Thankful Thursday

As it is Veteran's Day, it is easy to think of what to be thankful for!! I am so thankful for the men and women that have served and are serving our country. Thank you for fighting for and for protecting our freedom! Thankful to all the families of our military for their constant support and sacrifice that they give so that their loved ones can serve in the military! Remembering my sweet grandpa and his service in the Navy during WWII. Thinking about and praying for my brother serving in the Army National Guard right now. So proud of you Bobby, you have no idea!!

Happy Birthday Daniel!

My sweet boy is six years old! Everyone told me how fast the years would go by, but really, do they have to fly by this quickly? I have been so very blessed to by his mommy!! I was at Publix the night before his birthday to find a balloon for him. I love getting special balloons on birthdays! Daniel loved the first one I got him on his first birthday and played with it for weeks! So now I always pick out a special balloon and have it ready to greet the birthday person in the kitchen for breakfast time. I normally try to get a balloon that has the age on it. However, they did not have a balloon for age 6. I am not sure why, but this made me almost cry right there in the isle! Six sounds so old to me! (I know it is really not!) There are so many things I love and appreciate about Daniel!! I don't know how to list them all, and I know that there is no way I could even think of them, but I will try to give you a glimpse of just how wonderful he is!!

• His sweet spirit and tender heart.
  
• His love to cuddle
• He loves to have his back scratched. I love cuddling with him and scratching his back. I know it calms him and makes him feel loved.
• He likes come into the bathroom while I am getting ready and sit on the tub and talk with me. He will tell me about his dream from the night before and ask me what I dreamed about. Then he will ask me what I want to talk about, or ask a hundred questions. Some mornings I would wish for just a few minutes alone to get ready for the day but kept reminding myself that this would end quickly. Which it did. Now that he has started Kindergarten, we no longer have our sweet talks in the mornings. Ha! As I sit here crying thinking about it now! Sometimes on Saturday or Sunday mornings he will, but not always.
• Each morning before he started Kindergarten he would ask the same three questions: "Are we going anywhere today? Is someone coming over today? Are we doing something special today?" On the days that I had to say no to all of the questions, which was quite often, I felt like the least fun mother!!
• Daniel has so many questions about God, creation and Heaven. So many of the questions I have never thought of before, which also makes it difficult to answer some of his questions!!
  
• Daniel loves to learn about things. He likes to ask lots of questions and try to understand everything he can about whatever topic he is interested in. This past year his two main interests have been space and dinosaurs. He knows all the planets, different kinds of space objects, space craft, Neil Armstrong and much more that I don't even think about on a given day, but he does! He is currently very into dinosaurs. He can tell you many of the names and if they are a plant eater, meat eater, or both! I love watching him learn and process things!!
  
• When he finds out someone is sick or is not having a good day, he asks if we can pray for them.
• He loves imaginative play. He will use so many toys outside of their intended purpose in some creative way.
• He is learning to read and has come so far from when we began last year! I am so excited for his reading to take off so that he can read lots of books to find the information he is craving on topics that he is interested in.
• He is so helpful! He willingly buckles Alayna into her car seat and when we arrive at our destination, he helps her out!
  
• Daniel is enjoying kindergarten. He adjusted so well!! I really was amazed especially since this is his first school experience. It is taking me a little longer to adjust however!! There are so many days I wish I was still homeschooling him, yet many other days that I feel like sending him to school for kindergarten was the right decision.
  
• Daniel really loves to be around people and to spend special time together!
  
• He loves to listen and take everything in. He is like a sponge, especially when it is something he is interested in. In church, or in school, he really thinks about what is being taught and waits to comment on something until he feels he has a good understanding of whatever it is.
  

God for sure knew what He was doing when he blessed me with Daniel! I absolutely love having him around me and listening to him talk and share what he is excited about! I love his sweet and kind spirit! I love that he has taught me so much about motherhood, and that the mistakes I made with him hopefully haven't affected him too much!! I could not have asked for a more wonderful little boy!! I have been so very blessed these six years!!!

Happy Birthday Daniel!! I love you so very much!!!!

Sweetness

Wordless Wednesday

Fixed It

Well, somehow I fixed it. My head hurts!

Computers Drive Me Crazy

I was trying to change something on my blog and somehow everything ended up at the bottom and I can't figure out how to get it all back to the right-hand side where it used to be. I was just trying to change the background like I have before, but this time it didn't work and now everything is messed up. I feel so stupid when it comes to computers. I was getting excited to actually post stuff on my blog again and I mess it up somehow. Yep! Leave it to me! If anyone knows what I did wrong, I would love advice!

Arrival of Julianne

We finally met our sweet baby girl! Julianne was born on September 25th weighing 6lbs 13oz! She is our biggest baby yet beating Daniel by a pound! Daniel and Alayna were so excited to meet her. Alayna just wanted to hold her the entire time they were in the hospital room visiting! So sweet! We are now a family of five! Oh my goodness! God is so good!!

Hello after a year!

