This spot in Harpers Ferry, WV has been THE picture spot my entire life. It is the place where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet. I have memories from when I was very young running up the hill to this spot to pose for a picture. Sometimes we stay just long enough to take a picture and sometimes we stay to explore. There have been times it has been freezing cold and we are the only crazy people out rushing up the hill to take a picture and other times all the tourists are out exploring and there is no way to get a picture without someone you don’t know in the background.

As much as I despised the tradition as a child, I am now doing the same thing with Sweet Pea. As a parent I can now understand my mom’s desire to see us in the same spot every year. It’s tradition. It is actually very cool to go back and look at all the pictures from year to year. So here are the latest Harpers Ferry pictures.

Can you believe that when I was little those bars were not there? The picture was definitely prettier then.

When I first started to blog the main reason was, and still is, to keep a record of our lives. The first year of my son’s life went by so fast and I have almost nothing written down about it. This way I can look back and see what he was up to and how he is growing. It is such a fun thing! Little did I know there was a HUGE community of moms doing the same thing. How fun it has been to meet other mom’s through blogging. We only know each other virtually, but there is a connection there. We laugh and cry together. Share our stories and offer advice. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I am glad I did!

One of the first people I “met” was Sarah. She is such a wonderful person and fabulous mother. I love checking out her blog and reading about little Evie’s adventures. Evie is a little older than Sweet Pea so it is fun to see what he will be up to in a short time. Well you can guess how surprised I was to visit her site one day a few weeks ago to read that she had given me a bloggy award! I had no idea such a thing existed. But I was so honored. Thanks Sarah for this award!

Now the time has come to pass it along to someone else. I couldn’t decide who I wanted to give it to so there is a tie. I don’t know if there are any rules on this, but I am going to pass it to two people.

The first person is Maria over at I Love you More than Cookies. She is a great mother and I am learning a lot from her. She is in the process of adopting and it is fun and interesting to learn all about the process and experience the joy with her and her family. We agree on absolutely nothing, except sharing a love for our children and the Lord. But that is part of the fun! I like seeing someone else’s perspective on life and if we can learn a little from each other than it’s all worth it.

The second person is Nell over at Casual Friday Everyday. Another fabulous mommy. I am having fun watching her belly grow and can’t wait to see little Dash when he finally makes an appearance. She has such a positive outlook on life and I find myself wanting to check her site every morning to see what she has to say.

Thanks to these two moms for sharing your experiences! Yall deserve this award!

Today was a hard day. We had to say goodbye to Daddy for the week. He started his new job last week and then came to visit us for the weekend. Sweet Pea and I are still at the old place packing and seeing to last minute move details. But this time next week we will be moved into out new apartment and all together again!

To give Daddy a proper send off we all went to Starbucks to enjoy a drink together. Sweet Pea got a special treat of Organic Vanilla Milk, which is something he has never had before. He gulped it down! Here are Daddy and Sweet Pea enjoying each other and their drinks:

Here is one of Sweet Pea enjoying his milk. It was definitely a treat for him. He is not used to having anything so sweet! I tasted it and it tasted exactly like vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Here Sweet Pea is being a good citizen. It was so awesome. He finished with his drink, saw the trash can, and threw it away. I didn’t even have to tell him to do it! How funny is that?! I have taught him well.

We will miss you Daddy and can’t wait to see you next weekend!!!!

This morning I was signing onto my yahoo account to check my email and noticed a new headline about Sarah Palin. It read “Goalie Injured After Tripping on Palin Carpet”. Naturally I was curious so I clicked on the article. It turns out that the goalie tripped on the carpet that was put out for the person that was to drop the first puck. A carpet that is put out before every game. It just so happened that Palin was that person for that game.

It really rubs me the wrong way that the media can spin a story to make Palin look like a terrible person. A lot of people will just read the title of the article and get it in their heads that Palin is bad because of this. This was an event that happens all the time at hockey games and the media has somehow been able to blame Sarah Palin for it. Ridiculous! The media could have just told us that the player tripped on the carpet that was put out for the dropping of the puck, but no. They had to blame Sarah Palin. Why? Because to get Obama elected they have to make everyone else look bad.

It doesn’t matter that this incident really had nothing to do with her or that the carpet was the same carpet they lay out at every game. They just want her to look bad. I can’t even begin to say how much stuff like this makes me mad. Whatever happened to reporting the truth? Whatever happened to a candidate getting elected because they are qualified? It is a terrible thing that it has come down to the media spinning stories to make others look bad. At this point, we can’t believe anything that is written about anybody.

And whatever happened to people being responsible for themselves? The goalie knew the carpet was there. Just like it is at all the other games. What would have been wrong with saying the goalie accidentally tripped and injured himself? Oh…because we must blame someone. And who better than Sarah Palin?

Ok…so amidst the moving frenzy Sweet Pea and I took a trip to West Virginia/Virginia to visit family with my mom. With the stress of moving/traveling I haven’t done a very good job of posting so the next few days I am going to be posting pictures from our trip telling what we did.

One of the things we did was take a trip to a REAL pumpkin patch. Being from the south we only get the pumpkin patches where a huge truck ships the pumpkins down here and they set them up on a street corner. It can be fun, but seeing the real deal was awesome. They provided wagons to pull around and pick your pumpkin.

Of course Sweet Pea was not at all interested in the pumpkins. He wanted the wagon. The reason we were at the pumpkin patch for more than an hour was because he was determined he was going to pull the wagon all by himself. He threw a big fit when it was time to put the wagon up and leave. Ahhh….good times.

The farm was also full of fun decorations. Here is a photo of me, Sweet Pea, and GG (my grandma, Sweet Pea’s Great-Grandma).

