At the end of December we celebrated Christmas with Granddaddy and Ge and Aunt Yaya’s family.
Zoe celebrated her birthday.
Cousin Jacie met Tobin.
All the cousins!
Present time!
After over two months of waiting, McDonald’s finally got the buttermilk chicken tenders back in stock! It was a happy ride home for all of us.
Emmie performed at a local festivity with her Steps of Grace ballet group. As a reward, they gave the performers a ticket to come back. I had declined the tickets because the event is very expensive (and included ice skating among other activities). They surprised us by gifting us tickets for everyone! So, the day after Christmas, we headed out. We had some reluctant skaters but we told them that EVERYONE would at least try one time around.
Emmie was a trooper but one time was enough.
After a couple of rounds with the guard, several of our kids took off.
It was fun but we realized pretty quickly that we are very grateful we didn’t invest the money in tickets. Only a few actually skated for more than ten minutes. This is good to know for future ice skating trips.
We took Emmie to Shriner’s Hospital in December to get a second opinion on her scoliosis. He confirmed that we were doing everything we needed to do for her right now. He stated that she was not a candidate for casting because she was at the tail end of age and her spinal fusion in her neck. So, we’re not sure what we the next step will be if her back continues to worsen.
As an aside, Shriner’s is a great facility and treated Emmie extra special. We are so blessed to have two amazing hospitals within a day’s drive of us.
After her appointment, we went for some little play at the park in Greenville. It was cold but so beautiful.
A great place to run off some energy. 
Fun footbridge over the falls!
On the way home, we passed by the Promised Land!
We were blessed to be able to visit our family in Atlanta the weekend it snowed. The weekend it snowed, it happened to snow over 8 inches! Driving in the day after the snow was a bit worrisome but we made it fine for our Christmas celebrations with some of Abbie’s side of the family.
Going up the very snowed over driveway. We didn’t dare try to make it all the way around and stopped before it got really icy.
Emmie was beside herself. As soon as we saw the white stuff, she started making plans. “Somebody’s going to frow snow in my face. Aggghh Din we can build a snowman and knock it down and build it again. Maybe we can cwimb on da cars and get more snow.”
Tobin meeting his Aunt Yaya for the first time.
Cousin J loves to cuddle up with Emmie.
He and Abbie’s cousin-in-law were pretty smitten with Tobin too.
Enough with the indoors…time to head outside and get cold!
Emmie wanted to throw snow at Ace. Here she is “throwing” snow at Ace.
The main snowman.
Emmie and Malachi’s snowman.
An attempt at a really big snowman.
Cousin E and Aunt Yaya getting some loving.
When we left that evening…it was still very snow covered and beautiful!
We enjoyed a trip to a local dairy farm which also happens to be a corn maze and a lot of other things like…
A cornbox (sandbox)…
Water trough play area…
A giant sand pile…
play areas…
And a corn maze!
The littles (with mom and dad) beat the bigs through the maze!
Also, the dairy had fun train rides and pony rides.
Some great archery experts gave us all excellent pointers.
Even I got a bullseye!
And Emmie had a blast.
With this pregnancy and just life happening all around, I haven’t posted much about our NF Walk. But, regardless, it happened and we all had a blast.
Emmie was so excited about the walk that she woke up at 2:30 the morning of, started to get dressed and cried that she was ready to go to the walk when Mark put her back to bed.
Ceili Rain continued working on her cake decorating badge by helping with the cake and cupcakes.
Ignore my big ol’ pregnancy belly and notice the cool bad/good guys in the background. These guys were part of the 501st Legion-Georgia Garrison and volunteered their time to dress up in this hot costumes and make all of our kiddos super happy! They were amazing and we were so excited to have them come…some of them drove up from three hours away to spend the day with us.
Emmie was shy at first and would have nothing to do with them. She’s more of a clone wars-Ahsoka fan. But after a while they were able to get her close enough to get a good picture. During the walk, Mark was holding her when they walked passed the storm troopers and she lifted her head up and shot a quiet “pew” at them and grinned.
Even though the walk is over, we will happily accept donations to our team. Any and all donations go to Children’s Tumor Foundation which funds research to end neurofibromatosis! Our team goal is $2500. We’re over a third of the way there and would love to meet our goal by the end of the year.
September meant that we got a little visit from Hurricane Irma’s aftermath. We live far enough inland that we really only saw rain and a lot of wind and were without water for less than twenty-four hours.
We did food prep.
