yep...our baby girl is 7. can you believe it? emily is a very sweet and compassionate child. she likes to help others and is always wanting to please everyone around her. she will usually think about others before herself. anytime she has her own money to spend she will buy something for hannah and will before she will look for herself. she loves school. she is often put in leadership roles at school. she loves to dance and sing. she is all into picking out the perfect outfit and often can be found in front of the mirror fixing her hair. her daddy says she is becoming more and more like her mother everyday. she is not a baby anymore and that makes me so sad. daddy loves to have them grow up and i would love to freeze this time and keep them little forever. but i guess if they do have to grow up, i am glad she is growing into the person she is. 
our sweet emmy. we love you and you make us very proud.
April 03, 2008
March 31, 2008
grateful
i must say that i have started to post about a dozen times
in the last month and it just has not happened. actually, i am not sure
where the last month has gone. here are some highlights of the month:
-went to ikea in atlanta. loved it. must go back real soon.
-taxiing kids around to horseback, dance, writing class, and piano.
-celebrating benny's bday.
-attending a band concert.
-several weeks of nightly meetings to include school board, fto(school),
committee for jsl planning and church.
-planned and hosted a baby shower for lois gregory (hannah's 2nd grade teacher)
-watched mg become a tenured teacher for the city of maryville.
-planned a bday party for emily and made invites.
-planned a bday party for hannah.
-planning the major fund raiser for junior service league. yes, you guess
it i am in charge of the whole event.
and all of this was done in the first few weeks of march. after this was
spring break. i was so excited for spring break to come because we could
relax without a schedule (somewhat). so pat leaves for the sec tournament
in atlanta on friday, march 14 (first day of spring break). this was
going to be one of my catchup days ~ he calls after he arrives in atlanta to
inform me that he had left his tickets at home. so i offered to
meet him in chattanooga so he didn't have to drive all the way back. the
kids and i loaded up in the van and off we went. needless to say, this
was not a catchup day for me. that pretty much set the tone for spring
break. of course pat being in the georgia dome at the time the tornado
hit and then having to drive home on saturday after the games were moved to
georgia tech was not exactly how he had planned his tournament weekend
away. so i guess we all have to be flexible. wrapping up the end of
the spring break week, emily got sick on friday with a nasty stomach bug.
she was still sick on monday so i took her in to the doctor. dr. gilley
said she had a nasty virus and would hopefully be better in a few days. i
did keep her home from school on tuesday because she had not eaten anything for
several days so i was afraid she would get sick at school. pat gets up
tuesday morning and says he is not feeling well but off to work he goes.
he comes home very sick about an hour later. i nursed him as much
as possible on tuesday. that evening hannah had her writing exhibit at
school. i took all the kids and we went to her exhibit after we got
home and i got the kids in bed i started to not feel so well. about 11pm
i got the bug emily and pat had. oh my was i sick ~ i don't think i have
ever been that sick. luckily (if you call it luck) pat was ahead of me in
the sickness by about 14 or so hours. so he was somewhat able to help me
late into the night tuesday and early wednesday. pat had canceled his
patients for wednesday and while recouping from his illness he was able to be
home to take care of me and the kids. we were a pair i
promise! pat had to call mg on wedneday afternoon and ask her to go
by the grocery store for bread and soup. we did not have anything in the
house to feed the little ones for supper. (have not had time to fit
grocery shopping into the schedule). he told mg to drop the food and run
~ sure did not want her to get the bug. of course, she was sweet enough
to help us. thanks, mg! well.......what does all of this have to do
with my post title of grateful???? on thursday night when we were saying
our family prayer emily was praying. in her prayer she says "we are
so grateful that we have so many siblings that can help us when we are sick or
faced with fears". it is these times that i don't want to
forget. emily has such a sincere spirit and often humbles me. i
love that she understands the love that her siblings have for her and that she
is grateful for it. it is these times as a mother that you get the
glimpse of the eternal perspective of this life. i am grateful for my
family and the love we share. :)
hannah all smiles at her writing exhibit and her watercolor illustration on her story cube.
February 26, 2008
February 08, 2008
big mess
the other day after school the kids wanted a snack, so hannah and emily sat down to eat jello. of course, will had to have some as well. thinking everything was under control because hannah was still in the kitchen i walked away to go check emails. well apparently hannah had walked away shortly after i did. when hannan did go back into the kitchen she found this and started calling for me
"i make big mess, mom". yes he sure did! gotta love these days! :)
January 24, 2008
catching up
as i sat down to write this post to catch up on the
happenings of the holidays i started looking for pictures for the post.
just going thur our pictures for the month of december overwhelmed me so
much. gosh....we were so busy. i hope i can summarize our holiday
season for you. to start the holidays each year i have a tradition i
started with the children when pat and i first got married. each year on
the day we put up our christmas tree they get to open a new ornament that
represents what they have done/into that year. when they eventually leave
home they can take their ornaments with them to help their own collection for
their tree. hopefully the ornaments will bring back great memories for
them. i am getting a little sad thinking about this because this was my
year to "give up" patrick's box and let him take them. i love
this tradition but it also brings home the reality that when they get their box
they are grown and no longer in our home. :( guess i should just enjoy
the time i have now and worry about that later - pat would laugh at that
because i can't just let it go and worry later i have to worry now! 
love that they just love this!!!
