Fall Family Photos..

It has been a while since I have played with photography..and sometimes last minute planning is best for our family :-) It is unreal to me how much my kids have changed and grown up on me in the past year. Makes me sad how fast time really goes as a parent.  I love my kids more than anything in the world!!! They are such a joy to be around!! Life is always hopping with 2 teens and a toddler!! :-)

 Gracie, Bailey, Amanda (love you with all I have)

 and finally I got a photo of my son..it has been a couple years since he has let me take his pic. :-)

My Hero..

Recently I got home to visit my family and spend time with my gramps! This man means the world to me. He helped in the raising of me when I was a little girl and we really grew close and have always had a very special bond between the two of us. Sadly, my gramps has not been well. In fact many ups and downs. He has had emphysema for many years. This disease affects the lungs. So it seems the past few years he has had a lot of up's and down's with this. This summer on top of that, he got west nile. He got really really sick. The Dr's basically told him he was not going to make it. The priest was in the hospital room and all our family around him, we thought he was going to heaven. He pulled through a few more days and the hospital sent him home with hospice care. I have visited home many times during his up's and down's since June.  On one of his really bad days, I had to say good bye not knowing if I would see him alive again he said to me "Go live your life kid, because time goes so very fast, do things you really want to do and be happy".  This always sticks in my mind. He is 90 and he says his life has gone so fast.

Recently I got home to visit him again and this time he was having a great week. This is a total miracle to see him sitting up, talking, and his witty self was so great!! He is very sharp and knows everything that is going on.  He is still a contractor, "working", bringing homes in on his land, remodeling, and selling them. Yep that is him. He is determined and still "has more to do".   He has fought the west Nile which hardly no one his age has has ever done especially with his condition. This man is strong willed, Determined, has never left my side, has loved me no matter what and he is truly my HERO!! My Gramps!! xxoo

This pumpkin my aunt grew in her garden. This one was Gramps and he knew exactly how it needed to be carved.lol

Great Devotional book

I have decided to pick up Battlefield of the mind by Joyce Meyer.  I have felt my thoughts and things that I think about just seem to be a struggle in my own mind. There are so many things that as woman we can get pulled from one direction to the next.  It is easy to fall into believing certain things are true, or not true either about ourselves, or about others around us.  But in reality the enemy absolutely loves to play with our thinking on a daily basis. It is his way to detour us from God's plan for our lives!   I am also an emotional driven person. Meaning too many time than none many of the decisions I make are really based on how I am feeling emotionally at the time. I am slowly and I mean slowly trying to not let my emotions guide what I do or say...but rather think on things longer before making such decisions.  If I think back I have probably always been an emotional decision making...so this change I am trying to make is definitely going to probably take me a life time..lol
Anyway I think this book is really great. It is simple, easy to read and very much to the point. Surely makes you think about how we all face battles in our minds, but the truth is always in God.

Fall Winter Storm dumps on us!!

while most are enjoying the changing of the color of leaves and out taking fall photos with their families, we had over 3 feet of snow dump on us in 24 hours. This storm ruined 4 of our trees that were 15 yrs old. Much of our landscape bushes and scrubs. Some may say oh fun..snow!! But when it dumps on you like this and ruines 15 years of your work into your yards it really is not so pretty anymore!! I do know one little girl though..that really enjoyed playing in the snow as her daddy shoveled over 8 times in two days!!

Here is a little idea of what the interstate looked like. It was closed down for 3 days! Pretty crazy fall storm!