We're Back in Action!

My camera was delivered to my door late last week and we're up and running again!
Here's a few shots from the fixed lens-- I think it's better than ever!


This is my new desktop bakcground-- it features one of my favorite things we do as a family-- Benson will yell out "GROUP KISS!" and we all three give each other sugar at the same time! It's so cute! :)


Ash and Benson on the carousel at the mall!

Hannah Turns Two and Addie Grace Turns One!

Thanks to Benjamin's Aunt Lisa for these pics! :)

cool dude..

"helping..."

Benson's still talking about these "fowl-ers" and how they are "good"


check out the adorable shirts the girls are wearing from the very talented Kelli at
Blush and Bashful Baby

For those of you going through withdrawal (I know I AM!)...

Here's some pictures I swiped from Mrs. Lula's camera while the "Geek Squad" is operating on mine!






Mrs. Lula has tried really hard to capture a picture of each of the children saying the blessing. Benson doesn't really have the hang of "closing his eyes" when he's praying yet-- And I also find it funny that there's a KFC bowl in front of him--- I really do feed him nutritiously most of the time.. :)





Precious

Trying to get those eyes closed!


So sweet!


Can you believe Jonathan is old enough to go to the PROM?! It seems like just yesterday he was running around the house in his yellow swim trunks, with his big goggles and snorkel on-- shimmy-ing up the door frame and swimming in the bathtub!
I've never met his date, but she looks like a sweet girl and I think they had a great time! I'm just thankful she was dressed in that beautiful, MODEST gown-- I can't believe some of the outfits girls wear to the prom these days! Where are their DADDIES?!

Pinocchio

We did the coolest thing this morning! Ash and I took Benson to see Pinocchio at the
Columbia Marionette Theater. They have a show on the third Monday of each month and it only costs $4 to get in.. I was absolutely amazed and Benson thought it was really cool... We're going to go back again next month, for sure! They do weekend shows too... I'd highly recommend it! :)

here's some pics and a lil video (from the good ole camera phone :) )

We got to go backstage after the performance and "meet" Pinocchio!

On our porch Sunday morning...

um... yeah... i FLIPPED OUT!!



And here's the action...
Our neighbor, on his Sunday afternoon walk, had no idea what he was getting himself into...

(**note to parents** This video has a PG rating since Ash inadvertently says (imagine me spelling this outloud-- we do that alot nowadays! :) ) "See-Are-Ey-Pea" )

Precious moments...

I find myself stopping and just praising the Lord so often lately...
There are so many moments where Benson just grabs my heart and makes me just so thankful he's mine. Watching him play with Benjamin, helping him discover the Lord's creation, getting to know his humorous little personality-- it's all so very precious and I want to cling to every moment.
There's an Edwin McCain song that's been playing a lot in my head recently-- I think maybe when it was written, it was meant to be about a husband/wife relationship, but it's been really applicable to moments in my life with Benjamin AND Benson recently... Just watching our sweet little family and the dynamics of it make me so thankful to be alive blessed with such goodness..

When Benson fell asleep saying his prayers the other night ago and I was able to snap this pic (on my camera phone :) ) this tune was playing in my head...

here are the lyrics:

Lying here with you
Listening to the rain
Smiling just to see the smile upon your face
These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive
These are the moments I'll remember all my life
I found all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
Looking in your eyes
Seeing all I need
Everything you are is everything to me
These are the moments
I know heaven must exist
These are the moments I know all I need is this
I have all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
Chorus
I could not ask for more than this time together
I could not ask for more than this time with you
Every prayer has been answered
Every dream I have's come true
And right here in this moment is right where I'm meant to be
Here with you here with me

These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive
These are the moments I'll remember all my life
I've got all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more

Chorus

I could not ask for more than the love you give me 'Coz it's all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
I could not ask for more

Thumper...

We've got this little bunny that lives under our deck and it has been so fun to watch "Thumper" eat the grass outside of our kitchen window. This is a BIG event at our house!

Here's a picture of Benson watching the bunny-- and I would like to take this opportunity to point out some more hair growth... Woo Hoo!


(Camera phone pic :) )

ugly helmet

We went to Aunt Missy and Uncle Ricks house for a mothers day cook-out. Benson found this ugly helmet of Hunter's and thought he was big stuff--

I especially love Benjamin's stance in the background here-- he was NOT happy about Benson wearing this Carolina helmet!

One of Aunt Ash's finer moments....

Why, You Ask, is Benson Kissing Kelli's Belly?

'Cause there's a lil baby in there!!
We're so excited that Kelli and Trey are expecting a new little Ingram in mid November!! Congratulations, Guys!

Benson is really pulling for a girl, in hopes that she'll look like her mama--
We were in Victoria's Secret last week spending my free birthday $10 card when Benson pointed at this picture of Heidi Klum and said, "K-K!!" haha :)

This...

is the last picture on my camera before it "mysteriously" broke.

Praise the Lord for Best Buy's 2 year protection plan where they will fix/replace my camera for free!

It's just too bad that I'll be snapping life's moments on my camera phone for the next 12-14 business days.

My Adorable Nephew, Will

I just HAD to post these two adorable pics of Will-- he is such a cutie!!

A couple of videos I forgot to post...

At Hudson's they have this big pig that you can drop money in to "feed the hungry." Benson LOVES to drop coins in it and has since started hoarding coins to put in his own piggy bank. One day, he "disappeared" for about 10 mintues, and when he "reappeared" this was the video I captured...

Fumble!

Three Days-- Same Diaper...

