It's been a LONG week, but I'm still here!

So my last post was over a week ago...I can't remember the last time I went that long without posting. We've had a pretty eventful week full of emotions. A couple weekends ago my little ones were sick with a stomach virus and it seeped over into the next week. It traveled over to me of course. We recovered over Veterans day, but Jack soon came down with a bad cold! I think we are finally on the mend now.

My Jack-Jack likes to come get in bed with me some mornings when he wakes up too early. Most of the time Darren isn't home yet so there is plenty of room. Well I guess he really fell back asleep and got pretty comfortable, I must have been completely passed out too because this is what Darren came home to! Even the dog joined us...I guess he figures if there is plenty of room on the other side of the bed why should he sleep on the huge DOG bed I have on our bedroom floor!!! Darren said it was too funny and he had to grab the camera....I woke up to the paparazzi flash :-) and a quick apology!!

Monday was Police Man day at Hailey's school. The pre-K classes asked Darren and Derrek to come. Derrek works on the same squad as Darren and has a son in the other class...he's actually the boy looking at the camera with his tongue out!!! Also in this picture, Darren is having Ms. McAllister try on some of the SWAT gear.

All the kids got to sit in the cars and push the buttons to turn on the lights and sirens!! They thought that was so cool! Here is Hailey listening to her Daddy tell her all about it.

This is Hailey's class in front of Darren's car. Ms. Bethel (the para-pro) is on the left, Ms. McAllister is on the right. Hailey is right in the middle (standing) with her teal coat on.

That afternoon we got very sad news about a dear member of our church. Angela Lineberger, who I've mentioned before on this blog, passed away suddenly in her home. Her boys found her after school. I drove out to the house where many of our church friends had gathered to be with her husband and boys. She has five. Tully (16) and Ben, Luke, Tal, and Hunter (13).(I borrowed this picture from my friend Dawn's blog....her post about Angela was beautiful)

We still have not gotten back the results from the autopsy and are anxiously awaiting some closure to this unexpected tragedy. She was such an inspiration to all mothers. She always had a smile on her face and with all the stresses of raising 5 boys I just don't know how she did it. God knew she was a special lady. I will miss her very much and my kids will too. She taught their sermon class almost every Sunday! We all love that family so much. When I moved back to W.R. the first event we went to was the 'little boys'' 1st birthday party!! And when I was in high school all four of them were enrolled in our childcare program/class. I would go by and peek in to see them. I taught them in Sunday school when they were 3-4yr olds and I called them my little football team. Now it just breaks my heart to see them in so much pain. Please keep her husband and boys in your thoughts and prayers. Here is a link to one of our local newspapers. She wrote a weekly column about her life as a mom of 5. It was always full of funny stories and her love for her family. They did a tribute about her this past Saturday. You can read some of her articles by searching under her name at the site.

http://www.hhjnews.com/content.aspx?Module=Quickpage&ID=2353&MemberID=1275

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Moving on to this past weekend....

Tabby and Isabelle drove down from VA this past Wednesday! It was so much fun to get to see them. Isabelle has grown so much and was walking like crazy!! Last time I saw her she was still a little wobbly :-) They stayed at our house, Jack very graciously gave up his room and did a slumber party with me (no pictures this time!) They were originally going to stay with Sarah but she got sick that week! It was so sad because she had to cancel going down to Florida with us. We were super bummed about that. She is so the life of the party :-)

Thursday we took Isabelle to Ms. Dawn's library! She works at one of the local elementary schools as the librarian and it was lots of fun crashing her place!

Then we headed off to Jack's preschool, with mashed potatoes in hand, for his Family Feast. Grandma met us there to join in the fun. Daddy and Papa went to Ms. Angela's funeral. They said it was the largest one they had ever been to. Well over 500 people...maybe more. It was standing room only in three rooms. They had to video transmit the service into the other rooms. That just shows how much that family is loved and what a wonderful person she was to everyone she touched in her life.

Here is my Pilgrim Jack. They came in and preformed a couple of Thanksgiving songs for all of us. Too cute!

Here is Ralston....his mommy couldn't come because she was still getting over her sickness. He did such a good job though. His grandma came too and we all got to sit together.

Singing the 'Gobble, Gobble' song...

In this pic you can see Ralston (spiderman shirt), Caleb (green stripes), and Jack (oshkosh).

The food was really good. It was a nice preview for this week!! We had turkey and all the fixin's. The boys headed for the desserts first :-) I ate my FIRST piece of pecan pie!! I know...I live in GA and haven't had any before! It just never looked appetizing to me until that day. But it was really good :-)

Izzy thought so too!!

