Easter Eggs and Face Morphing

We got quite a nice surprise last night. Jennifer brought the boys up yesterday afternoon. Mom is on spring break this week, so she has some extra time to hang out with her grandsons. Tori, Lee, Zach, and I went over to Mom and Dad's last night to see them. The highlight of the night... easter egg dying. Can you believe my husband had NEVER dyed easter eggs before??

On a sillier note, I found a website yesterday from a school in the UK designed to experiment with face morphing. You start by downloading a personal picture. It then shows you what you'd look like if you were older, younger, or of a different ethnicity. I decided to try it with some pictures of Zach. SO FUNNY!!! You can play around with it by going here.

The original picture

Zach as a baby

Zach as a child

Zach as an old man

Zach as an East Asian

Zach as a West Asian

Zach as a Caucasian

Weekend with Syd

We had the best time with Sydney this weekend. Zach and I woke up early Saturday morning and drove to Cape Girardeau where we picked up Syd. We spent the night in a hotel there and stayed until Sunday afternoon. Every time we stay in a hotel, we make sure it has an indoor pool so we can take Sydney swimming. Saturday night was so much fun. We went swimming, then put our pajamas on, watched movies in bed and had a pizza delivered to our room. The hotel had free popcorn all night long, so we snuck downstairs for popcorn too. And of course, we HAD to have a dance party on the bed!

It's so hard leaving her! We miss her so much already!!

Rendezvousing with the WMC gang

Krista's birthday isn't until March 17, but she decided to celebrate early with dinner at the Rendezvous. I love getting together with the Channel 5 gang. I really do miss everyone so much! Krista is the best at taking photographs throughout the night, so once again, Krista, thanks for letting me swipe your pictures!

Thank You!

Ok, first of all, THANK YOU so much to everyone who offered up suggestions on how to clean up my closet. You have NO idea how helpful it was. Thanks to the help of Jennifer, Becca, Nicki and Sara, my closet is now completely ORGANIZED!! Becca, those hanging shoe organizers you suggested were PERFECT! I found some at Wal-Mart for $7. And Jennifer, I've made it a priority to wash at least one load of clothes a day! It makes a HUGE difference!

I thought all of you might be interested in what your suggestions helped accomplish! In case you don't remember, here is the BEFORE picture, and a couple others to show you what my closet looks like now. This was actually quite fun. I may get motivated to do the other 4 closets in my house... maybe. :) Thanks again!

Let it Snow...

Almost every family has certain traditions when it snows. When I was a little kid, it was snow cream. So, in my opinion, a snowstorm is not complete until the snow cream is made. Last night was Zach's FIRST snow cream experience, so of course we had to document it!

Meanwhile, our dogs are having a BLAST in the snow. Normally, they don't like cold weather, but we're having a hard time getting them inside. Here's a few pictures we took last night while the snow was still coming down.

There's still PLENTY more pictures to come, but right now, I think I'm going to get the house straightened, start a fire, enjoy a hot cup of coffee, and maybe get some scrapbooking done! If Zach didn't have to drive into work this morning, today would be P-E-R-F-E-C-T!

It Did!

These are a few pictures we took tonight around our house. More to come...

Is It or Isn't It?

I swear I think Memphis is the only place in the world where it has not snowed this year. And now, forecasters are saying there's a chance we could get 3-5 inches today!! The 5-year-old girl inside me is trying not to get too excited because I don't want to be disappointed if it doesn't happen. But I can't make any promises that I won't keep checking the radar throughout the day. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Carson and Cameron

My good friend Sabrina delivered twin boys on Sunday, February 24. That brings the Kelly Family to a total of 6. Sabrina and Payton now have 4 BOYS!! Zach and I took them dinner this past Sunday night. While we were there, I watched Bre in amazement as she handled all four boys like it was what she was born to do. She didn't seem even a bit overwhelmed.

Sabrina and Payton are the cutest, funniest couple you can imagine. They take everything lightly and make sure to laugh along the way.

Here are a few pictures of Cameron, Carson, Payton, and Sabrina. I would have gotten some pictures of Austin and Brandon, but they were too busy playing upstairs.

By the way... I think it's important to note how A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Bre looks after delivering TWINS a week before these pictures were taken.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection."

-Sigmund Freud

This is a picture of me and my dad.. taken when I was about 15 years old. I am one of the fortunate women in this world who was blessed to have an amazing father. Today is my dad's birthday, so in honor of him, I thought I'd post 20 things that I will always remember about his leadership in our family.

01. The way he ALWAYS listened to our problems- no matter how big or small

02. He ALWAYS told us he loved us

03. How proud he was of all of us, even if we didn't deserve it

04. He taught me how to pray

05. He showed me what real faith in God looked like

06. He was never too old to play with us

07. Teaching me how to ride a bike

08. Teaching me how to drive a car

09. He was always protective and cautious during my teenage years

10. He never took life too seriously

11. He worked hard for our family, but ALWAYS made it a priority to be at our events.

12. He stayed involved in our lives

13. He always seemed excited to see us.

14. For reading the Christmas Story from Luke every Christmas

15. He really seemed happiest when he was with his family.

16. He didn't make excuses for our mistakes

17. He held us accountable for our actions

18. He showed us how to forgive

19. He set high standards for us

20. He loved us unconditionally

Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you so much! Thank you for helping shape me into the woman I am today. I continue to carry your words of wisdom with me.

MY SISTER HAS A BLOG!!!

I'm SO excited! All my brothers and sisters now have blogs! Check Tori and Lee's out at torismitherman.blogspot.com.

Bear and Bryant

It is an absolutely GORGEOUS day today... the first of its kind since we got Bear and Bryant. A lot of people have been asking for updated pictures of the dogs, so we took them to the park by our house in hopes of getting some good shots. Bryant did a pretty good job, but Bear didn't seem to want to cooperate. These are the pictures we came up with.

My confession... and plea for help

This is my confession, but for my close friends and family, this confession won't be that big of a shock. Here it is... I have a passionate dislike for housework. I wish I could be more like my sister-in-law, Jennifer, who LOVES to clean... but I'm not.

I was always that 16-year-old with the bedroom floor you couldn't see. My mom would always say to me "I can see it now, my grandchildren are going to live in a pig-sty."

It always made me feel better if I referred to my messiness as "free-spiritness."

But now that I'm married and have a home with my name attached to it, I'm trying to act more adult-like, and am trying to keep things clean. Seriously, I am... well, at least when we have guests over. Plus, I can't let my mom be right! ;) But there are two areas in my "journey towards neatness" that are currently defeating me.

First and foremost, the laundry. I have a bad habit with letting the laundry pile about 4 feet over the hamper, and then spill into the floor, covering our closet floor before washing it. BUT, when I do wash it all, I can't seem to get it to fit in the drawers. Zach and I share one dresser, a closet, and a couple of storage bins. We don't have a chest of drawers and we don't have much storage space in our room. So, my solution is that we should always have some dirty clothes in the hamper so our drawers aren't spilling over with clothes. The only other option I can come up with is getting rid of some of our clothes. BUT in all seriousness, we really don't own that many clothes. Any suggestions??

Ok, problem two. This is the way my shoes are stored right now.

I may not be the neatest person in the world, but this even gets on my nerves. But, there is no room in our closet for me to organize them (because of our storage bins) and again.. we don't have much storage space. Seriously, I'm in need of some advice!!