Me: Hey Ceili Rain! Do you want to make some chocolate chip cookies for Irma?
Ceili Rain: Sure! Just let me quadruple the recipe!
When the chocolate chip cookies didn’t fill us up, we resorted to cooking on our camp stoves…in the garage.
And s’mores with neighbors on the porch.
We were so grateful that we didn’t have to deal with any big damage or days without power. So many people suffered through a lot this hurricane season and are continuing to rebuild and recover.
Family Camp 2017 was a little different this year. Who am I kidding? Each year we’ve gone to family camp it has been crazy different. The first year, I had just suffered a miscarriage and Emmie was fresh out of the hospital with her new headgear (halo brace). Second year included a jet lagged new son and daddy. And this year…I was 33 weeks pregnant. We knew we were in for a fun weekend when we met this little guy staring back at us.
Holding this girls hand as she gets to sleep never gets old.
Emmie had plenty of friends hanging out with her while Mark and I did a few races during our family olympics. Mr. J is a family favorite!
Zoe determined that our family olympics group would be Team Fun because, ya’ll let’s face it, I didn’t get to help much and we have a lot of littles. Zoe kept reminding me of that when she told me to get my life jacket on to do the mother/daughter kayak race. At 33 weeks pregnant.
I sat in our kayak. It had a hole unplugged and I started going down. The guys kept saying it would be fine…I think they were snickering behind me. Either way, I wasn’t going out on the water until they plugged it. Successfully done…we were off.
We tied for last but we finished. Honestly, it wasn’t my pregnancy that gave me issue..it’s turning around! I can never get the turns.
Pretending to paddleboat. The only way it’s really fun!
Family Olympics is always a big hit.
Team Fun!
Archery tag was a new and fun activity! Seriously, who doesn’t enjoy pelting their siblings with rubber arrows?!
Another fun feat…I hiked up the Little Stone Mountain Mill Trail.
We started way down where that little road is.
And Emmie?! She also hiked the whole way up. Mark and I were in tears. We didn’t go up the first year. Last year, Mark carried her the whole way. And this year…she walked all on her own.
Such a lesson to us to take our mountains step by step…knowing that sometimes God is carrying us through the years…other times we just need to hold His hand to remind us He is with us.
Lulu is always eager to help kids do school!
She also is very loyal at guarding the bathroom. Seriously…not hands…a tail.
Our kids passed around a fun virus in July through August. It included a day or two of fever and then feeling fine for a day or two. Then, the fever would come back. Usually, this lasted a week. A couple of the kids kept having the fever but several doctor visits later and a few blood tests yielded nothing more than a virus. Thankfully, everyone was better before we left for the beach.
This is a pile of taco shells on fire. Forgot they were in the oven from the previous night when I set the oven to broil and make toast. Thankfully, nothing but the taco shells caught on fire and I used my brain before taking a picture.
Aunt B and I have had some pregnancy brain issues which meant a few kids lucked out and got to extend their birthday celebrations into August. As you can see, they were totally (not) disappointed.
This was the look of a puppy who needed mama time so bad she fell asleep on my computer chair.
Silas decided to make a paper crown for Emmie and the result was pure happiness.
After over a month of being timid of Mark, Lulu finally decided he was okay and climbed over me to cuddle with him.
My belly is still a great prop for her though.
Zoe working on getting her id for SAT.
At the end of the month, I was able to take the big kids to a Samaritan’s Feet event volunteer. For three hours, we cleaned out water tubs, washed kids’ feet and handed out new shoes and socks. It was a ministry to a lot of kids but it was also a huge blessing to us.
We headed out bright and early on the 21st to find a good spot for the eclipse. Unfortunately, as we drove, we kept getting in to the pop up showers. We made it to a decent spot and found a church where we could park.
Make sure the angel’s eyes are protected.
Unfortunately, as we sat watching the beginning of the eclipse, a storm started coming in. We made a snap decision to load up and try to outrun it to see the total eclipse.
We didn’t make it to where there wasn’t cloud cover but we definitely got to see the effects of the eclipse. It was like night time for two minutes and then quickly changed to daylight again.
Silly clouds!
We were all amazed even if we couldn’t see the shadow bands or diamond ring from the eclipse. We’er anxiously awaiting and planning the next one in several years!
As we drove home and away from the storms, we realized that the eclipse wasn’t over. Mark pulled over at an exit and we hopped out to watch the last few minutes as the moon crossed in front of the sun.
What a great memorable experience for our crew!
