He's An Alright Guy...

It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 years since Lance and I were married. Although I’m a day late (our anniversary was the 12th) I thought I’d celebrate our marriage by listing 25 things I love about my wonderful husband (in no particular order):

1. His sense of humor. I love that he tells a joke and laughs harder than anyone else he’s telling it to.

2. That a lot of folks don’t ‘get’ him but I do. I like that I can know what he means and is trying to say when other people still have a puzzled look on their face.

3. He’s a great Dad and by far our boys (and soon our daughter’s ) fiercest protector.

4. That he let’s our boys be boys. Although sometimes I can get a little irked when he gets them all excited with a father-son wrestling match 10 minutes before bed time, I know it’s times like that my boys will forever remember. Horse-playing with their Dad.

5. That he’s not too proud to stay home with our boys. He’s taken his share of criticism for it and I know he’s put off things he’s wanted to do so he could be home with them. Instead, he’s persisted and done a great job with them at home.

6. That he loves and serves the same God I do. We can pray together, worship together and
love our God together. We both understand that we have to put him before each other.

7. That his jet black hair is turning a ‘distinguished’ salt and pepper. I love it! No fair that gray is not as ‘distinguished’ on women!

8. That I can finish his sentences and he mine. I know it probably drives him crazy sometimes but I love that we know each other that well.

9. The freckles on his shoulders.

10. The huge personality and non stop energy my boys have that has to have come from their Dad.

11. That when my boys scrape a knee or get hurt, they want their Dad. They know he’ll be much more concerned and sympathetic than Mom.

12. That he loves and is genuinely concerned about our country’s future. I love that he watches every debate, scrutinizes every candidate and can talk so intelligently about politics with just about anyone.

13. Just like with politics, he loves to watch the stock market and is always ready to recommend a good stock purchase or talk investing with anyone interested. I love that he can surprise people with his knowledge of the market.

14. I love the photographs he takes. Both the ones of our beautiful boys and those of a more ‘artsy’ nature. He’s good at what he does and I’m so proud of him. Check out the photo's on his blog.

15. His entrepreneurial spirit. He loves to brainstorm about possible business ventures for his and our future. We have fun brainstorming our future together.

16. That we talk and communicate well, even after 12 years of marriage. If he’s busy working outside doing something or even in the bathroom shaving or getting ready for church, he call me to come sit and talk with him. He likes my company and I love his.

17. That he’s so protective of our family, our boys and me. There are times I accuse him of being over-protective and we often disagree on how much freedom to give our boys. But I love that he cares so much and wants above everything else, to make sure they are safe. He still meets Riley’s bus at the end of our driveway every afternoon.

18. I love the wanna-be-farmer I’ve discovered in him since we moved to Locust Grove. He loves his garden and his chickens and would love nothing more than if we could afford lots more land and he could farm full time.

19. That he’s my one and only. We started dating in 9th grade and he’s been my one and only since then. How many wives can say that about their spouse in today’s world?

20. Although he would disagree, Riley is his little clone. I love looking at Riley and seeing Lance.

21. And even though he and Owen don’t share a lot of the same physical traits, they share a lot of the same habits and mannerisms. I love seeing Lance in Owen.

22. I can’t wait to meet our sweet baby girl. What will a female Lance look like or act like?

23. Maybe it wasn’t a good attribute during his school years, but I love that he has a short attention span. I love that he is always ready to finish one project and move onto the next one.

24. That he’s a careful spender. He doesn’t make many hasty purchases. It took us almost a year to replace our totaled Explorer after our accident in 2001. Not because we didn’t have the means, but because he had to find the perfect vehicle. He carefully researches all our big purchases with consumer reports and online consumer guides. Does it drive me crazy sometimes? Yes! But it has paid off with every purchase!

25. Finally, I love our compatibility. Although we may look like complete opposites on the surface, we fit perfectly. He’s good at what I’m not and vice versa.

We’ve learned to look to each other and depend on each other to fill in each others gaps. We click. We work well together and I love that we are us. I love the beautiful family that we’ve made and look forward many, many more years together. I can easily imagine us rocking on our porch one day waiting for our kids and grandkids to pull down the driveway for a visit.

