Knoxville Riverboat

We had won tickets for the Knoxville Riverboat back on the 4th of July, but we wanted to wait until I was out of my first trimester and not feeling queasy.  Michaela and Katie Bates were super sweet to come and babysit and give me and Sean a date night!!!!!  We hadn't had one since like springtime!!!!  It was such a nice evening and brought us closer together.  We really need to purpose to go on dates more often.....right hubby!!!!!?????  The cruise was nice, too.  It took us on the Tennessee River for a two hour ride that included dinner. It was neat to see Knoxville from a different perspective.  Towards the end of the ride, the music and dancing got a little wild and was a bit too much for us, but nothing that ruined our evening.  I say.........go on more husband and wife dates!!  :)

http://www.tnriverboat.com/

Cades Cove

We took Dad to Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains National Park on Saturday.  It was such a fun day and certainly had its times of God teaching us patience.  First, we went down this crazy windy road trying to get into the back entrance of the park near Cades Cove.  It was a one way road.  SO we had to turn around and go a longer route to get there.  Patience.  Then, the 11 mile loop down around Cades Cove consisted of people go 4 mph instead of the 20 mph allowed.  Patience.  After Cades Cove, we took Dad to Gatlinburg to walk around.  It was probably the most busy we have ever seen it.  Then we decided to drive into Pigeon Forge for supper.  Unbeknownst to us, Pigeon Forge was having a car show so I think we sat in traffic for about 1.5 hours or so.......most of it just trying to get from stop light #10 to stoplight #7.  We were starved.  Patience.  We had a great meal and Starbucks on the way home (Fall flavors are back!!!!!!! - salted caramel mocha and pumpkin spice ----- yum!!!!!!!).  We finally got home after 10 p.m. and we were all exhausted. 

James 1:4 - But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Aww, Hunter got cut out of the picture!

Museum Of Appalachia Days of the Pioneer Antiques Fest

My dad came up for a visit Wednesday and will be here until Monday.  The Museum of Appalachia is right up the road from us and they are having a Days of the Pioneer Antiques Festival right now so we decided to take Dad there.  It was a gorgeous today and not too hot.  Sean wasn't able to go because of school, but Dad, the boys, and I had a great time!  I forgot my camera, but had my cellphone :)

Andrew Doctor Visit and Vaccines

Andrew had his year appointment today and everything is going well for him, except the doctor is concerned about his weight.  He is 18.5 lbs and 29 1/2 in.  He went from the 50th% down to the 10th% for height and weight.  She asked a bunch of questions like is he eating well, lethargic, good diapers, things of that nature.  He seems to be totally fine to us and this isn't the first time a doctor has been concerned about height and weight for our children.  In fact, the same thing happened with Ryan and Hunter.  Any way, Andrew has to be seen back in 4-6 weeks to see if he has either maintained or gained.  If so, good.  If not, they want to start running tests.  Sean and I feel totally at peace and are trusting God. 

I have debated on even posting about this subject, but have decided to.  Not sure why.  When we had Ryan, Sean and I talked about whether we should vaccinate, however, we didn't do any research (mainly due to laziness on my part) and went ahead and vaccinated both Ryan and Hunter and Andrew.  However, I have always had a nagging feeling that I should at least know what I am injecting into my children.  Recently I decided to check out "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Sears from my library.  This book was extremely helpful and informative for me.  I felt guilty for not doing my research before now.  Kind of the way I felt about not knowing about the food that we eat.  Now, I am going to start off by saying that I'm not saying vaccines are either good or bad.  I think they have helped to eradicate or nearly rid of multiple diseases from our nation.  I will also say or not say that I think it should be every parent's individual choice and I am no judge.  But after reading the book, which Dr. Sears is more pro-vaccine in my opinion, we have decided to do only a few selective vaccines.  This has been after much prayer and God's wisdom and guidance.  We think the DTaP, Rotovirus, PC, and HIB vaccines are important enough to continue, however, we are going to be declining the rest of them for now moving forward.  We of course will revisit the situation under other circumstances and/or situations.  The main reasons we have chosen this is because some of the vaccines, like MMR, chickenpox, hep A and B, and HPV are either pretty mild if gotten as a child or pretty highly unlikely to be gotten by a child.  Also, some of the ingredients in vaccines like human and animal tissues make me kinda weirded out.  Finally, the amount of aluminum in some is more than I would like.  Oh one more finally, some of the things that have been raised as concerns regarding vaccines, haven't been accurately studied or tested, so there are a lot of unknowns out there. 

