Pumpkin Carving

The boys always enjoy this tradition of ours: to carve pumpkins together as a family. It was neat to see how this year Elijah didn't really want much help until the end when it was time to cut it out, and Caden was GLAD to stick his hand down inside the pumpkin to retrieve the seeds so that mommy could bake them. The pumpkins turned out really nice. I unfortunently do not have a picture of nick's or mine, but nick's was Bob the Tomatoe with the phrase God Made You Special carved above Bob, and mine was a simple smiley face with a big grin.

Teeth, Pumpkins and Trains....Oh My!!

Well, lets start off with TEETH....on Friday morning I was brushing Elijah's teeth for school when I noticed a tooth coming up behind his front bottom tooth without him having lost any teeth yet. I was a bit startled and had not heard of this happening without a tooth falling out first. So I called my sister who is a dental hygenist and she said its normal, but that we want to play with the baby tooth and try and loosen it and get it out so he doesn't have to have it pulled out. So when Elijah got home from school I told him we needed to remove that front tooth as soon as possible or he would have to go to the dentist and get a shot to numb his mouth so they could pull the baby tooth. Well, when you mention a shot around elijah you are bound to get a reaction!!! He was like "we are getting this tooth out today". I told him it wasn't going to happen today because it was BARELY loose!! He insisted and wouldn't let me stop yanking on it. First he had me get him an apple to bite on. That didn't help any. He then wanted to know what else could be done. I told him we could tie string to it and then to a door and slam the door. He looked very scared and said "no, thats ok". So we left it alone for about 5 minutes. Then in comes elijah with some dental floss. He wanted me to tie it around his tooth and yank with all my might. So I sat him down on the chair....he held on to the chair for dear life....and I started yanking on it. Soon we heard a pop and then some blood started flowing. I knew we had done something. He used paper towel and just kept twisting it and soon it was just hanging on by a thread (or should I say root). And then alas....out it popped. He was so excited he exclaimed "mom, I was so brave...I didn't even cry and it didn't even hurt"!!!

Of course the tooth fairy visited and he was thrilled to get his dollar bill.

Now onto the PUMPKINS....on saturday morning after a quick visit to the chiro for nick as he has been feeling lots of butt and leg pain we ventured out to get our pumpkins for the fall. We went to a new place this year called Maple Lane Farms. It was nice and quick as we had other plans for the day as well. So we hitched a ride on a hay wagon and out to the pumpkin patch we went.

Well...immediately after the pumpkins we drove an hour for the TRAINS......we took a 3 hour train ride thru the mountains to see some beautiful scenery and in hopes to see the tree's changing color. I personally thought the train ride was a bit long, but Im not thrilled about trains as much as the boys are. Here we are enjoying the train ride thru the mountain....even with nick still feeling pain shooting down his leg.

And now for the OH MY....today(monday) at 10:30am I got a call from nick.

NICK:" honey, I just wanted to let you know that I am not at work right now, but that I am at the ER in Lenoir City".

SANDRA:" why are you there"?

NICK: "I could not walk or get out of a chair today after a meeting and my boss told one of my coworkers to bring me here to see what's going on with my leg".

SANDRA: "you want me to come be with you"?

NICK: "sure if you want to".

So I call around to find a sitter for the boys and head over to be with Nick at the hospital. They did an xray and nothing showed up on that and so they discharged him telling him to get an MRI done. The hospital wouldn't do an MRI unless we had a physicians order and we don't have a family physician here(never needed one). So I got my husband dressed which he really couldn't do it himself, and helped him out to the van after a scare with him about fainting due to the pain. We called the chiro today and we went there at 3pm today for an adjustment and we plan to go for the remainder of the week. Nick has orders to not sit, but to only stand or lay flat and to not go to work for a few days. So nick is home in bed and I am spoon feeding the poor guy his food as he lay's flat to recuperate. The chiro insists that it is a pinched sciatic nerve and we agree with him and he should be back at work at the end of the week. I just had to take some pictures of nick in the hospital bed as I was laughing at the circumstances. If anyone knows my husband he does not go to the hospital very easily. I asked him if his coworker's had to drag him in because he didn't want to go. He just laughed (which hurt of course). Nick is also not one to milk his pain for all its worth....when he is nearly in tears due to the pain I KNOW its serious pain. Enjoy the few pictures I got of him laying in the ER.

I've been tagged!!

I guess when you get tagged you get the privelage of saying 7 things about yourself that others just might not know??? Im new with this tagging thing, and with that comes perhaps a boring post for some because my life is NOT all that exciting. Now to rattle my brain on 7 things about me...hummmm
1. I rarely make my bed in the morning as I think its not to important since I plan to hop back into it in a few short hours:) (I do make it for company though:))
2. I can take both of my feet and put them behind my head.
3. I can curl up my toes and walk on tops of my toes for a bit. I use to be able to walk all around the house like that, but now with a little extra weight its getting to be a bit harder.
4. I love to cook as long as someone tells me what to make...its coming up with a week's menu that really is not enjoyable.
5. We rarely eat out, its a huge treat when we do and at times I get myself so worked up about eating out and so excited I cause myself to get sick. True!!
6. My favorite time of the year is Spring when the tree's begin to get leaves, the flowers start to pop out of the ground and the air begins to warm up.
7. I have bungee jumped twice in my life and if given the opportunity to do it again I would most likely do it.

