Happy Thanksgiving Eve

Worship the Lord your God, and His blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you.
Exodus 23:25

I have clung to that Bible verse over the past week and a half. I found out on October 27 that the tumor on my carotid artery had grown back..QUICKLY! It was even bigger than when the doctor first took it out on July 27. So he needed to go back in to get it because he thought it might be malignant. Surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, November 15. I asked if we could do it later in the day so I wouldn't have to take off work, and they obliged scheduling it for 4:30 in the afternoon.
I was a nervous wreck when I left the doctor's office, but as soon as I found this verse in my Bible I calmed down. I really was not nervous AT ALL until the day of surgery. It didn't help that I couldn't eat All Day Long! Also I had my wonderful prayer warriors at my beck and call:)
The surgery went well, but the doctor wanted to wait until hearing the official results from the pathologist before telling me that we were out of the woods. I had to wait 6 long days until Monday, November 21 to hear if it was benign or not. Randy took me to my appointment where we heard the great, grand, and wonderful news that my spindle cell tumor that is almost always malignant was NOT!!!!
God is so good, and I have even more to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day Eve!!!!

Things I Shoot With My Phone

As I was deleting some pictures from my phone, I came across some pictures that may or may not have made it to the blog.
Thought I would share them.

Last year in Kindergarten, Harrison made the "Platinum Math Club" at school. He and several others were recognized at a PTA Meeting. Here he is with his sweet Kindergarten Teacher and his certificate.

I had to take Harrison to the doctor back in the Spring, and he ended up having some blood drawn. Our family tradition is if you get stuck with a needle, then you automatically get a treat. He picked a Gigi's cupcake.

Self-portrait while bored in the car.

For Harrison's 6th birthday, he picked breakfast at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Not sure of the date on this one, but it was sometime this summer. Too hot for errands, that's for sure!

Fishing out on the lake this summer.

Waiting for our table at Rosie's one night this summer.

What my family does on the Halloween aisle at Wal-Mart!

Shannon and me after the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run

How Will I Ever Pick?!?

Last Sunday afternoon, November 6, Caitlin, Harrison, and I, along with my sister and her kids, met our friends, the Gjesvolds, at the little bitty town of Mooresville. I had asked them if they would shoot pictures of my kids in the beautiful fall colors. I asked them because they love to take pictures, and because of that, they have collected lots of great camera equipment. Let me just say....they did a fantastic job! Jason was the camera expert getting all the lighting just right, and Heather was the perfect photographer who posed them so. I am so thankful to them for doing this for us!

Look at that handsome face!

My beautiful girl!

Nothing like the love of a brother and sister.

And a fun one to end the shoot!

There are so many more great pics that I just don't know how I will pick the right one for our Christmas card this year!

Sad Saturday

My mom's marker for her grave came in last week and was installed.

Harrison and I went one day to see it while Caitlin was in Dance.

Then on Saturday, I went with my Daddy, sister, Caitlin, and niece to place flowers on it.

It still doesn't seem real!

Race for Liz

On Saturday, November 5, my best friend, Shannon, and I ran in the inaugural Liz Waggett Memorial 5k. It was to benefit the pancreatic cancer fund at Huntsville Hospital because that is what Mrs. Waggett died of. This cause is very special to both Shannon and me. My Daddy's brother, Uncle Tom, was diagnosed in October, 2004, with pancreatic cancer and died in March, 2005. Shannon's sweet Mom was diagnosed with the same horrible disease in May, 2004, and died in October, 2004. It is such a deadly form of cancer, and most people succumb to it within a year. When we heard about the race from one of Randy's co-workers, we both raced each other to see who could register for it first!

Here we are after the race (excuse the sweaty bodies!) in our bright purple running shirts to show our support.

We now have a new race tradition. Shannon's husband, Tim, had offered to cook brunch for us after the race. Sadly, he had to travel to Virginia the day before because his grandmother passed away. Guess who stepped up to the plate to cook for us?!? My dear, sweet hubby of course! We were completely stuffed after his yummy, yummy breakfast of eggs, hash browns, chorizo, bacon, and coffee. Made our race so worth it!

Happy (late) Halloween!

