Happy Birthday Mom

Today is Mom's birthday. The girl's favorite cartoon, Phineas & Ferb, capture the best way to honor Mom this day.

A fat turkey

Our fat turkey really wasn't fat. Our fat turkey wasn't even a turkey. Our fat turkey was Kailey. In her class Thanksgiving production. She shook her feathers.

More Pictures of New Bern

I wasn't able to publish all my pictures from my phone. So here's more.

Nov 5th

Oh November 5th, you came again. Funny how you come every year. I always come back to the circle of life on this day. I have some Facebook friends with birthdays today. And then there are my memories and memories you, my readers, have- not to take those for granted. Jason pointed out how much has changed in 5 years, but memories never do. Today, we did distraction. Distraction is good and we made memories. Dad has been with us this week and we went for an adventure today. We went to explore the Tryon Palace in New Bern. info here
We had a lot of fun. It was very interesting touring the palace and walking the 16 acres of gardens. The kids were awesome! The tour guide even called them saints! There was the Pepsi Family Center with a time machine to transport you back to 1835. We learned about a ship, cooking in 1835, and how to distill turpentine.

Shine

Lexi made this at school and it was too good not to share.

Halloween

Our Halloween was a bit different this year. Yes, partially for the obvious reasons--we are somewhere new. But also because it rained! It started raining around 3, as Mark and were heading to Kailey's conference. [More later.] The girls were very excited to go trick-or-treating and were very disappointed when it started raining. Thankfully, one of our neighbors came to the rescue. They had everyone over and the neighbor kids were able to see each other's costumes. The Dad came up with an idea for trick-or-treating as they had begun to see some braving the rain. They cleaned out their van and put seats down. I think 9 kids (and 3 moms) piled with rain coats and ponchos in very excitedly. We'd spot a group of houses and I'd open the door and the kids would run out and up to the door. What a blast!

Wordless Wednesday

In blogger-land there is 'wordless Wednesday.' I thought these pictures would be perfect today. These are fresh pictures. I just went and checked on T and found him like this.

A story for your Sunday

As Kailey was getting ready for bed tonight, she sat in her bed looking through one of her Bibles we unpacked this week. I was excited she was looking at it because it was more at her reading level (but it's a Bible-I know- I should just be excited that she was investigating it on her own.)

She asked if this Bible had, 'You know, like 1st Kings and 2nd Kings.' I responded that I thought it was more of a story Bible than one with the books in it. I asked her if she wanted one with books in it because I had just found one that I had set aside for her when she was ready. I found my Precious Moments Bible at the same time I found the story Bible. I handed it to her and we checked it out for 1st and 2nd Kings. It passed the test.

She told me that at church, they look for the 'contents' and find the book they need. If they need help, then the teachers will help them. She was excited to take this Bible with her to church tomorrow. Priceless.

BOYS

I continue to be amazed at the things Tyler does. I only have 13 months of experience into boy-hood, and I still have no idea what I'm doing. We've put together the tunnel so he can crawl thru it-especially at night when Mark isn't home to wrestle around.

My 1yr old boy

Yep, Tyler turned 1 this week. [Okay, so yes I know this is late--it's October].

And yesterday, Tyler hit 13 months. We celebrated by going to a local pumpkin patch. We had a good time exploring the patch-with pumpkins still growing on the vines. They had a huge slide (big hit) and a tractor ride.

Friday House Update

Welcome to the Friday House Update! It's Saturday you say? Well, I took the pictures yesterday. They made some obvious progress this week. But at this point, it's all forward progress and closer to the goal of closing in two weeks!

State Farmer's Market

We needed out today! After yesterday's rainy windy day thanks to Irene, we needed sunshine and exercise! We went and explores the local farmer's market. I had seen the signs and I had heard people talking about it.

The peaches are marble--I'm assuming that's the variety. But they are the sweetest peaches ever!

First Day of School

Kailey started 1st Grade today and I thought you'd like to see her picture. She will ride the bus from our new house. So we are starting her on the bus now, just commuting to the bus stop.

Fridays

The highlight of our Fridays right now is making the trip to see the progress that has been made on our house. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see it from the beginning stages. I did see the first floor being framed, but we were still making decisions, not thinking about pictures. (Darn it!)