I love you, Lance! Happy Anniversary!

Riley on Prayer

Riley brought home a sheet this morning from Sunday School which ended a discussion they'd had on the foundation of prayer. I thought it was very sweet and so I had to share, it's all in his own handwritting so I'll type it here with his spellings and all -

PRAISE - "Thank you for my family."
REQUEST - "Plese help me to pla beder football."
ADMIT - "Plese forgive me for being bad."
YIELD - "Please help me to do will not mine."

It's a.....

G I R L

She looks great and as far as they could tell is very healthy and most definately our perfect little princess!

Owen-ism

Owen, in the car on our way home from church this afternoon.

Owen - Mom, look at that big cloud up there.
Mom - I see it, it is big, maybe it's going to rain.
Owen - That's the biggest cloud up there, that must be the one Jesus lives in.
Mom - Maybe your right, maybe that's the one.
Owen - Yeah, that has to be it. It has to be the biggest one cause a lot of people come up there with him, right?
Mom - Right! You've got it exactly right, buddy!

BTW - Don't forget to check in here Wednesday late afternoon. We hope to find out the sex of our little one at our appointment that afternoon!

Apple Pickin'

Well it's back to business as usual this week, but we enjoyed a little break from the routine last week. School was out for "Fall Break" and I took Thursday and Friday off from work.

Tuesday Lance took the boys to see the new Star Wars Clone Wars movie. They thought it was the greatest movie ever although Lance didn't agree. It sounded like they had a lot of fun.

Wednesday night the boys spent the night with their three Foster cousins. I think they all had a lot of fun. Trina was on her own for the night since Scotty was out of town. She had all 5 of them by herself. Really though, they entertain each other pretty well and play together good. Usually Riley and Tyler end up in his room while Owen plays with Abby and Kaylee in theirs.

Friday we headed North to find an orchard and some fun Fall things to do for the day. We ended up in Ellijay, GA and visited two orchards. The first one is where we picked our apples. The boys were way more excited about it than I really expected them to be. Maybe they were just relieved to get out of the truck after the 2 hour ride! Really though, they seemed to have a lot of fun. Riley was excited to purchase a new bottle of honey and has enjoyed several peanut-butter and honey sandwiches since we got home. Both boys loved the apple cider and of course we had to visit the ice cream counter too.

The second orchard we visited was more for fun and play. They had a petting zoo and a cool playground with a zip-line and a long slide built into the side of a hill. The boys may have had more fun on that playground than they did in the orchard.

After leaving the orchards we stopped by Lance's friends' house, Tommy, who lives in Ellijay. We had a great time visiting with him and it was a nice coincidence that we timed our visit to the arrival of his son and his family (with 2 little boys of his own) who had driven from Alabama for the weekend. We ate dinner with Tommy and his family, visited his garden (he's quite a gardner) and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery around his cabin. We headed home after that and made it to our beds at about 11pm. We were tired but had a great day.

The finale for the weekend was having the three Foster cousins over to our house Saturday night for a sleepover. The kids had a great time together and really played great, with very little arguing. They were outside most of the day Saturday - jumping on the trampoline, playing 'army' and hiking in the woods beside our house, riding bikes and we made a trip to the school playground for an hour or so too. Needless to say, I think they all slept good Sunday night!

We enjoyed our fun week but are getting back to our regular routine this week. Awana tonight. Football tomorrow night with a game Saturday morning. Life is busy but oh so full, I wouldn't want it any other way. I think this first picture says it all (and it wasn't even posed!).

Nathan Chase Messer

My sister gave birth to her 3rd beautiful boy, Nathan Chase Messer. He was born Friday morning at 12:04am and weighed in at 8 lbs 12 oz and was 20 inches long. He'll no doubt learn to be a pretty tough kid, growing up with two big brothers. He's a beautiful baby and I'm so happy for Alice and Ronnie and thankful that Nathan is healthy and Alice is doing well too.