Hello Everyone!! Sorry I have been silent for a while, but these past few days have been stressful. Sweet Pea and I were visiting my grandparents in West Virginia and got back on Monday. It was an awesome trip and we got to see lots of family (more pictures and descriptions to come). But when we got back it was all packing and thinking about moving. On top of that we drove to Dallas on Tuesday to continue our search for a place to live. I am happy to report that we made the decision to rent an apartment and we even found one we like! This decision has been weighing on me for the past few weeks and I can feel the tension lift off my shoulders. I am now actually very excited about this move instead of tense. So we will drive back home tomorrow to continue packing. We haven’t decided exactly what weekend we will make the big move. It could be as early as next weekend. Right now I am so tired from the past few weeks I am going to sign off and head to bed.

These are the people that are going to be voting for our next president. They have no idea what is going on!!! This is what is frustrating about politics.

After a long day traveling yesterday we finally made it to my grandparents house in West Virginia. We woke up at 4:30 Wednesday morning and headed to the airport for a 6:30 flight. We had to stop in St. Louis and Sarah, I thought of you! I actually thought to myself how cool it would be to meet you in the airport. A little silly I know. But anyways, we changed planes and made our way to Baltimore! My grandparents met us at the airport, took us to lunch, and then we made the drive to their home in the hills. Sweet Pea did so good on the plane. He only fussed a little bit when I made him lay down in my lap to take a nap. He would have babbled the whole time to the peopel in front of us, but I thought they might need a break. Or maybe that was me who needed a break…who knows? Here are a few pictures of Sweet Pea on the plane:

When we got to my grandparents I set up his pack’n'play and we both took a three hour nap. It was wonderful after such a long day! Here is a picture of my grandparents house as you drive up. The fall season is so beautiful!

When Sweet Pea woke up he was ready to play! We went down to the garage to see what we could dig up. My grandparents have lots of toys that we have all played with over the years. We found this old plastic stroller that he loves! He has been pushing it around ever since. I have tried to put animals and dolls in it for him to push around, but he will have none of it! He just wants it for himself. He has even tried to get in, but as you may have guessed that didn’t work out to well. Here he is with the stroller:

He has also decided that he likes my grandpa’s chair. Every now and then he will climb up and kick back like he is going to just hang out and watch tv. He is very proud of himself once he gets up into the chair.

Sweet Pea played with his great-grandma (GG), on the back porch:

My parents are looking to buy some land around here so we took a drive to look at some properties. Here are me and Sweet Pea on one of the properties. Isn’t it gorgeous!?

Then we stopped to play on the playground at my grandparent’s church. Sweet Pea had so much fun with his great-grandpa!

And then here is Sweet Pea taking a bath. It is so funny to watch him play with toys that I remember playing with as a kid. That boat has been here for a looong time!

Tomorrow morning we wake up early to make the drive to see my great-grandmother. Sweet Pea’s great-great-grandmother. It’s a five hour drive so wish me luck!

So a lot has happened the past few days/weeks and it is all just sitting up in my head collecting dust so I am going to write it all out in one post. So just bear with me for a few moments.

A few weeks ago my hubby applied for a job in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He didn’t really think to much of the application. He is always finding fun jobs and sending in his resume so he didn’t think too much of it. Well he got a call the next day, interviewed the next week, and got the job the week after that. It is an awesome job at a school that comes with tuition credit so he will be able to go to grad school for free! yeah! That is a huge relief. We have been praying for quite some time about how to go to grad school and then this opportunity just fell into our laps. The frustrating part is now we have to pack up and get out of town in a few weeks. AHH! Talk about stressful. We were not prepared at all for having to pack up our entire condo, be out in a few weeks, find another place to live hundreds of miles away, and move.

That brings me to finding a new place to live. We are thinking about buying a house instead of renting because we know we will be in the area for awhile. We have been avoiding buying where we are now because we haven’t been sure if we were going to stay here or leave. Now that we know we will be living in a place for a long period of time we would like to buy. We have just become so tired of renting. The past couple of years we have been living on someone else’s terms and have had to move often because rent always goes up after the lease is expired. It would be nice to have the same house payment for more than a year at a time. We went down to Dallas this past weekend to look at houses and it was frustrating. We want to be close to the school so that Elmo doesn’t have to much of a commute. The problem with that is the area close to the school is expensive. If we move away from the school to get in a better price range we get into some shady areas. AHHH!! Frustrating! So we are just going to keep looking the next couple of weeks and try to find someplace to live. We may just end up renting to get into a nicer area closer to the school. I will keep you posted on what happens with our search.

Also, since we don’t yet have a place to live and we couldn’t get out of our lease here until the 31st Sweet Pea and I will be here while Elmo goes to Dallas without us for a few weeks.

The next thing in my head this week is politics. I hate election season. People get so wrapped up in it and forget about everything else. They also get so wrapped up in their own candidate that they become blind to everything else. Both Obama and McCain followers become so blind to their own candidate’s flaws. It’s very annoying. I like talking to people who are willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, their candidate may have some policies that aren’t going to be good for America. Let’s talk about the good and the bad side of both candidates. Don’t become so involved with your own candidate that you can’t see their flaws.

Sweet Pea and I are on our way to West Virginia tomorrow to visit my grandparents. I am very much looking forward to this visit. It has been a while since we have seen them and we are also going to drive to see my great-grandmother (Sweet Pea’s great-great-grandmother)! We love going to see her and all the other family that lives in the area. This visit is going to be a nice escape from the past couple of stressful weeks. It seems like a weird time to be leaving town since we are in the middle of a move, but the visit has been planned for quite some time. The only sad part about it is that since Elmo starts his job on Monday he will already be gone to Dallas by the time we get home. Sad day.

I think that is it for now. The hubby and I are going to go get some popcorn and watch a movie on the couch for our last night together before we head to West Virginia and he heads for Dallas.