next we had hannah and emmy's school
parties. will was able to go with me and loved every minute of the
parties. not only did he get his very own plate of food but he was also
given the gifts that the teachers had for the students. talk about
spoiled. it is unbelievable.
laura attended the black and white affair for the high school. it is a
fund raising dance for the prom. she had such fun. the funny thing was
when her "date" came over to take some pics with her, will was not a
happy camper. he kept going up to waura and making her hold him. so
cute.....guess i won't have to worry about many boys getting to close to her as
long as her little brother is near. maybe we should have her take him on
her dates....hummmm that's an idea!
then the preparations for santa began with the making of sugar cookies and reindeer food.
you know rudolph can't find the house without the magic reindeer food sprinkled
on the ground.
the magic food worked because rudolph did find the house. the kids were up bright and early dragging mom and dad out of the bed so they could open all of their gifts. everyone was very happy except mom and dad whose fingers were very sore from all of the twist ties! :) we chilled for most of the day and had a lovely dinner with all of the kids. then it happened.............everyone got sick with the exception of dad and laura. we decided to travel anyway and boy was it miserable. we made it to gramma's house very late wednesday night ~ just in time for hannah to throwup her dinner. we were so scared we would get gramma sick, but she was such a great sport. she said if she got sick she would just be sick for a few days and then it would be over. no big deal. well after that mishap noone else came down with it so we were fine. we then made our rounds to montgomery and back home in time for my birthday.
i think i have successfully summed up our holiday happenings. you are a trooper if you made it through this post. :)
January 17, 2008
a marine
yes, it is official. patrick is a marine ~ staff sergeant morgan as of 8:30am this morning. he is officially a member of the president's own marine band. check out their site. in a few weeks you will be able to see his picture in his official uniform. we are sooooo proud!!! he is living his dream or the first part of it as he would tell us ~ someone is paying him big bucks to play his clarinet. he tells us after this "gig" he will move onto bigger and better things! we will all have to sit back and watch where his love of music will take him next. tonight as pat and i were talking about patrick and calling him staff sergeant morgan, emmy interrupted us and said (in a very sad voice) "you mean we can't call him patchey anymore?" we explained to her that we still could but professionally he would be know as sergeant morgan. "oh, she said, so when we visit him at the white house, we can call him patchey." yep, you sure can!!! :) the girls think it is very exciting that he will be working at the white house, but i think emmy thinks he will actually be "living" at the white house with the president. patrick had actually started preparing to become a marine by cutting his hair shorter than it was when i had it cut in november.
i love it. they may cut it shorter when he gets to d.c. - we'll have to see.
so it has been a couple of weeks since i last posted. i was actually proud of myself for posting on my birthday and not a day later. i just knew that would get me off to a great start for the new year. well......it didn't work like i thought it would. i promise to be better. my sweet MIL informed me tonight that i has not blogged in awhile. you know you are behind when your MIL has to tell you that you need to blog! :) maybe i should come up with a goal of posting everyday to see if that will help me. ben had actually suggested that awhile back ~ i guess it is never to late to take advice. i promise to catch you up on our holiday happenings and such. good night for now!
January 01, 2008
happy birthday to me
yep, not only is it the first day of the year it is my birthday. it was a great day. just hanging out with the kiddos. pat did manage to get laura to watch the little ones while we snuck away to enjoy a nice lunch just the two of us. that was fabulous! pat fixed us a great dinner and afterwards we had chocolate birthday cake, of course! this year i had help with blowing out the candles.
really i am not sure how i ever did it without his help. :) great beginning to what we hope is a great year. happy new year to everyone!
December 31, 2007
early christmas
i know this post seems a little out of order since it is already after christmas and i have not posted about our christmas adventures, but i have wanted to share with you our early christmas from the kids. funny thing is that they didn't even know that their little adventure was such a present to their parents. it all began when laura decided to have all the siblings (expect for will) go ice skating together. so on saturday before christmas mg, patrick, laura, hannah, emmy and ben loaded up in the van with ben driving and headed to knoxville to go ice staking. hannah and emmy were sooooo excited since they had never been before and have been dying to go for years. (i know, we are such bad parents for not taken them) well from the report and what little pics that were taken a great time was had by all. 
patrick and ben helping emmy
laura helping hannah
what more could parents ask for than for all of their children to love each other and want to spend time together. my christmas was complete at that moment. our children could never give us such a wonderful gift as they did that day. the knowledge that they love each other and will always be there for one another is the most precious gift a parent could ever ask for. thanks kiddos for making our lives complete!!!
December 19, 2007
our angel
he has been trying to tell us that he is in fact the "perfect little angel". i guess no one was getting it because on sunday night right before family prayer he went and got emmy's wings and put them on. after prayer he "flew" around the house. maybe we will realize now that we have a visual that he is a "perfect angel". of course, all my children think they are "perfect little angels". :)
December 18, 2007
finishing up
so i am slowing but surely finishing christmas cards. i love the design of this year's card but it has been very time consuming putting them together. (i know, pat, every years have been time consuming). there have been some major re workings along the way which usually doesn't happen, but because of postage constraints (or the lack of wanted to pay $1.30 a card to mail) we have had to reevaulate the design.....not something you want to have to do at this point in the game, but oh well. so hopefully, these babies will be in the mail tomorrow. be watching for the "cutest" christmas card envelope ever to grace your mailbox! hope everyone enjoys them!