No, we're not taking diaper conservation to an extreme...
But Benson HAS indeed worn the same diaper for three straight days. That's because he's only wearing it during nighttime and naps and he hasn't wet it one time!
The rest of the time, he's wearing "Big Boy Undies" (his tiny little hiney looks so cute walking around with an Elmo or Thomas-the- train stamped on his little bottom) and letting me know when he needs to go "Tee Tee Potty." I think we are at the point where we can officially say, he's potty trained! WOO HOO!
I'd like to say a special thanks to my Sister-In-Law, Susie for encouraging me to "take the plunge" and put him in big boy undies without a "transition stage" and then talking me through that first day when we had like 17 accidents and I was just about in tears! Thanks, Susie! It worked!

We've been giving him "juice plus gummies" each time he tee-tees in the potty-- and that is motivation enough for him to "try," but for the longest time, he refused to poopy in the potty-- So told him he could have an Oreo cookie if he poopied in the potty-- Well, he had never had one before-- but I guess it sounded good to him, because he finally did it!
Now, everytime he sits on the potty, he tries to push out some poopy in attempts to ascertain an "Or-Oh" cookie! Silly boy! :)

Benson post poopy and "Or-Oh" cookie

Sad..

Benson's sick-- and so I am -- this isn't really that big of a deal except for the fact that we were supposed to leave for Texas today to visit The Moores. Benson and I were going to take our first trip to Texas, just the two of us. We made the decision last night that it wasn't the best idea to expose a six week old to our yucky cold germs...
If I didn't fully believe in the sovereignty of God, I'd be HIGHLY upset-- however I know that the Lord is in control and He knows more than I do about things.... That doesn't make it any less disappointing though! I'm supposed to be holding sweet little Alli tonight...

:( Instead, I'm swigging Nyquil and heading to bed early :(

Ready for July Fourth!

I could never get a tatoo...

I could never get a tatoo because I'm way too indecisive and I question myself way too much... If it's THIS difficult for me to pick out a kitchen table to decorate my HOUSE, I could never pick out a decoration for my BODY! (ha! Can't you see ME with a TATOO! The thought of that is humorous in and of itself apart from my indecisiveness!)

SO......
It's taken me FIVE WEEKS of steady searching and going to stores all over the place and hours of looking online to FINALLY find the table I wanted!

I KNEW what I wanted, but just couldn't FIND it anywhere!!

I wanted a ROUND table (I feel that round tables promote conversation-- nobody's left on the end and out of the loop)-- Plus it's great for playing NERTS! Which if you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know if quite important in our lives :)

I wanted a FOREVER table-- one that was of solid construction and one that was going to be sufficient for us now, size-wise, but one that we could fit all of our children and grandchildren around one day (Benjamin thinks I'm being a little overboard in looking for a table we can sit at with our grandchildren)

So, I was looking for a 52" ROUND table with a LEAF that could extend it to an oval to accommodate a large crowd---

THEN-- I wanted it to be two-tone--

BLACK on the bottom, WOOD on the top-- I felt like if I had ALL black, it would show splatter and dust, but I wanted the tie in some of my black pieces in my house and it sits beside our Baby Grand Piano so I wanted it to somewhat coordinate--

Well, folks, apparently other people don't agree that these are important features in a table, because I couldn't find one ANYWHERE!!!

Until...

I called down to NORTH Furniture in NORTH (that's the name of a town) South Carolina, and they suggested that I come look at the "Sturbridge Pedestal table by Liberty furniture"

Well, Ash and I made the 45 min. Trek to North and it was love at first sight!

THIS was IT!

Hallelujah!

(Here's Ash at the furniture store modeling how you can indeed cross your legs under the table -- a feature which was surprisingly difficult to find in a table)

Now I can start cooking again! (We've been eating out for like a month-- i mean, really-- you can't cook a big ole meal and then eat on TV trays?!) (at least that was my excuse:))

Here we are at the inaugural meal on our brand new table! WOO HOOO!



And here's just a cute little shot of Benson saying the blessing at the inaugural meal. He's nakey because we were having pasta which he gets EVERYWHERE so we always do Nakey pasta.

Vote for your Favorite Picture in the Blog Poll in the Left Sidebar!

May's GQ Cover

I would like to take this opportunity to say how much I love my husband and how much I appreciate his sense of humor! I think he is stinkin' hilarious! Sometimes he gets these crazy, random ideas that really crack me up...

He didn't go with us to Disney on Ice... and afterwords we wanted to go eat at Yesterday's in Five Points in Downtown Columbia-- We called him to ask us to meet us and he didn't act very thrilled to drive thirty minutes to meet us to eat seeing how it was already 8:40 pm...

But he said he'd come...

So, we went ahead and sat down and ordered and were watching the door, looking for "Daddy" and IN struts Benjamin, DECKED OUT in his Seersucker Suit (which he's never even worn before because he's never had quite the occasion for such a "loud" piece of attire) with this tough, cool guy look on his face. Ash, Becca, and I just sat there with our mouths wide open and then we were all crying we were laughing so hard!

Well, since Benson had his seersucker pants on as well, I took the opportunity to have a little Daddy/Son photo shoot :)


Picture 1: Sweet Eyes



Picture 2: Big Smiles



Picture 3: Leaning on the Door, Serious



Picture 4: Leaning on the Door, Cracking Up



Picture 5: Riding on Daddy's Shoulders Rocks



Picture 6: Daddy is so FUN!



Picture 7: Walking on the Wall with Daddy's Help



Picture 8: Strollin'



Picture 9: Hugs



Picture 10: GO! GO! GO!



Fam. Pic.



Growing (click on this one to see it a little larger)