Jacob (Nathan's biggest brother) is spending the night with us tonight. I just finished tucking them all into bed. They've had a busy day so they ought to all sleep well. Riley and Jacob both had football games this morning. The rest of they day they've been jumping on the trampoline and playing football in the yard and in their bedroom. It's been a football day for sure! Riley did sit still for a few minutes to watch the 4th quarter of the UGA game this afternoon with his Dad.

In other news, we are thankful to hear that our family in Texas all faired fairly well in the hurricane that hit yesterday. They've all lost electiricity and my Uncle had a tree fall on his truck, but we are thankful that everyone is safe and no one had any major damage to their homes. We are praying for you all and also for your neighbors to the South who are undoubtably dealing with more damage and consequences from Ike.

We are looking forward to some time-off next week. School is out for Fall break and most of our regular activities (football, Awana) are cancelled as well. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off too so I'm hoping we can enjoy a couple days doing some fun things together. We're thinking about possibly heading to Ellijay to pick apples or maybe to a local farm that advertises a corn maze. It's still a little warm to think of Fall-time activities, but we'll make the most of it and get ourselves ready for the cooler weather.

I'm doing great, I'm feeling great and the baby is growing as she should. We don't yet have confirmation of a boy or girl but we've already formed a habit of referring to "her". My next ultrasound is October 1st and we should know more then. The boys are excited and Owen especially seems to think a lot about the baby and ask questions about our new addition. I think seeing and holding baby Nathan got them all excited (and me too!) and made them even more anxious to meet their new sibling.

Catch up Post....

A lot has happened in a couple weeks since I last updated. Let's see if I can cover it all in one post.

Owen started preschool last week and is doing great. He's usually not excited to go in the mornings but always has a good time and comes home happy to tell you what all they did. He started last Monday, but since I was in training all week I couldn't be there for his first day. I was able to work from home today, I had the privilege of driving him to and from today. Since the church where he goes to preschool had just put down new sod a couple of weeks ago, today was the first day they were allowed to go on the playground. That and snack time seemed to be the highlights.

We had a great Labor Day weekend. We spent Saturday and Sunday at Lake Oconee at the GG's (Lance's grandparents). His Mom, Dad, Brother and his family all joined us there. We had lots of fun boating, swimming and jet-skiing. Owen is still not a huge fan of the water at all but did get in at least once to swim with me and rode a couple times on the jet skii's. Riley is a fish. He loves the water. Surprisingly he, and all the kids, prefer to swim around the boat more than anything else. They all rode the jet skii's at least a few times but would rather jump off the boat into the lake and swim more than anything else.

A couple of weeks ago, Riley had the "most exicing-est day of his life." He had been anticipating this day since football season began. His coach managed to arrange for his team to play a 10 minute game during the Falcon's half-time at the Georgia Dome. What a cool thing! No doubt something he'll remember for the rest of his life. I think all of the Dad's were envious of their sons. It was very cool. They arrived at the Dome about 2 hours before kick-off. They were able to go on the field with the Falcons during their warm-up. A few of the players even tossed the ball back and forth with our boys. Then they had their picture taken with the cheerleaders. Unfortunately all the parents were watching this from the nose-bleed section so I don't have any pictures to share. I plan to get copies of all the close-up ones that the coaches were able to get though. During the 10 minute half-time game Riley made a good tackle that made it onto the big screen in slow-motion. That was the best view of him we had the whole night. That was cool! Lance did go down to the lower-level to video the game, but I don't have anything I can share here.

The pregnancy is going great. No real news to report. I won't see the Dr. again till the end of the month and I'll have another ultrasound then which should tell us with more certainty whether we're having a girl or a boy.

As you can tell, things are as busy around here as ever. I'm thankful that I'm allowed to work from home 1 day a week. That started today and has worked well. I got up a couple hours before Riley did for school and got some work done that way and then once he and Owen were both off to school, I had a good 3 hours to work in quiet. It's worked well. I feel like I'm getting my work done and still able to spend more time home with my guys. It's only 3:30 and dinner is already on the stove and Riley is working on his verses for Awana's. This is going to work out great!