Our Christmas Vacation

We are busy cleaning up the Christmas mess! Taking down the decorations and putting all of our new goodies away. The girls are out of school until Jan. 5th. We are taking them to Boone on New Years Eve. We will stay with Tony Ward, Cheryl and kids in their beautiful log cabin. We'll enjoy hiking, tubing and hopefully a little skiing (if the weather permits). Last year the girls loved the ski lessons and are looking forward to practicing what they learned. We hope to take the girls to Tweetsy Railroad and Grandfather Mountain too.

Merry Christmas

A Christmas miracle! The girls stayed asleep until 6:20am. No 5:00 wake up call this year!!Everyone was Happy Christmas morning. The big Santa gifts were Maya's Diamond Castle Barbie, dress and crown, Mckenna's MP3, roller blades and a DS game, and Morgan's MP3, Sorry Sliders game and a spa set!

Thank you Dad Dan I love my Candy Land Castle game!

Morgan is her daddy's girl McKenna loves to sing and we spent most of Christmas day downloading songs on her waterproof MP3 player.

McKenna and a group of friends sang with their choir director PJ, for our Christmas Eve service at church. They did a great job and filled the room of at least 400 people with joy! We are so proud pf her! I am still trying to upload the video, stay tuned for the beautiful song!

Tis the Season!

What a blessing it is to share the gifts the Lord has given us with the people who are not as fortunate as we are. On Tuesday night McKenna's church choir went to a local homeless shelter and shared the message of Jesus with all who wanted to listen. They toured the shelter, sang and did parts of their Christmas musical for the homeless. What a blessing it was for everyone involved. The homeless shouted with joy and praised the Lord, while the children smiled and soaked in what an impact they were really making in these people's lives. I was so happy that McKenna was able to see not everyone lives the same way we do. Our children are so sheltered they don't always see the reality of the world.

Every year we have breakfast with Santa at church. The children enjoy it!

Our Wish List:

Morgan: Tickets to Disney World

Maya: Diamond Castle Barbie

McKenna: A Dog

Little Angels Rylan, Blake and Maya

Many Blessings

Hello to All! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We had a great and busy Thanksgiving. I cooked for 18 people and all went well. The food was great and everything was ready to eat by 4:30pm. I can thank my mom for my cooking and organizational skills. She was the queen of entertaining. Thank God the apple didn't fall too far from the tree. I miss my mom so much and had a tough few days, with lots of great memories on my mind. I am so thankful for the loving relationship we had for 30 years. I still struggle with WHY? Why did she have to leave us so soon? In the bible it says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 I don't know why I had to loose my mom at the age of 30, and why my children don't know their MomSher like they should, but I do know that my relationship with God has grown tremendously the past 5 1/2 years. I know I have hope for my future, and with God's help, I will one day understand why I lost my mom, and I know I will have peace in my heart when I think of her instead of sadness. I hope I didn't bring you down. I felt I needed to share with you what is in my heart! I love you all. Have a blessed holiday season. P.S. I was too busy cooking and didn't get pictures of the girls on Thanksgiving. I'll post again soon with some updated pictures.

Morgan's 8th Birthday Party!

Over a month ago Morgan said she wanted to have a monkey party. We thought of different things to do for it and then she saw a commercial for Madagascar 2 opening the day of her birthday. We took 10 of her friends to the movies on Friday. We had a great time! The kids were great. They each got a kids snack pack and sat through the entire movie.

Morgan was so excited she got to go up to the movie room and start the movie! It was so neat tho see the huge movie reel and how it all works.

We stuck with the Monkey theme since we were seeing a jungle movie. Unfortunately the cake didn't look so great! It looked more like a Sesame Street character than a monkey. I brought a picture to Walmart of a monkey's head made from cupcakes and they said they made a whole body monkey, so I told them to try to make it look like the picture. This is what I got!HAHA Thank God it tasted good!

Singing Happy Birthday Morgan!

Thanks to all of Morgan's friends for making it a great party!

McKenna's 10th Birthday

We didn't have this blog when we had McKenna's birthday this year, so we wanted to share her special day too. We went to the Ice House, an indoor ice rink, here in Wilmington. She loves to ice skate and be with her friends. What a perfect party for McKenna!

Watch us!

Happy Birthday to McKenna!

McKenna didn't want presents this year for her birthday. She asked all of her friends to bring a Walmart gift card to give to the Methodist Home for Children. We were so proud of her. This was one present one of her friends got her anyway!

It's hard for me to comprehend that my children will stay in Wilmington their entire childhood years. They have had the same friends since they were 4 years old and they will grow up together. What an awesome opportunity! I didn't have that experience. I moved every three to four years when I was growing up. I never stayed in one place for very long, this forced me to make new friends all the time. We are so blessed!

County Fair Fun!

One of the activities we love to do as a family is visit the county fair. The girls love the rides, lights, and games. It's lots of fun for Tony and I to see how much they change from year to year, what new rides they want to try, and how adventurous they get. Morgan finally meets the height requirements and loves to ride the "big kid" rides! She rode the Zero Gravity ride, where you stick to the wall with our babysitter Stephanie. She said it was "AWESOME." Poor McKenna cried when she got on because she was afraid Morgan would fall off and die! How different can two sisters be!

Maya loved riding all the kid rides! She even wanted to ride the big rides with the girls!

They rode every ride that spun around and loved every minute of it!

The one ride we all rode together was the Farris Wheel. It will be the last one we ride together. Not many of us liked it. It was a little scary! McKenna and Tony were on edge the entire ride!

O.K. I was a little scared too!

Halloween at the Brigman's

We had a great time carving our pumpkin! Of course I forgot to get a picture of it at the end. HAHA

Maya wasn't sure if she liked the gooey stuff inside the pumpkin!

Tony and his employees dress up every year here is Tony the Wizard!

Maya liked his beard. Me and my old man!

We went to a Halloween party and went on a hayride. These are Morgan's classmates! Maya enjoying an early candy break.

The girls enjoying the hayride through the neighborhood!

My beautiful Indian Princess!

Morgan the Fancy Flower Fairy

McKenna and her Friends

TRICK OR TRUNK

We had a busy day! Our church had a Trunk or Treat tonight. The youth decorated their cars and the children went around and collected candy. The kids had a blast! Maya was so happy to be able to wear her princess dress outside! These are Maya's buddies: Rebecca, Maya, Christopher, and Oliva

What a beautiful bunch!

Lindsey, Haley, McKenna, Carter Leigh, and Morgan

Olivia the Tiger! GRRR Happy Halloween! This is one of Maya's boyfriends... Blake

This is the other boyfriend... Rylan

(The big girls love to be the match makers)

The Future homecoming Queen and King!

Morgan and Cade

Ceighlee and Maya the two princess'

What wonderful friends we all have! Praise God!

Are we going to be in trouble or what?

HALLOWEEN FUN!

Our neighborhood has a Halloween parade every year. The fire truck comes and leads the children down the street and we have treats at the end. We are so glad to have lots of children in our neighborhood for our kids to grow up with.

Our neighborhood friends! McKenna, Anna, Morgan, Olivia, and Laura Ellen Strike a Pose Girl Friends!

An Afternoon at the Zoo

Check out the Bear in the Cage!

(This is a small locally owned zoo, nothing compared to Fort Worth Zoo)

Maya loved feeding the goats! She thought they were kissing her hand.

This was Maya's favorite animal!

Our family had a great afternoon together. We thank God for the opportunity to enjoy each other and his beautiful creations!