Trees.....

I know Christmas is over, but I wanted to post some pics of my trees. At the time I didn't really have a good camera at the time so they are some pretty rough pictures, but my wonderful gave me his Christmas money and along with mine I was able to buy a nicer camera. Now not many husbands would do that but well mine he is something else, he's great!

Below is our tree that is in our living room.

Here is Konnor's tree in his room, it is an Alabama theme:

Here is Kensley tree, I loved the feathers at the top.

Here is the tree that is in my and Dustin's room, it is probably my favorite, I love the silver and blue combination.

Hope you have enjoyed the tours of my trees. :)

Gingerbread House....

This year the decorators of the downstairs at our church wanted each family to build a gingerbread house or some sort of topiary tree to put on the tables downstairs. So Marty and Kylee came over to help decorate. I put the house together and they came with the decorations. I don't have any creative bones in my body so I rely on Marty for help. The kids started out helping but then decided that they had had enough so me, Marty and Kylee finished it. I think they results were great.
Marty added a few finishing touches to it the night of the program and it turned out so good, here are the results:

Going to the mall....

well to start off with it has always been a tradition that me and Dustin and whoever else decides to go will go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Well this year Dustin was on call and me and Marty had decided that we wanted to shop all night, so Dustin opted out this year. We shopped for 13-14 hours straight, it was so much fun. We got some good deals and had some good laughs. So Saturday Dustin decided he wanted to go to the mall. So we all got ready and headed out. We got our annual Christmas ornaments from the place in the mall. Konnor got an Alabama football and Kensley got a castle (only because she dropped and broke, but wasn't too bad they were able to glue it back together and best of all they gave it to me half price). The kids begged to do the Jumpy thing (lol....can't remember exactly what it's called) so we thought it might be a good thing for Kensley to do and just so happens I had my camera with me that day. Kens was a little scared at first but got the hang of it eventually. Here's a few of them jumping:

Field trip to the Tennessee Aquarium...

back sometime now I went with Kensley on a field trip to the Tennessee Aquarium. The kids of course had to ride the bus, so me, Jen, Nikki and Hayley all rode together. We had fun just chatting and catching up with each other. Once we got there we were allowed to check our kids out and go at our on pace. The kids had a blast touring and being with each other. Here are a few pics from our day:

Hayley and Crosby

Kensley with her teacher Mrs. Weaver

Kens and Crosby

Me and Kens

Macy and Kensley at the Penquin exhibit

After the aquarium we headed over to Mellow Mushroom to eat some grub. Here are a couple of pics of all the girls.

Happy Belated Birthday to my Wonderful Daughter!

Ok so I have had this post started for quite sometime now and was waiting on my sis-in-law to upload the pics from the party, but she's been busy and so have I so I'm just gonna go ahead and post this without the pics and maybe we can get them up soon.


Well over a month later I finally have time to post about Kensley's birthday. Last year she didn't even know that she had had a birthday. Once she was alert and able to start remembering things, it took a lot of work to get her to remember that she was six now. I had decided a a few years ago that I was only going to give my kids the big birthday parties until they were five and then after that they could just have a couple of friends over to stay the night, but since Kensley didn't get to have a party at all last year I decided we would just go all out this year. She loves cheerleading so what's better than having an Alabama cheerleading party. Dustin has a cousin that was a cheerleader for Wallace State so we invited her to come and teach the girls some cheers and the boys played football. Kylee made her an awesome cake. She got many gifts and had a great time.

Kensley has always been a loving kid. She is smart and loves to learn and is very inqusitive. She likes Justin Bieber, coloring and drawing, playing her DS and playing text twist on the computer. She loves to being with her friends. Her greatest desire is to ride a bike and I believe the Lord will grant her with that.

She can brighten my day. And just the other day I came home from work and it hadn't been such a good day and she came up to love on me and I told her just that. That she always made my day better. She still runs to the door to meet me when I get home. Always loves to see any of us when we have been gone any period of time. She loves going to spend the night with friends, but loves just as much coming home. I can't imagine life without her, she is our sunshine! I love you Kensley and hope you have many more birthdays!

Thanksgiving....

hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did. First of all I will say I'm thankful for the Lord and all he has done for us and I'm thankful for my family, they mean so much to mean and I don't know what I would do without them. Thankful that we have a place to lay our heads at night, a roof above our head and food on the table and good place to work. What more could we ask for. He is so gracious to us and to Him I am thankful.

