Disney or Bust!

Well, we leave on Wednesday for Disney. Am I ready? NO. Will be ready Wednesday morning? Probably not. Will we still have fun? You bet!! With sunglasses, hats, sunscreen, and even battery-operated fans for the stroller, WE WILL HAVE FUN! I know that I am way more excited than the kids about our trip, but that is only because they have never been and have no idea what they are going to experience. Conner even asked how it compared to Lake Winnepsaukah, a local small amusement park....I told him he just didn't know!! : )

Will you pray for us as we embark on our adventure? I want the kids to have so much fun, but I don't want to stress over everything (which I am known to do before and during vacations!). I just want it to be fun. Also, Hayden's rash has still not cleared up, so I worry about him and if the heat will bother it or not. It looks a little better today, but no where near being gone, so please continue to pray for him. Thankfully, he still shows no signs of it bothering him. He allows me to clean it and put medicine on it and still gives me his big grin. He is such a happy child.

I can't wait to share pictures with all of you and hopefully video of Mari Cate's choir performing. We heard them do all their songs the other day and they are so good. What an awesome experience and memory to have!

Cost of Disney Tickets and Hotel----A good deal, but still a lot!

Cost of Gas to drive to Disney----Way too much!!!!!!!

Getting to see Mari Cate perform at the Galaxy Palace Theater in Disney----PRICELESS!!

Congratulations!

To Brynna, Luke, and Ivey on their precious new baby girl, Bethany Jane, born May 23rd. She is just adorable!

Praying....

for Steven Curtis Chapman and his family today for the loss of their little girl Maria.

For more information or to leave condolences you can visit their website here.

I sure would like to!!

That is, win an Ergo Baby Carrier!! (I WILL have one of these someday!)

But here is your chance to try to win one too!

Win an Ergo Baby Carrier

My Sweet Angel Baby

is 3 months old today. Time flies...enjoy your babies while they are babies.

It seems I'm always

catching up on here lately!! The end of school and planning for our Disney trip (which is in 1 1/2 weeks) has me running a little ragged it seems!


So without further ado, here goes the latest at the Hamilton Household:

Mari Cate had Awards Day at school. She received the Library Award, the Reading Award, and the English Award (our little math whiz, gets an English Award??? Weird!) Here she is with her awards.
Conner had his Spring Concert in Band. It was amazing to see how much they had progessed since the Christmas Concert. At the Christmas Concert it was more like listening to them play the "scales" only. Now they are playing actual songs and playing them very well, if I do say so myself!! I have a video of the concert and may try to upload just a little of it if I can. (I have a terrible time uploading videos no matter what hosting service I choose---anyone care to give me some hints in this area???)

And this past Thursday, Mari Cate's school had "Musicians Among Us" day. This is where ANY student and/or parent can showcase their musical talent. Some are really good, some are not so good, but I have to give them credit for even getting up there, cause I am not so sure that I would!! :) So anyway, the Black Fox Singers that are going to Disney performed the songs that they will be singing down there. They sound sooooo good!!

And last but not least...I have to share my wonderful Yard Sale find!! Normally, I would not have considered buying a car seat from a yard sale. But this time was different. We checked the car seat out very well. Frank looked up to see if there were any recalls on it. It had only been used in the husbands car (which means very rarely). I got this wonderful Britax Marathon Carseat with the UT cover (Go Vols!!) for only $50!! These are selling used for $250+ on Amazon!! I am sure that we will wait until Hayden can sit forward-facing in it before moving him to it, but just in case he grows out of the infant seat, we have the next one ready to go! Yippee!!

Please say a prayer....

my for baby boy. Last week I took him to get two of his two month shots. I did two shots one week and two shots the next, to make sure he had no reaction to them. I don't like the thought of all four shots at once and am really questioning vaccinations altogether, but I will save that for a different post. Anyway, that evening I looked at his arms and he had a terrible rash all over them and some hives, so I called the drs. office (of course it was after hours by this time), so the triage nurse called me back and said I should take him to the ER (that was horrible, too, again, another post, another time!). Well the ER nurse practitioner said she thought it was dermatitis and upon our insistence gave a dose of benydryl---no other instructions, except if it wasn't cleared up in a week, see our dr. Well, it wasn't cleared up so we took him to the dr. on Wednesday. The dr. gave him an antibiotic and told me to use some hydrocortisone on him also. Well, this morning the rash was oozing and looked even worse! So I called the dr. again and they changed his antibiotic and gave him an antibiotic ointment to put on it also. My poor baby's arms looks soooo pitiful! Like I said, the drs. won't say that this is related to the shots, but I truly believe that it is.

Please when you think about us, say a little prayer for Hayden, that he won't be in any pain and that the medicines will help clear it all up very quickly! Thank you!

A Little Late---but a Mother's Day Thank You

I took the time to recognize my mother in the previous post, but now I want to take a moment to recognize two other young women.

Two young women who were selfless enough to allow me to raise their children and be their mother for the rest of their lives. I don't know where either of these two young women are, but I am thankful for them. I thank God that they had the courage to carry their child and courage to give that child up. I pray that we are able to bring them both up in a way that would make them proud. I thank both of them for fulfilling my dream and desire to be a mother.