So, I haven't blogged in like forever, practically a year! I have been wanting to get back into it, but didn't really know how to. The main reason I took a break was because I lost access to pictures. My husband takes beautiful pictures, but I no longer have access to them. He used to have them stored in one place and I learned how to access them and post the pictures. But then he decided to try out different editing programs so pictures may be stored in any one of three places! If I was smart enough when it comes to computers, perhaps I could figure out how to access them, but alas, there they sit in his computer! He gets upset when I use pictures that he has not edited yet, and since that is quite a time consuming project it is hard to get him to let me use pictures! So I waited and waited, but since I got out of the habit, it was hard to start back up. Pictures are one thing...I also don't feel like I have much interesting to say! lol! I read so many other blogs that are so interesting and that are written so well! But there have been some big changes in our lives this past year that I feel like I should blog about, if for anything else, a record for me! The two biggest events have been the birth of our third child and the start of home schooling. Our days have been quite busy lately, but I feel like I should make a better effort to share what has been going on for our extended family and for anyone else who cares to know. I am not sure how much time I will have to devote to this again, but I will try! I finally got a new computer! I have been using my computer from college which was purchased in 1998! I would love to learn how to get photos off my camera and onto the computer, if Brian will let me, and at least post them! I may not be able to get the great photos that Brian takes, but I can try to post a few from my camera! But I have to learn first, and that requires finding someone to teach me! I have asked Brian several times, but it is not high on his priority list, so I'll just wait!! But I guess I could write about stuff in the mean time when I find the time. We'll see how that time issue goes!! As in right now, the baby is crying and Alayna needs a diaper change! So must change that diaper and then feed the baby! I'll have to think about what I want to blog about first! This will require discipline on my part!! Perhaps I need some accountability to do this!!

Wordless Wednesday

Wedding Cake

Well, I made my second wedding cake in October. A friend from church asked me if I would make her daughter's wedding cake and although I was beyond nervous, I said yes. She is actually the one who gave me my first referral for the first wedding cake I made back in April. I was excited for the design of this cake, especially after I made a practice cake to see if I could get the quilted effect she wanted. It ended up being a Four Tiered Red Velvet cake with cream cheese filling and butter cream frosting. The design was dots with a shimmer on all tiers with a quilted pattern on alternating tiers. A black satin ribbon completed the bottom of each tier. I also made two kitchen cakes for extra cake. After I made the practice cake I thought everything would go well. Well, as you can see, I had a mild set-back! After I had the final layer of frosting on two of the cakes, I noticed that the icing was starting to sag. So Brian helped me shave off the outer edge of the two cakes so that I could try to re-frost them. I was a nervous wreck!! But after it was finished, I was mostly happy with the results. It also was a little too moist for the supports but thank goodness it didn't fall! Brian took the pictures and blew out the background because the wall behind the cake wasn't very pretty. Also, they wanted to red flower showing for the reception, but I really liked the white flowers on top best, so we took a quick shot with the white flowers facing out before I turned the flowers for the reception. I also liked the effect he did to darken the cake in the one picture so I thought I would share it.

Halloween

Yes, I know it is mid November and I am now just posting Halloween pictures! We had a fun Halloween. The Sunday before we went to our church's Trunk-or-Treat. There was a fire truck there so Daniel was able to get up inside and sit in the driver's seat. Very appropriate since he was dressed as a fireman! That week we carved our pumpkins and roasted pumpkin seeds. We made salty and sweet seeds. Oh so yummy! We still have a couple pumpkins that I am using for Thanksgiving decor that we will be able to get the seeds from next week and enjoy! We took Daniel and Alayna trick-or-treating to a few houses in the neighborhood. Daniel did great this year going up to the door and saying trick-or-treat and thank you. Alayna was also brave enough to walk up to the door. She held a piece of candy in her had the entire time, and each time she would go up to the door, she would either try to give her candy to the person handing out the candy or drop it for another piece. Too bad she doesn't get to eat any of it! Thanks Alayna! ;-) They were both so cute dressed up. We had a lot of fun!

New Blog Title

So I changed the title of my blog to Snowflake Mama. I am still crazy for snow, but I didn't think it described anything about my blog. Since the blog is mainly about my kids and being a mom, I thought it needed a change. But I still wanted snow in it somehow! Since we live in SC without snow, I try to incorporate the idea of snow into as much as I can! :-) I wish I was more creative and if anyone has a better idea for me for the title, let me know!!!!!

Ohio and Michigan Trip

In September we took a trip up to Michigan for Brian's cousin's wedding. On the way we stopped in Ohio to visit with my grandma and also had the sweet blessing of visiting with some old friends that I haven't seen in years!! We were also able to stop in Cincinnati since it is right on the way home and see some great friends from college. The trip overall was very good. I was most concerned about the kids' sleeping arrangements, even over the long car ride, because Alayna had never slept in the pack-n-play and Daniel needs a rail on his bed so that he doesn't' fall out! But the first night, Alayna went to sleep beautifully, and Daniel just slept on a mattress on the floor, so when he fell out, which he did, it was just a short distance to the floor! He didn't even wake up when he fell!! The wedding was beautiful, and I was able to meet some of Brian's family that I had never met before! We had a great time visiting and catching up with everyone and everyone enjoyed seeing how much the kids had grown! In Cincinnati, our sweet friend Christy made dinner for everyone who came over to visit with us. She makes a yummy cranberry chicken! Oh so good! Daniel and Alayna did great in the car, although Daniel watched DVDs the entire time! I felt like he needed a t.v fast when we returned home. I think he probably watched the movie Cars 20 times! Overall, it was a great trip, but being in the car with two very young children for over 36 hours total was interesting!