Updating the blog

Updated 8/21/11--no one emailed me. So I was able to put 10 people in that automatically get the blog to their email when I post. I know I missed someone. I will put a link on the blog where you may "subscribe" to get those that I missed. Love to you all.

Hey Friends and mostly Family--
I am updating the blog, making it pretty again and posting new or current pictures. So much has happened-good, fun memories, and the drama- that I want to blog more to keep you updated on life here in North Carolina. Could you do me a favor and send me an email that you received this post straight to your email? (sasmorgan@gmail.com) I went to add an address to my list and the whole field was blank. Thanks a bunch. Love to you all. -Stacey

The Great Journey East, Entry 6

On Thursday we began our journey to North Carolina. I wasn't sure how far we were going to make it, but we were going to give it our best shot to make it the 9 hours to Raleigh. And we did give it our best shot! We made it to Knoxville doing good. We made one stop for lunch and got on our way. We were enjoying the view as we crossed over the state line into North Carolina.

The highway was very busy, with semi-trucks and cars. The trucks have their own lane-the right lane. So I was staying in my left lane and we came upon a curve. A semi-truck decided, or didn't see me, to join us in our left lane. We had just passed the cab of the truck...so Katie and Kailey saw wheels up close! He scraped the side of the van and instinctively I slowed a little and moved a little to the left. I was then able to make it to the rightside shoulder of the road to examine the damage. The driver immediately following me pulled off also. He saw everything that happened- but also how quickly things could have changed involving him. The semi-truck did pull off also. Highway Patrol (HP) was called, buy it took 45 minutes because they couldn't find us. We didn't know what mile marker we had just passed. Everyone is fine- the van has $4600 worth of damage. We were about 40 minutes from Ashville. We went and got dinner with Katie now driving a full van and one side mirror. Luckily, Darrel was at Ridgecrest and was able to secure rooms for us to spend the night. [Thank you again Darrel!] Mark came and met us. We had to get the car seats into his vehicle to make the viewing out of the rear view mirror possible. We finally made it to Raliegh, got a rental, and dropped the van off at a body shop at 4:45pm.

At this point, I wish everyday for my van. The added drama it added to our life can't have a price tag assessed. But, as Katie kept saying, 'We're makin' memories!' I continue to go back through what happened. It happened SO fast that it's a blur. I know we were so lucky! It could have been so much worse--I continue to say that it was because so many people, Facebook friends, family, and church family, were holding us up in prayer. Glory to God!

The Great Journey East, Entry 5

We had a great time in Nashville with
Aunt AJ and Uncle Darrel. We spent 3 days with them and exploring the city. We got to see some college friends. Our kids have played together on several occasions so they are always excited to see each other again. We went and experienced the Nashville library. The downtown library has an awesome storytime with puppets, singing, and stories with the Professor and MaryMary. Their first story was one of our all-time favorites, 'Lama lama Red Pajama.'

Finally!!!! The beach!

The Great Journey East, Entry 4

We finally made it to our hotel in Louisville. Got a lite confused switching highways, but made it! We were all tired and needed sleep! We played with some friends at the Louisville Science Center. They had an awesome Narnia exhibit that I wad sure Kailey would enjoy. We walked thru the wardrobe, sat on the frozen throne, saw many costumes from the movie, and catapulted some 'rocks'. They had a children's area for under 7, and two other floors we explored. After lunch, we loaded up and our goal was Nashville!

The Great Journey East, Entry 3

We left Grandma Connie's in pouring rain and 20 degrees cooler than when we packed the car three hours earlier. We were heading to Indianapolis to see a college roommate and then to Louisville to play with some other friend's. For our first travel with Tyler he did great! The girls did too. We drove past the Indy 500 speedway on our way to meet Jan.

The Great Journey East Entry 2

Day 2.
Playing at Grandma Connie's. Grandma Connie has great toys that she saved from when Mark and AmyJo were little. We went to visit Great Grandma. Had dinner with Uncle Marlin and Aunt Cherie. Saw Uncle Terry, Aunt Bert, and Cousin Bret.