Ok, so now I pick others to be tagged...is that it?? Here are the gal's I pick. Miranda, Sharlin, Tara, Emily, Liv, Kristy K. and Jodi S. Enjoy girls:)

Happy Birthday!

I just want to send out birthday wishes to two wonderful people in my life.

Happy Birthday Mom (October 10th). You are such a wonderful Godly woman and I thank God I was raised in the home you provided for me. You are truely an example of what a Godly woman looks like. You are so caring and loving and generous. You amaze me mom in many ways. If I turn out to be just like you in several years I am going to be so happy. Your amazing attitude towards life is one that doesn't go unnoticed. I know it can be hard for you with your handicap, but mom I wouldn't trade you for anything!! Not even to have you back the way you were so many years ago. You are my mom and I love you just the way you are. You have taught me so well and I pray you have a blessed day!!! I LOVE YOU MOM!!

Happy Birthday Dad (October 11th). Even though I did not grow up in your household I can tell just by being married to Nick that you as well had a home that many would long to live in. You are such a Godly man and such a great example to me on digging into the word. I thank you so much for raising such a wonderful son and teaching him such great values in life. I thank you for being so welcoming to me when I joined in on the family nearly 8 years ago. I feel so extremely loved and cared for by you. I truely feel that your home is just as much my home and I thank you for that. I love you dad and pray you have a blessed day!!! I LOVE YOU DAD!!

Revelation Song

I am in our choir at church here in Knoxville and some sundays are just better than others in the worship songs. A month ago we sang a song that not only touched the congregation but the choir as well. I've never felt God so much while we sang this song in church. It was a "special" so the congregation was not singing, just the choir, but you would have thought the congregation was singing. The room was filled with God and the people's faces were turned upward. Amazing to see as I stood in the choir loft. Some just stood to their feet with arms lifted high praising HIM.

Some of you may have heard it before as its been on the christian radio station lately, but I had never heard it until we started practicing for it in choir. Listening to it now still brings tears of thankfulness and joy to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY!! Praise to the Kind of Kings!! He is MY EVERYTHING!! I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do.

Veggie Tales,Garage Sale and UT Game

This past weekend was a busy, but fun weekend for us. Friday evening nick took the boys out on a date night to watch a veggie tales concert. From the pictures it looks like they had lots of fun.

On Saturday morning while nick was at work, my neighbor Gina and I decided to do a garage sale. On friday all day I rushed around finding items to put on the sale come Saturday morning. I made 60$ more than I had the day before so that was good.

Then on Saturday night we got a "free" sitter to watch the boys so that we could attend the UT football game that we had "free" tickets for. UT beat NIU!!!

Our "Mostly Free" Vacation

** Warning** Long Post Ahead
We were very honored to receieve a "free" vacation this year due to some cement work we did with our dear friends Philip and Lana Steidinger. Both of us got a free week's stay in a condo in Destin Florida. We did have to pay for gas to get there, but other than that it was free. We had the time of our lives and enjoyed every minute of it. The place we stayed at was the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. It was huge and our condo's weren't close to each other, but none the less we had a great time. We took well over 100 pictures so I won't bore you with all those, but will try and group them together so they aren't at random. Here is the inside and outside of our condo called Elation. We were close to Baytown Wharf Shopping area so we spent time there...keep in mind almost every picture I show you is on this resort...thats how HUGE it was!!!

We spent all but two days on the beach catching waves, building sand castles, burying each other, finding shells, making a "soup bowl" (this is what caden called a hole with lots of water and sand in it:)), and catching some sun. Oh what fun!!

Two of the nights Philip and Lana watched our kids so we could have a date night, and two of the nights we watched their kids so they could have a date night. Our first night out we ate at a local restaurant that was known for their FRESH seafood caught daily. It was pretty much a hole in the wall restaurant with even them cooking out of a trailer backed up to this shack on the water. Very tiny place, but yummy fresh seafood. It was called Dewey Destin. The other restaurant we ate at was also a local and it was called Captain Dave's. It was on the beach and was more of a fancier place considering we at at Dewey Destin first.

Two of the days we spent at the pools that are through out the resort. I believe there are 17 or 19 pools through out the entire place. Here are a few pool pictures. We also spent three different mornings riding bikes and playing tennis. Elijah said his favorite part was riding the bikes so we made sure to do that more than once and nick and I liked tennis so we did that a few times as well. We did a little walking on trails and going to different sites. One was an island called Jolee Island that had a play set and little cottage.

Thank you very much Philip and Lana for letting us have the privalage of going with you. Let us know when you need more help doing a concrete driveway:)