I guess my main point in this post is to say, educate yourself!!!  Pick up a book that is unbiased and inform yourself on the subject.  From there, I feel you will feel confident in whatever choices you decide to make for your child.  It is worth the little bit of time and studying it takes to learn these things.  I wish I had done my homework years ago! 

Tenant!!!

It's been a little bit of a long road with our townhome in Florida.  The previous tenants that we had did not end up working out very well.  I will start out by saying that I am grateful for the months that they did pay, which was most months, but we also had some pretty big issues with them.  They started to not pay again like they did the end of last year.  They also wouldn't return phone calls or contact us at all; just like last year.  This time my Dad graciously went over there a handful of times, which thankfully they would answer the door for him, and then talk to us on the phone.  Unfortunately, most of the things they told us seemed to be lies.  Long story short, we did not renew their lease in July, nor did they pay us for the month of July when they were living in our house or the 9ish days in August that they were there.  Thank God, they did move out because we couldn't find their lease and couldn't really start eviction processes without that! 

We prayed and prayed about what to do and felt God leading us to use a management company from now on to handle renting out our place.  It is especially hard trying to do it from another state.  We got a great recommendation and decided on someone who we have been very pleased with.  Unfortunately, the bad news didn't stop with not getting paid.  The management company informed us that the tenants wrecked our house.  We ended up having to pay for a thorough cleaning, brand new paint throughout, and brand new carpet throughout.  Ugh!!!!  Not very good news, especially since the townhome is only 5 years old!!!!!!!  And we left it all in good shape!!!! 

After all was said and done, we had to tap into our IRAs to pay for these things, including our rent here and the townhome there, but feel very blessed that we were able to use some our retirement money without being penalized and that we had it to use in the first place. 

Now, for the rest of the good news!!!!  We have a tenant!!!!!!  A lady moving up from Key West that is single with no pets and no kids.  She is a massage therapist.  She LOVED all the new things in the house (of course!) and decided to choose our place over the other cheaper units in our subdivision.  We prayed for a certain monthly rent amount, which she is going to pay, as well.  And she isn't moving in until October, but is paying the prorate for September. 

Praise God!!!!!  All the glory to Him!!!!

1 Corinthians 15:58

King James Version (KJV)

⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Homemade Pizza Dough and Sauce

Fedosky's Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

 

2 1/2 c. wheat flour
1 T. sugar
1 T. yeast
1/2 t. salt
1 c. warm water
2 T. olive oil

Mix in Bosch™ mixer (or in a mixer with a dough hook). Plop on oiled surface. cover with towel let rise 5 min. pinch off pieces for each child to shape. Pre-bake crusts on cookie sheet in oven @ 500° for 3 min. Cool. Decorate with toppings of your choice: spaghetti sauce, cheese, veggies, meatballs, lunchmeat, ground turkey etc. Pop in oven (still @ 500°) for 5-7 min. depending on what toppings were used.

 

http://www.duggarfamily.com/content/duggar_recipes/30793/fedosky_s_whole_wheat_pizza_dough

Cake Pictures

Big one

Little ones :)

OK, I'm done overloading the blog with Andrew first birthday pictures!!!!!

Cake Videos

 

Andrew Turns 1!!!!!