We rushed home from school on Halloween so that we could get dressed in costumes and head out for...CANDY!!!
Harrison has been watching lots of Looney Tunes and other older cartoons on Boomerang lately, so it was no surprise to us when he decided to go as...

Popeye. He even had the facial expressions down pat!

Caitlin had been eyeing her costume since last Halloween. Since she loves Alice in Wonderland so much, she picked...

the Mad Hatter. A very fashionable Mad Hatter that is!

We started off our Halloween adventure at Pa-Pa's house. Anybody home?!?

Luckily for them, he had several candy bars just for them.

And we got him to pose in one picture too!
Then it was off to Grandmother and Grandaddy's house.

Grandmother was excited to see her Sweeties all dressed up.

We then picked up some Burger King to eat quick, quick, quick before our friends came over to go trick-or-treating with us.

Jenny and Annie came over right as we were finishing up our supper. We headed out into our neighborhood to see how much candy we could actually get. Both Caitlin and Harrison ended up dumping their buckets into our bigger bags to make room for more candy! They had a huge haul of candy that has not gone down very much at all over the past week no matter how many Kit Kats I eat!

Back in Time

Monday, October 31 was the 50th day of school, so the First Grade Teachers (along with lots of others at my school) dressed the part...

Back Row: Mary Beth, Debbie, Beth, and Mary
Front Row: Thea and Me

We had such a good time teaching the kids about the 50's, but the most fun was listening to the fun music! I hope we did a good job because none of us were around back then!

Say Good-bye to Soccer

Saturday, October 29 started out as a cold, cold day, but we still had to bundle up and cheer Harrison on in his last soccer game of the season.

He is in the middle with long sleeves and a hat on to keep him warm. No time to get sick in our household!

Way to go after that ball, Harrison!

Look who came to cheer--PaPa! We were all so happy to see him out and about.

After the game, all the players and parents met up at Pizza Hut here in Madison for the team party.

The young soccer stars had built up quite an appetite!

Coach Matt with his Green Scorpions team: Bryce, Nathan, Kelly, Camille, Harrison, Logan, and Joshua.

Coach Matt and Harrison

We were very lucky to get such a good soccer coach! He took the time to interact with each player after the games to tell them at least one thing they had done well. I really appreciate how patient he was with the kids each week during practice and games.
Harrison really liked his first season of soccer. He said it was even more fun than T-ball! I think he liked it because he was never bored plus he got to eat snacks when he was sitting out. We'll see if he decides to play another season next year.

Field Trip Friday

On Friday, October 28, my 1st grade class went on a field trip to...

Early Works Children's Museum in downtown Huntsville. The presentations we saw and experienced there started our study we do during the month of November about the pioneers, the Pilgrims, and the Indians. We saw lots of cool things, and had the greatest tour guide. In fact, she was the grandmother of one of my former students who is now a Junior at Grissom High School! One of the perks of me being a teacher is that my own children sometimes get to tag along on Field Trips. Today was one of those days. I took Harrison out of school, and he got to accompany us to EarlyWorks. It worked out well because he was in Kindergarten with these same kids.

One of the first things we got to experience was the Talking Tree. The kids absolutely LOVED it! We listened to a cool story then the kids got to feel the tree.

We then got to walk on the boat, and the kids got to change the sails so the boat would sail better.

You can't tell, but this is Harrison trying on one of the Indian masks.

Then it was time to play pioneer dress-up. Doesn't he look cute dressed like Davey Crockett?!?

Here is my sweet class ready to go live with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I'm so happy my precious baby boy went with us! We had a great time, and he loved seeing his Kindergarten friends from last year.

Why Did I Run?

So on Saturday, October 15, even though I was still racked with grief, I ran the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run with my best friend, Shannon. I got asked many times why I was there that day by people who knew just what I had been through the past week. Well...I ran because of my precious Granny who died of breast cancer in 1998. I ran because of the treatments my Aunt Bobbie had to endure to rid her body of this horrible disease. And lastly, I ran because one of my sweet friends, Heather, was just starting her battle with breast cancer. Plus I got some uninterrupted time with Shannon (unless you count the other 5,000 women who ran with us!).