Cold Days and Frozen Pipes

We have been enjoying the snow that fell on Monday. It is VERY cold here today. With temps not rising above 25 degrees today, we are experiencing wind chill temps close to zero! Unfortunately, these cold temps caused frozen water pipes last night that left us with no water this morning. When Sean went out to check on the problem at 5:00 this morning, he found that the door to our crawl space was wide open. We have had some guys here working on putting up new vinyl on our soffits and fascia around the house and they evidently left the door open yesterday. Maybe they closed it, but didn't close it well and it blew open. Either way, it was wide open which is not good when it gets as cold as it did last night! Sean put a space heater down there to try to warm the area up slowly, but while we were gone on a quick trip to McDonald's to grab some breakfast, the pipe burst! After a few trips to Home Depot, he almost has it fixed! He is such a wonderful handyman! He works so hard to fix anything and everything! My mind always starts racing...thinking how much will this cost us? If we had to call a plumber, I'm sure it would be close to $300! But I think we have spent about $22 at Home Depot and if all goes well, we will be taking warm showers in an hour or so! We love you Sean! You are the best husband, father and plumber we know!

Helen is modeling her new hat that Auntie Mame made for her! Isn't it cute?

Getting ready to sled down the hill!

Go Cobras!

This morning was Beckett's first basketball game of the season! He is playing Upward basketball at a local church and his team is named the Cobras! He was really excited and looking forward to the game. He told me before the game that he was thinking that he was going to be able to slam dunk this season, but he is pretty sure that they raised the goals, so he can't do it yet! I love his confidence! :)

Posing for a picture before we left home for the game!

Connor and Papa came to watch Beckett play this morning. Connor had a game in Sweetwater at noon, so he was able to come watch Beckett before he had his game! I love the picture of #13 and #31! of course Helen had to get in a picture too!

I'm not able to take good pictures while he is playing because there is some weird lighting going on in the gym, but I took this picture below of the team after the game as they received their awards. Beckett received the red star for best defense today! It was a great morning! Beckett played well and had fun!

Snow and Beavers

We actually had enough snow on Monday and Tuesday to play in it! The kids enjoyed sledding and throwing snowballs! We took a walk in the snow down to the end of our street where there is an empty lot that has a creek running through it. We had not been down there in a while and we wanted to see if there was any evidence of the beavers! We have seen some things that led us to believe that there are beavers in the area, but after this trip, there is no doubt! It was really neat and exciting! (I know, it doesn't take much to get me excited! I'm a stay at home mom and I don't get out a whole lot!) :)

Beckett got these cool snow shoes from Susi a long time ago and this was the first time he has been able to use them!

Helen all bundled up!
The beavers have definitely been here!


More evidence of the beavers!

Helen's Birthday

Just wanted to post a few pictures from Helen's birthday celebrations! (She had three in all!) The parties started on Tuesday the 13th when she and Beckett stayed with Marilyn while Sean and I went to a meeting at church. Marilyn, Mike and Windy had a little party for her with her own little chocolate cake! (Click on Marilyn's name to see a few pics of that party!) Then on Wednesday the 14th, Helen's actual birthday, we had a "Hannah Montana" birthday party for her with a few friends and family. On Thursday evening we drove to Brentwood to celebrate her birthday with Granbob and Grankaki. Aunt Susi drove up from Atlanta to hang out with us and we celebrated her birthday too since she has one coming up in a couple of weeks! Helen certainly has enjoyed all of the attention and we thank everyone who has helped make her fourth birthday a special one to remember!

On Friday, we went on two field trips. The first one was to The Upper Room chapel and museum. They had a wonderful exhibit in the museum with nativity scenes from all over the world. We also spent some time in the chapel and heard a presentation about the woodcarving of daVinci's "The Last Supper". We were not allowed to take pictures there, so you can click the link to The Upper Room to see a few pics. After that we all went to the Adventure Science Center which is a hands on children's museum in Nashville! For pictures and an explanation of that part of our day, check out Beckett's blog, The Slam!

Here is a picture of Helen with her Hannah Montana cake! This was the first year that I have not made her cake. It was the best $19.99 I have spent! After last year's "Strawberry Shortcake" cake that took over 5 hours for me to make, I decided that I deserved a break this year! It was a cupcake cake and it was so easy for the kids to just pick up their own cupcake and enjoy! They were loaded with frosting which is what the kids like anyway!

Here are the kids right before they did the pinata! That was really all Helen wanted.....Hannah Montana and a pinata! It went really well. All of the kids got a couple of turns to swing, then we asked Connor to whack it really hard and the candy went everywhere!
Carson, Helen and Carlie
Helen and Susi's red velvet birthday cake! Yummy!
Helen and Susi blowing out the candles!
Opening presents at Grankaki and Granbob's house.
Modeling her new jacket from Susi and her sparkly Princess shoes from Grankaki!

Happy Birthday Helen!

It is hard to believe that just three short years ago we were celebrating Helen's first birthday! Here is a picture of Helen on January 14th, 2006!

And here she is on January 14th, 2009! We celebrated Helen's FOURTH birthday on Wednesday! I can't believe my baby is four!
I also cannot believe that she had a Hannah Montanna birthday party! About one week after her third birthday, Helen began to tell me that she wanted to have a Hannah Montana theme for her fourth birthday. I tried every other "appropriate" theme for a four year old! We went to Party City and looked at all of the other options.......Dora, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Hello Kity.......ANYTHING but Hannah.......but this girl knew what she wanted! Mind you, she has never watched a full episode of HM. We have seen bits and pieces of the program, but I guess Helen has fallen into the marketing trap that is Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana! Many of the people who came to celebrate her birthday with her today fell for the marketing scheme as well as Helen received a Hannah Montana guitar, microphone, clothing, sheets, pajamas and a wig! We had a great time at Helen's afternoon party on Wednesday and want to thank everyone who came to celebrate with us! I'll post some pictures of the party in a day or two, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with this picture of our little performer! She is LOVING all of her Hannah Montana accessories! Oh my!

Just Call Me Susan!

We take our time around here. We are usually at least a year or two behind everyone else when it comes to "new" things. Cell phones, DVD players, I-Pods, and video game systems! (Not to mention dating for 7 years before we got married and then waiting 8 years to have our first child.....but I digress!) It takes us a while to get around to watching movies, too! "The Chronicles of Narnia~The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" was released about 2 years ago. I read the book to Beckett last year and I took him to see the play after that. We have been promising to rent the movie for quite some time and we finally borrowed it from some friends and watched it over the Christmas holiday. Beckett was very familiar with the story, but it was all new for Helen. We all enjoyed the movie very much, but Helen became OBSESSED with it! She is now in her pretend world of Narnia for probabably three-fourths of each day! She tells us all to call her "Lucy" and we each must be the other three siblings; I am "Susan", Beckett and Sean are "Edmund" and "Peter", respectively. We fight battles, ride trains, play hide and seek, jump in wardrobes, put on our fur coats, look for Aslan and all kinds of other amazing adventures from the movie! This afternoon, I dressed Helen up to look like Lucy and thought I'd show how much she can actually look like the little girl who played her in the movie. Kind of cute! We have also watched a lot of You Tube video clips from the movie and I've discovered a Steven Curtis Chapman song that I had never heard! I really like it and so I thought I would put it on my blog. If you have four minutes, you might enjoy it too!

"Lucy Pevensie"

Helen aka "Lucy Pevensie"