We started out the morning with my mom and dad coming down early and helped me put up my village. We then cooked and went to Suzie's house for dinner. And as a tradition after we eat, we drag out all the sales papers and begin to plan out our shopping. This year was a little different though, we decided to shop all night. Dustin loves to go just as much as I do, but he wasn't to keen on going all night so he opted to stay home. Me, Marty and Kylee braved the rain and the crowds and headed to Wal-Mart around 10. People already had buggy fulls, so we grabbed a buggy and started shopping. People were going crazy over stuff. Marty even witnessed a fight over DS games, nothing is that important to me. I ended up going to check out and got checked out somewhere around 1 I guess. Loaded my car up and headed back inside to sit with Marty as she waited in line for one of the hot items going on sale at 5. We sat and talked and talked and made new friends and even played a game while waiting. We got what they waited for and stood in line again to check out and then headed off to Huntsville. We stopped by Shoe Carnival and then headed to Madison Square Mall. Got a few good deals and then went to Catos for our last stop. I got my kids a few items but not a lot. I still have lots of shopping to do. We got home a little before noon, so we shopped almost 14 hours. I think that is the first time I have ever stayed up that long without sleep. Came back to Suzie's and watched the game, I might have dozed off for about 30-40 min. Dustin's grandmother got sick so we went up there for awhile and came home and fed the kids and then I went to bed around 8. Finished up some decorating this weekend and did some much needed cleaning to the house. Will post pics of all my trees a little later.

Part 3 of reflecting back.....

Progress was being made in therapy at the hospital and when it was time for us to be discharged they were having her put pressure on her legs and trying to walk with lots of assistance. We were so ready to come home, but on the other hand hated to leave because she was getting so much help everyday. We were being discharged on Nov. 18th. Kensley had to do a half a day of therapy, so it ended up being over in the afternoon before we got to leave. Justin, Joe David and Scott came to help up pack all of our stuff and drive us home. The family had planned a Welcome Home party for us and when we pulled in the driveway we were greeted by a multitude of friends and family holding signs to welcome us home. As I sit here typing this I just get so overwhelmed at the love that was shown to us. Channel 19 was also there to capture it all for us. Everyone came inside to see Kensley and at that time she still could not even hold herself up, so it took some trial and error to figure out how to adjust to things at home, but we managed.

We began to take her to therapy at Huntsville Hospital and the group of therapist that we received were great. I was able to take a leave of absence from work and stay with her for the next 3 months. I remember going to Christmas program practice and us standing her up to walk with our assistance, but others there were just amazed at the progress. We went home that night and she started kicking her left leg, we were beside ourselves and started calling whoever would listen to tell them. Time rocked on and she begin using a walker, it was hard to keep her left hand on it correctly, but didn't seem to bother her she would just keep trying. Throughout this whole process she has been anointed several times and with each time has made some great improvements. It wasn't long after Christmas that she started taking her first steps for the second time in her life. I was work and Dustin sent me some pictures of her walking down the hall. And here she is doing just that.


We've had some obstacles to overcome, but the Lord has always been there to see us through. Which brings us to where we are today. Kensley is back in school full time and making all A's, she does pretty much anything she wants to do with some limitations. I think I'm probably some of her hold back, but the momma in me starts coming out and I get a little over protective sometimes. I'm always so afraid of her falling and hurting herself that a lot of times I won't let her do certain things, but I'm trying to work on that. :)

A couple of weeks ago we went to therapy and they were trying to work with her left hand and it was so tight that they couldn't even keep it open, they were having to force it open. We went to church on Sunday night and her Uncle Paul anointed her hand. We went back to therapy the next week and she was just so much better. The therapist was just amazed, so I told her what had happened over the weekend. Kensley was able to put her weight on her left hand and prop herself up and then she was able to crawl with both hands. And also a couple of months ago they put her on a bike, that is her greatest desire right now is to be able to ride a bike. Well they had to tie her left hand and foot to the bike for them to stay on, well this past week they put her back on it and didn't have to use anything to help her keep her hand and foot on there, I was amazed myself and trying to text Dustin while all of this was going on. We are so thankful that the Lord has brought her this far and look for Him to bring her the rest of the way.

In my first post I mentioned that I had thought about asking Dustin to pull over in the rain, but didn't realize that the Lord had a plan. I have since thought if I would have asked him to pull over until it cleared up some, we could've no doubt still had the wreck and all the people that stopped and helped us would've already passed. My point is there was a nurse driving behind us that stopped to help and had we stopped and let her go by us, who would've been there to help Kensley? I know the Lord put her there and I wish I knew who she was so that I could thank her personally, but we haven't been able to find out. There was this one guy that helped in the accident and he came to visit us in B'ham. We can never repay all those who stopped to help us that day, who sacrificed what they were doing to help us. I felt so helpless that day, and we had no one there with us, but God sent us some angels to help my family that day and I'm forever indebted to Him. Thanks to everyone that said a prayer for us and helped us in our time of need, I just hope that I can give back when it's my time to help someone else. We love each and everyone of you!