcome him I decorated the house as well (and the truck windows which I do not have a picture of at this point).


Me signing the big welcome home sign for the unit. My friend Lauren came along with me and took pictures. Yup had my own personal photographer. Isn't she awesome?!


Amanda and I eagerly awaiting our husbands to land.


The kids ready to welcome daddy home (yup at 1am)!


The unit unloading from the plane.


The unit marching in off the plane.


We had to wait for about another hour or so while they checked in their weapons and such. When it was time for them to enter, the smoke rolled.


Once they were dismissed, we tracked him down and had big welcome home hugs and kisses for Jesse.


After, we went outside to get all his bags. This was taken before we went to get his duffel bag (yes one more to add). Once we got over to the duffel bags, there were guys there to help locate them. When they located Jesse's bag, Jesse went to grab it and wouldn't you know, they carried it, along with the ones he was already carrying out for us. So since Jesse no longer had bags to carry, he carried his boys instead:)


Welcome home Hero!!!!!

New Wheels

So in my last post I said I would talk about some of what is going on. Well I don't want to bore people (those that actually read) and do want this to end with a happy note, hence the title. Anyway, I won't go into it all but I have gone through so much during this deployment. Some only the Lord, my loving husband and drs will ever know. But since Jes deployed a year ago, I've had some medical problems that are finally getting properly addressed this month. Without proper medical diagnosis, I believe right before school restarted, I passed my second kidney stone. I was asked by a friend of mine, "Is it like giving birth?". To my reply, "very close".

Now on to the title and how it came about. So of course we live in Texas where cars need to be inspected every year. It was time again to get the Audi in and we had had problems with this last year. This year, its just me to deal with it though. So, knowing right off there is a safety issue that won't pass (we paid over $200 for Firestone to fix the highbeams last year and they quit working after they put them in, they just passed us anyway), I take my car back to the place that had fixed that exact issue, even though throught the year I had tried as well. See this place does not to appointments. They open at 7am and when you have kids in school, young children and its just you, no other car, its quite hard to just go there and sit all day waiting. Let alone leave your vehical for them.

So I take it in, being the first day back to school I figured they would be pretty slow and they were. But what do they tell me?! Sorry the warrenty is all void and we would have to fix it. The price quoted to me was over $400 this time. Oh and yeah, I needed to have something else fixed to, unsure what, but it won't pass until done. So I was looking at $800 to over $1000 in repaire costs. Now Jesse and I had discussed getting a different vehical at some point. Well that point came. I didn't see the point in throwing all that money into the car. We are hoping to go home for his leave and I didn't feel safe taking this car round trip (it was giving my signs, like all the panels inside started falling off, hmmm). Needless to say, I went shopping. This is all in that first week of school as well (yes it was a TON of stress, but its kinda how the deployment has gone).

Now since we hadn't fully prepaired to buy a new car or anything right now, we didn't have a full amount of cash to put on it (yes we try to buy free and clear as much as we can ~ see Dad, Dave Ramsey would be proud). And of course we are still working on our credit, plus my husband is deployed so we have limited banks to even try since not all work with POA's (power of attorneys). Needless to say, by the end of the week I had found a place, a dealership, with a warrenty (certified pre owned) vehical that would finance us. The bank just decided to be a little uptight about it and I had to have poor overworked Jesse get my another POA with the vin # from Iraq (but he was my hero and did).

Now that you have read through this big blog, here is the best part. Our new to us SUV:


A 2003 Ford Expedition! It has 3rd row seating which with our kids has become a must. Cloth interior (so much better then the leather I had where you stick to it everytime you get up, ugh). The back seats even have their own climate controls. And one of its best perks, we can tow Jesse's car:-)


Oh and if you are thinking about the fuel economy, sad to say, as bad as my car was running after Jesse left, it took premium gas. I did the math, we are still right at about the same amount spent for twice the size putting regular gas in the new beast.

Back to School

So it is definitely time for an update. Last week the kids started school. It was actually quite a stressful week but I will blog about that in a day or so. For now I wanted to get the kids first day of school pics up.

Here is Emma, getting set to start First Grade!

Emma in her class.

On the first day I always bring the kids myself. The first thing Chris gets to do when he goes to school is have lunch. Here he is getting all set to start PreK and have some lunch:)

An attendant helped Chris go through the line so he could get used to what he needed to do each day. He definitely needed to pick out a little more food then that, he came home hungry.

Since the kids did not ride the bus on the first day so I tried to get some shots of them over the next couple days of them actually getting on the buses they ride.