I thank God for also filling my desire to bear my own child. I don't love Conner or Mari Cate any less than I did before I had Hayden, however I now fully understand what a sacrifice their birthmothers made, one I am not so sure I could have ever made had I been put in their situations. But I thank them. I pray that during Mother's Day, they are not sad, but rather feel a peace about the decision they made and know that they gave a the most special gift to another Mother.

I do hope that all the Mother's out there had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Mine was spent at our former church Westwood Baptist Church with my parents. Frank was still feeling puny, so it was just the kids and me. We went out to eat at Shoney's Mother's Day buffet afterwards. I spent the afternoon at their house and then we went out with Frank's family to Outback Steakhouse. Whew, that was a lot of eating today!

***And a special note to my Mom---I do appreciate your love, support, and especially your friendship. You are my best friend, and I have so much fun with you! I am so glad that you live nearby and that we can share in each others lives and that you are able to be such a big part of my children's lives. I pray that we will have many more Mother's Days to share with each other! So what's our schedule this week??? hahahaha***

It's been way too long!!

Oh my! It has been waaaaay too long since I have posted anything. I will warn you now...this is going to be a LONG POST with LOTS OF PICTURES!! It's seems I have been on the go constantly lately! Mom and I can't seem to stay home and are always saying there are not enough hours in the day (or at least hours until Conner and Mari Cate get out of school) for us to get everything done! Hayden is such a little trooper and just goes and goes and goes with us always being such a joy.

So.....were do I begin to catch you up on what we have been doing???


Camping

I guess I will start with last weekend. We went camping for the first time in like two years I think! Our poor camper had been lonely a long time, but it and we sure did enjoy our weekend! We went to Harrison Bay State Park, a nearby campground, just in case Hayden didn't do too well. But he loved it just as much as Conner and Mari Cate I think! On Thursday night, we ate at the little restaurant by the marina (I know not exactly "roughing it"--but we kind of got delayed in getting up there on Thursday, so we thought this would be the fastest dinner!) The kids always enjoy looking at all the boats at the marina and the huge turtles that are just waiting for someone to throw some snacks down to them. We ate outside and the weather was just wonderful! We had my parents and my aunt and uncle up to cookout with us on Friday night. Great hamburgers and fellowship. One of Frank's best friends and his wife also called and said they were in the area and came up to visit us Friday night also. We LOVE having people come up to visit while we are camping, so if you are in the area, give us a call--haha!! Saturday night we invited a few friends from church up to cookout with us. We had hot dogs and learned how to make "Banana Boats" (recipe included). Our friend Katie learned how to make these as a girl scout leader and taught us how. It was really fun and a great new camping recipe! We also thought it would be good with caramel chips or peanut butter chips. Yum!!



Saturday night we got most everything packed up to pull out on Sunday morning before church. Sunday morning it was raining and we got ready for church, I took Mari Cate and Hayden on to church with me and Conner helped Frank finishing getting the last few things packed up and the truck hooked to the camper and then they came on to church. Conner is such a good help with getting everything set up--I just can't believe how he is growing up! We actually all made it to church early--that's better than we do any other Sunday morning? Is this a sign we need to be living in a camper like we talked about a couple of years ago??? Nah!!! So here are some pictures from our first camping trip of the year.

Frank and My Parents relaxing

Conner just waking up (trust me, he is not always this chipper!)

Mari Cate picking up rocks with her toes!!

Mom with Hayden

Daddy with Hayden

My three boys

"Happy Hayden"Big Sissy taking care of Baby Brother

The kids enjoying the cookout

Our friends Chris and Shawna

10 Week Pictures

Ok, on to the next adventure...we took Hayden last week to get his pictures made. We took him to Sears and they did a great job with him. They are so cute. I'm going to try to post the link here---Hayden's Pictures. If this link doesn't work for you, email me and I will get them to you.

BIG NEWS...BIG NEWS...BIG NEWS

Ellie Lu will be here soon!!

Our friends Emily and Mel at Ladybug Happenings got their referrel and a picture of their baby girl that they will soon be bringing home from China! They have a waited a loooong time for this day and we are so excited for them! Go on over to their website and check out their beautiful little girl!

Random Picture

This is a picture of my mother's dog Holly eating ice cream from a spoon. Silly dog!!

Girls Night Out

And last but not least, I have a group of friends that I have been friends with since elementary school (at least most of them). We went to elementary, jr. high, high school together, and most of us even went to college together...AND we went church together. There are about 10 of us or so and several times a year the ones that can get together for a little girls night out. Last night we went to Chili's (my 4th time in 4 days by the way!!) and had such a good time. I threatened to tell all the "old stories" and "dirty secrets" that were shared, here on my blog, but I would never do to my friends!! : ) So I will just share a picture and let you imagine what a great time we had catching up on everyone's busy lives and talking about old times! Girls you are the best---I know that I could count on any of you in a time of need and I really appreciate that!