Well, today is my third son's (and third child's) birthday.  I am so happy to have had him in our family over this last year and he is such a blessing.  I am thankful to God for giving him to us and for his health and we just love him so!  I am a little sad, I admit, that he is already a year old!!!!  Time just seems to zoom right by.  I feel I waste too many precious minutes doing useless things.  Things that don't matter.  Things that don't impact our world for God.  Or my family.  It is so true about living each moment to the fullest!  Although I say this and I will probably still waste time (like blogging lol).

So yesterday we took Andrew to get his first haircut, which was MUCH MUCH needed.  And I would show you the before shaggy haired pictures and then the after much better, not so shaggy haired pictures, but you see, I deleted them!!!!!!  A little devastated, but I will get over it.  Any way, you will just have to trust me that he looks super cute and that he did a WONDERFUL job!  He sat so still and was even enjoying it. 

Today, which is his actual birthday (Sept 7th) we took him on a train ride, which the whole family enjoyed.  Here's some pictures!!!!........it's Andrew time!!!!!

OK, so here's after pictures of his haircut.

The many faces of Andrew (keep scrolling)

See I told you

One more

Awww, he looks so sad :(      or sleepy

Hunter hanging in the ladies' room

We made him a cake, which we will be having after dinner tonight, so there will be more pictures to come.  We wait until the first birthday to do haircuts (Southern tradition) and sweet stuff (our tradition).  Well, he got some of his chocolate cake a day early.  Ryan decided to share his cake with Andrew while me and Sean were inside cleaning up the kitchen and I couldn't very well get mad at Ryan for sharing!  Andrew seemed to not mind either.   

And a funny because it's been a few days side story.......I had been grocery shopping and Sean was at home with the two oldest.  He was making us some homemade broth and it had boiled over and had filled the house with smoke.  Sean decided to open some windows and doors to air the house out.  He left the boys' bedroom window open during Hunter's nap time.  Hunter pretty much didn't nap, but he did pop the second story screen off the window and throw pillows, piggy banks, snow globes, and stuffed animals onto the roof and the ground below.  Thank God HE didn't go out the window!!!!!  And the even more embarrassing thing is the neighbor across the street saw what was happening and came over to tell us because we had no clue!  Bad, bad parents.

Cake pictures to come soon! 

Family Visit

Yesterday my dear uncle and aunt from FL came by for a lovely visit.  They are in town visiting some friends of theirs and we hadn't seen them in a year (I can't believe we have already lived in TN for one full year now!).  They hadn't seen the boys in a while and had not met Andrew before.  It was such a great visit and we are so happy we got to spend some time with them.  :) 

 

Well, Andrew doesn't look too happy!  lol

Gospel Light Christian Camp

Last Thursday we headed to Hillsville, VA to go to a family camp!!!  We were blessed to have been invited by some friends of ours who go to the church that we used to go to.  His brother and his brother's wife and their 7 children (with number 8 on the way) take care of this Christian Camp that their church owns.  They are an amazing family and I am not sure how they find the energy to host so many people and do ALL the cooking!!!!  We were blessed to be with about 8 families, most of whom we know from our old church, but a few new families that we got to meet for the first time, as well.  We had such an amazing time fellowshipping, playing games, hearing good preaching, having family movie night, swimming and a water slide, and fireworks.  Well, Hunter didn't care for the fireworks (screaming!!!).  We were fed three meals a day and stayed in rustic cabins.  The weather was perfect - cool in the mornings and evenings, hot during the day, and a quick rain in the afternoons to cool things off.  The boys had such a great time and are still talking about it, wanting to go back.  Hunter thanks God at every prayer time for allowing us to go to family camp.  We headed home Monday and while it was nice to have some of the comforts of our own home back again, we are hoping that God will allow us to do something like this again! :) 

Our cabin

 

Area to play sports/games

The boys/dads shooting skeet

One of my good friend's little girl. 

And one of her other precious little ones

More skeet shooting

LOVE this dog - Ivan!

This girl sitting with Andrew is such a doll~