We got home and crashed! We all took a nice nap until it was time to pick up Hailey from school. Then the kids and Tabby headed outside to play while I fixed supper.

Hailey and her cup of ladybugs!! She finds them everywhere!!

Jack-Jack driving Miss Izzy!!
And then trying to hug her...he even kissed her later on :-)

I think he likes her red hair...it reminds him of his mommy!

Jack hopped out of the jeep to try to pull Hailey in the wagon. He's such a strong little man!

Now Izzy's thinking "can she drive this thing on her own?!?"

The Three Stooges!

Izzy the one shoe wonder! Hailey the ladybug rescuer! Jack the wild eye jokester!

Friday, Tabby and I hit the road with Isabelle to go down to FL to see Amber and her new baby Kirkley!! It was so much fun to have a little road trip. Tabby's GPS took us a completely different way than Google maps did, so we were totally lost the whole time but put our faith in the GPS and God of course and we got there! It was a lot of back road driving and small towns. When we hit Florida we did our best to take a picture.

Here's our little road trip 'sunshine'

We arrived at Aric and Amber's just in time for supper. We got to cuddle with Kirkley in between feedings. And Isabelle got much needed play time with Sage and Noah.

Isn't she just precious?!?

Amber told us that it was the one year anniversary of Aric coming home from his 1yr tour in Korea that day. We all talked about how so much had happened to them in this year. They have been through a lot...moving, Aric's thyroid cancer, but the best part is this little surprise!! Who would have thought?!?!

I stole this picture from Amber.... This is Isabelle getting to meet Kirkley.
We were fortunate enough to get to stay at our friend's house just a few minutes away from Amber's. They went to church with us up here and now go to church with Amber. Suzy and Carmel even trusted us enough to let us stay while they were going to be out of town! They were coming up here to GA!!! We just switched places :-)

The funny part was when we left Amber's house that night we had our little Google directions in hand and started following them. The GPS couldn't find their street (I guess too new). But no problem...we've got directions. So we start getting all back in these woods (but Aric did say there were woods) and then the roads start turning into dirt and we keep driving around and we are never finding our next street to turn on. Our gas was getting super low so we were getting scared! We called Amber and she said the first two streets on our directions are not even anywhere near Suzy's neighborhood!!!!! We are so lost!! They get online and find where we are and help us back out to the main road....then after we stop for gas....they give us directions over the phone to get to Suzy's :-) My oh my!! To top it off...after we unpacked the car Tabby realized her phone was just about to die!! That would have been straight out of a movie!!

But wait...the night gets better :-)

At about 2:30 am I get a little knock on the bedroom door.... Tabby wakes me up because Izzy is throwing up! She needs to go to the car so I keep her with me. She ends up sleeping on the couch with her because she got sick a couple more times that night!! We got up the next morning and tried to wash the soiled laundry but couldn't figure out how to work Suzy's super high tech washing machine!! It kept washing, but no water would go in (and yes, we did put the clothes in the washer not the dryer!!) So Isabelle seemed to be feeling better and we asked Amber if we could bring her over. On the way Izzy got sick in the car! But we HAD to go over because we had to wash the clothes :-) She ended up not getting sick anymore so we stayed the rest of the day....just kept her away from the baby and Tabby didn't hold her either just in case.

Whew! did you get all that?!?

That night we all went out for dinner to La Rumba mexican restaurant. It was fun and the kids had a great time. Noah was my date. He even told me he was a Ladies Man!! And yes, we all know how much of a ladies man Noah is!!

Here is Sage being silly with a napkin!

And Noah too....is he ever NOT silly??

Noah took this picture of me and Amber!

(sorry it's so close, he was right next to me!)Here is Aric, Sage and Tabby....

poor Tabby ended up having to leave halfway through dinner because Izzy just did not want to be there. She kept crying and wanting out of her chair. We packed up her food and brought it back to her. She needs a vacation from this vacation!!

We got back to the Bramlett's house and Kirkley got to take a bath. She really like it and was too cute looking up at her mommy. Let's face it...she's just too cute no matter what she's doing!!

All clean and smelling just wonderful! I held her until we left for the night. I just wish we could keep them that little longer.
So we decided the next morning....when Tabby woke up with a swolen eye! (Seriously, she needs a vacation now!) to skip church and just get on the road. We stopped by to tell everybody bye and made it back that afternoon. My kiddo's were very excited to see me and Darren survived the weekend! Now we are busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. Darren is going to be off for the first time in 3 years!! Yay!!