Its 2009!!!!

2008 was a Fine year, but I think 2009 will be even better since our family will be growing!!!!

I've talked with many of you already and you've either received an email, a Christmas card or seen posts on Facebook. Therefore, there probably isn't too much to share that you don't already know! I'll try to keep it brief (my specialty of course).

For Christmas, we drove down to FL for about 8 days. Well, I got to fly since I had to work in S. FLA, but Mark and Chase drove and I met them in Orlando the Saturday before Christmas (after visiting Michelle in Jupiter and Paige in Cocoa Beach-ha!). We stayed there till Tuesday. As Memaw and Papa were packing up to go to Homosassa, Chase had such a pitiful look on his face that they felt obligated to take him then instead of have him come with us! So...he went on Monday. That left Mark and me with an entire day of nothing planned and no child-WOW! Unfortunately, our friends were working, so we decided to do some shopping and site seeing. We went and visited our old houses and went to the new shopping mall by our house in Winter Garden. It was nice. We also went to eat lunch at Tijuana Flats (YUMMY), went to Ikea-cool and then decided dinner and a movie sounded good for the evening. We ate at Brio Tuscan Grill and saw the James Bond movie. Dinner was delicious and the movie was pretty good.

Tuesday we drove to Homosassa. Cindy and the family got there LATE (3:30am Wed) and we were all there for the rest of the week. It was great to get the cousins to play together. Hannah and Jacob are so big, it is simply unbelievable! They had a great time with Chase and he DEFINITELY had a great time with them. Hopefully we'll get to spend some time with them again this Spring and/or summer too.

We drove back on Saturday, it was a long, uneventful drive. Every 15-30 minutes Chase asked if we were in TN. We tried to convince him that if he went to sleep it would get there quicker. He finally obliged about 3hrs from home, so once he woke up, we were literally in Franklin...strange how that works!

Mom, Aunt Janet, Aunt Mimi and Grandma all came to visit on Sunday and all but Mimi stayed till Tuesday. We spent some time with Adam and Andrea each evening and had a nice time visiting. Unfortunately, I had to work, but I think they all had a good time visiting.

Wednesday was New Year's Eve and we didn't do a thing! We were actually in bed before midnight. We did, however, host a yummy New Year's Day lunch for some friends. We had all of the 'good luck' southern food, sat around and chatted and watched football. I think it was a great success. The kids got to play for about 7hrs straight with no naps, so I imagine everyone slept quite well that night.

This past weekend we've been adjusting to getting back into the 'routine' of things. Chase will go back to school tomorrow and I'll have a 5 day work week-ouch! We only have 4 more months till our newest addition, so we have lots of 'decorating' that we need to do between now and then. Mark has totally stripped Chases' room as he's getting a new paint job. Once that is finished, we'll start on Chloe's.

Yes, in case you're not aware...the winning name is Chloe Grace Wingert!!!

Sorry for posting the random pictures at the top, but since I wrote a longer post than I intended, I really don't feel like messing with the real 'editing' of the blog!

Love to all and here is my wish for a happy, healthy and FUN 2009!

Carrie

Early December

Wow, its only the 13th of December and we've already done 3 things that warrant posting pictures!!! I guess I'd better get them out here before too much more time goes by and the post becomes too long!

We went to a neighbors for a Christmast party on the 5th, then we had our first cookie day party last weekend (6th). It was great. I made 100+ cookies that week and had about 20 kids over to decorate them and play. They all seemd to have a great time. I didn't get too many pictures, but here are a few.

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Christmas Party (Audry, Lilly, Conner, Paisley, Ryan, Chase)

Lots of cookies, lots of deocrations

Then 4-5 days later we got our first snow! Of course, Chase wanted to go play as soon as he saw it, at night, so we got a few pics at night and a lot the next day. He had a lot of fun. They were huge wet flakes, so they stayed around for a few days.

Today was our neighborhood Christmas party. They had Santa come in on a fire truck and he was gracious enough to take pictures with the kids. there was food and bouncy houses, cookies to decorate, tattoos to get, games to play...it was all around a lot of fun. The day was beautiful and sunny, a little chilly, but at least it wasn't wet!

This week we're heading to Florida for Christmas. I've got to go to S. FL for work on Thurs night, then Mark and Chase are going to meet me there on Friday. I'm hoping to visit with lots of people over the weekend, then we're heading to Homossasa with the family for Christmas. I'm sure it'll be lots of fun!

If I don't post before then, Merry Christmas to all! Happy holidays, have fun and be safe!

love you

Carrie

November updates

Well, I guess I'd better hurry up and post since December is already here! Wow, how in the world did that happen?


This'll be a pretty short post since not a lot of 'ground breaking' news occurred this month! I do have a few pics to share though!


I believe our overall travel was pretty light this month. Chase was able to spend a week in LR with Memaw Susan while I worked and then came to join them at the end of the week. Mark's friend, Tom, spent Tuesday-Sunday here in Nashville up from Florida. I believe they had a good time. Tom flew in on election day...although I don't think he was too pleased with the outcome of the 'race', teh rest of the visit was fine. Mark was pretty sick most of that week, so we know there wasn't too much trouble that they got into!


After Chase and I got back to Franklin on Nov 9 (I think), that next weekend, Memaw Grace and Papa Lamar came to visit us from Sat-Thurs. We all had a great week. We can hardly get Lamar here without assigning him some sort of project-we'd hate for him to get bored, ya know! I don't think anything was too major, but every little bit helps!
getting ready to go roast marshmallows in back yard

roasting wtih MeMaw



eating finished product!

My little drummer boy later that week!

After they left on Friday, Memaw Susan came on Monday of Thanksgiving week. Chase was out of school that week, so we all gathered together for my Ultrasound visit on Tuesday. The U/S results were great and we received confirmation that 'it' is still a Girl. So....we're going with it! I'm starting to sort through 3yrs of boy clothes for donations to friends, consignment and charity. Hopefully I can get through that task fairly quickly. It is VERY daunting though with all those clothes in our spare room! We gave our 'extra' bed to Adam and Andrea, so we do have one less bed now, but we QUICKLY filled up that room!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Since mom was here, I took off Wed, so I had 5 days in a row without working, it was WONDERFUL, weird, but great! We didn't go anywhere, so it really was like a vacation. We did a little shopping on the weekend, but not on Friday. We got a 'pre-cooked' meal from Publix since it was just the 3 of us eating-talk about EASY. Even moreso for me since Mark did all the heating up! I really DO have a GREAT husband!

baking cookies with Memaw! What fun!!!! dig is robe?? this was Thanksgiving morning!

Last night we put up the Christmas tree and decorations. Mark spent most of the day today buying more things and 'perfecting' the look! This weekend we're going to a Christmas party on Friday, a birthday party on Saturday day and we're hosting a Christmas Cookie day on Saturday late evening (right in the middle of the SEC Championship football game-OOPS!!!)

Today, Mark went and bought us a new camera at Costco. Mine still works, sort of, but the lens won't open all the way and it doesn't take great pictures at night. So, I've got to read how to operate this new one so I can get some decent pics this weekend. We got a Casio Exlim (?) and are excited to start using it. Its very small, so I'll mainly use it. We still have Mark's big 'fancy' camera, but its just too big to carry around for occassional pics. I 'gave' my old one to Chase tonight and he couldn't be more thrilled. Below are some pictures from HIS point of view!

action shot of Lucky!



still life of a box of chocolates!?





still life of POPCORN!
The things 3yr olds like!!!! Life is so simple then!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and has an even better December! If youre traveling this month, be safe! But more importantly, enjoy the time with friends and family!

I love you all!