Thanksgiving 2012

Wasn't a big fan of Thanksgiving food

This guy was, though

Classic Picture

Where's my turkey and dressing!?

Me and Ryan look pretty silly, but happy to have a picture with two of my boys,  Sean was in charge of the camera on this day.  :)

His movn' and groovn' face. :)
 

This was our first year since 2007 where we didn't host.  We really missed our family, but we enjoyed our little family of 5.  We didn't cook a whole bird; just a turkey breast.  We skipped on making mashed potatoes, but had dressing, Wal-Mart made rolls, gravy, green bean casserole, and homemade pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream.  We brought an extra pie to our neighbors and brought some food to some of the Bates children in the evening and fellowshipped with them.

Black Friday shopping was fun and crazy!  We braved the mall and got a few good deals.  We got 95% of our Christmas shopping done, which is great!  Sean and I purchased a KITCHEN AID MIXER!!!!!   We have wanted one FOREVER!  It should be on our doorstep any day now and will be quite helpful for making Christmas cookies.  :) The color picking part was very important and we finally chose cinnamon.  Sean also went with Zach Bates to a gun show Friday afternoon and got a new gun; traded in his old one.

Saturday, Sean, Andrew, and I went to the last Vols game of the season. Some of our friends watched Hunter and Ryan. We had great seats and even better is they were free. AND the Vols WON! An SEC game! (BTW GO GA!). :)
 

It was chilly!  High of 46.  Much better in the sun, however.

Which brings me to Monday!  Ahhhh!  The start of a new exercise program.  It's kinda funny how it all started.  I have been not liking how my body is super un-toned.  Well, in the middle of the night a few weeks back I saw an infomercial for this workout program called "Insanity".  I watched a few minutes of it before deciding to go back to sleep because I didn't like seeing all the beautiful bodies!  lol  Then a few days later a friend at church mentioned that she does this very same workout.  Then Sean happened to mention it and was interested in buying it.  Usually I am the one pushing for us to get in better shape and encouraging us to walk and eat right,  Sean........not so much.  But this time he was the one encouraigng me.  After praying about it, I felt God leading us to get this workout.  Sooooo, we purchased it and started it Monday.  It is a 60 day program.  We will be done Feb 9th.  Feb 9th, Feb 9th, Feb 9th.......did I mention we will be DONE Feb 9th!?We have been getting up at 0630 to do it before the boys all get up around 0830-0900.  Day 1 was especially brutal for Sean.  This morning was hard work, but good.  It is 6 days a week. We even took before pictures (not posting those!!!) and weighed ourselves.  I'm 122 and Sean is 196.  We are excited to being doing this together and excited to see the end results. More importantly, we are hoping to take better care of God's temple.  :) OH and the hardest thing for me has been abstaining from Coke.  Sean decided he wasn't going to drink soda during this program and I laughed at him.  Then I felt God urging me to be supportive and give it up, too.  Well, who knew I was addicted to my Coca Cola.  Lunch time just hasn't been the same and really seriously it has been quite miserable.   Going for warm Krispy Kreme doughnuts this morning helped, though.  :) 

Our Little Guy

Our Little Guy Part 2

Little Ponderosa Zoo

Emus - these birds make some strange noises

They had 2 tigers

Ry feeding the goats

Pony rides, but Ry wouldn't ride

Not a good picture, but a great sign

Braying donkey

Had Sean get a picture of Andrew.  Poor baby gets left out of picture taking because he's usually in the pouch.

And thank goodness I'm usually left out of pictures since I'm the one behind the camera, but Sean took this one and a few others and then said I couldn't delete all of them.  So here ya go babe.  :)

This animal is a new one to me!

And here is a zonkey.  I kind of want one.  I think because I pretty much love the name zonkey.  :)

This is the first weekend in a while where we haven't had plans so we decided to go to the zoo in Clinton (about 20 mins from our house).  It's not a big city zoo, but it was realy neat.  They had all sorts of animals, but it was smaller and not many people, which were all good things.  Only bad thing is they have snakes, but I covered my eyes and walked briskly past that area.  I think we will go back again; we enjoyed it!

God created all the animals Psalm 104

Boy x 3

Family

My mama emailed me some pictures that she took from her visit with my aunt a couple of weekends ago.  :) 

Things here have been good, well, except for Tuesday's election results. 

After lots of prayer, we decided to change churches and are now going to the Bates church in Clinton, called Bible Baptist Church.  We are really enjoying it and meeting lots of sweet families.  The Sunday school is really neat because it is geared towards the children, but parents and kids all stay together.  Ryan really likes it and is still talking about the lessons all week.  We also have monthly character qualities, memory verses, and hymnals that we do at home as a family, but also at church.  It helps to keep us motivated to do family Bible time at home.  Sunday evenings the kids go with Mrs. Bates for children's church and Sean and I (and Andrew) are going through the Basic Seminar.  Wednesday nights we have an hour service and then usually most of the families go out to eat afterwards.  We were joking about the crazy lives of Christians because we closed down the Zaxby's last Wednesday!!!!  ha ha!  We also did our first monthly field trip with the church and headed to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge to the Ripley's Aquarium last Tuesday.  I took the boys by myself (well, Michaela Bates rode with me) because Sean had school that day.  We had a blast and I LOVED seeing Gatinburg for the first time.  I'm ready to go back already and explore it more.  They were starting to put up their Christmas lights, too.  Sunday we went to the Harwell's house for food and fellowship (they are a sweet family at our new church) and really enjoyed spending time with them.  She is an amazing woman......home schools 7 children, is the CEO of her sewing business, and works out every morning to that workout called Insanity!

We do miss our newly made friends at our old (but really was still so new church), but will keep in touch. 

Andrew got his first shots on Friday. :(  He made the biggest boo boo face; it was heartbreaking!  He is 13 lbs and 24 in. 

We won tickets to last Saturday's UT football game, but took those over to the Bates house on Friday and some of them got to go. 

Today Sean is leaving school early and we are taking him to Red Robin in honor of Veteran's Day.  Free burger and fries for those who have served/are serving.  Thank you to all who have served for our country!!!!!!

SCORE! with a soccer ball

First UT Football Game!

View of Knoxville from inside stadium

Smokey ears!

Rocky Top



bullseye

<3

 

Originally Sean and Ryan had planned to go to the game and we had bought two tickets. I was going to stay home with the two youngest.  Then earlier this week Sean received an email from the veterans office at school offering free tickets to vets and their families in honor of Veterans Day.  We were very thankful to God for allowing us to all go as a family.  Our friend Gina came, too.  We sat up high because there was more room for the boys, but the seats were still good and we could see everything.  There was even a secret place so I could nurse.  Andrew pretty much slept the whole time and Ryan and Hunter LOVED the game.  They both did outstanding and Ryan was so cute to watch cheering for the game.  The Vols won!  It was a good day!