Pictures in the Park

We all got together and had our picture made for my Mom's Christmas present. We gave her a canvas back when Kalan was almost 2. In that picture we were missing Nathan, Janet and Taylor. So we decided to do a new one for her. The picture of my family below was sooo cute, but it wouldn't fit on our Christmas card. The kids did great, but Trey on the other hand...was just Trey.

My Mom has the most beautiful grandchildren, if I do say so myself. I love Andrew's smile in this picture.

My baby's are sooo adorable!

I took all the pictures I was not in. I love pretty pictures.

Meet me in St. Louie

And that was what we did, well, actually, we met them in St. Louis. As I told you in a previous blog we went on family vacation in September. We had a great time. I will briefly enlighten you about our adventure. My Mom, Dad, Mia and Jason took the kids while Josh and I were still in Jackson, MS. Mindy stayed behind on this trip, she had one of her own, she went to Disney World. We got there later that night. This first picture should be the last, since this was our last stop on our way home, but I will get to that. Our first day there we went to the St. Louis Zoo. We all Loved it! The train was so fun, but you wouldn't guess that by the look on Andrew's face. We went in the petting zoo, which made me nervous, mainly because the goats and their horns were at eye level with Nathan. They had peacocks just roaming free through the zoo, such a beautiful bird. The Memphis Zoo could take some landscaping pointers, it was gorgeous! The flowers where just beautiful.

After a long day at the zoo we went to the Annual Hot Air Balloon Race. Let's just say that was not the best idea due to the 3 plus mile walk, one way, to get to the field with the balloons. It was like nothing I have ever seen before! Out of the whole trip that was the most interesting thing by far. I have only seen a hot air balloon on tv or in books, never in person. They are HUGE, loud and hot, hence the name...The picture below is of one of the balloons being inflated. After all of them were up, they sounded a horn and all of them lit up the night sky. It was neat, I only wish my camera would have been able to capture the glow.

We went to Six Flags on the second day. I found another thing that Nathan is absolutely petrified of, any mascot. He wouldn't even stand close enough for us to get his picture with them, not even if one of us was holding him. He literally climbed up Josh and tried to jump over his head. Andrew and Kalan didn't have any problems with them. We did have a great time. Andrew and Kalan got to ride their first roller coaster. Kalan did great on the first one, but she lost it on the second one. From then on she rode the rides with Nathan. We did get rained on that day, but they did not put a damper on our fun.

We went to Busch Stadium the last day there. It was raining and cold. The kids are looking out of the parking garage at the stadium. At that point it was pouring down rain and we had 2 blocks to walk out in the rain to get to the Club Store in the stadium.

We wanted to visit the Arch that day too, but it was foggy and raining and I was not getting out in the cold rain again. It still was very beautiful looking at it from our warm car. We would love to go back and spend more time there.

She will be the DEATH of me!

She is my daughter, Kalan. As beautiful a creature she is, she will be the DEATH of me! I have always been told that two people that are too much alike tend to clash. I would say the word clash is an understatement for her and I...lol PLEASE don't get me wrong, I love my daughter will all of my heart, but she knows how to push my buttons. And let me tell you she knows the right combination. My husband says we are like oil and water, and he doesn't even want to imagine how it will be when she is 16.

The reason I say this is because she loves to take her time. We have always said Kalan has her own little world. Well apparently it has its own time zone too! Every morning for school it's a struggle. She is 7 1/2 and has been doing this same routine for the last 4 years. It never fails that I have to tell her every morning to:

1. Go use the bathroom, before you put our clothes on.

2. Put your clothes on.

3. That means your socks and shoes.

4. Brush your hair (since I'm to ruff, hard not to be with dried toothpaste stuck in all that hair).

5. I need a rubber band to put up your hair.

6. Eat breakfast.

7. No you can not take your cereal in the car with you.

8. Brush your teeth.

9. Mouthwash alone doesn't count.

10. Get your backpack.

11. Get in the car.

By the end of that, I'm exhausted! LOL! I know one day it will get better. I pray that anyway.

On the same hand she is just so sweet and innocent. I try to remember, at least she still thinks I am smart and beautiful and loves to spend time with me. I'm sure that won't last too much longer. I hope that one day we will have a great friendship. For now, I'm stuck being Mom, that's okay, she will understand one day. I can't imagine my life without her, it would be totally boring. We do enjoy spending time together. She is a girly girl and I love that! She loves to dress up and pretend to be Nathan's mommy. I hope that I can shape her into a wonderful Christian women. She is but a third of my heart that is walking about this world. She makes me smile.

Andrew's 12th B-Day

One more year, or so I have been told. That's how long I have let with my sweet, innocent, respectful son; then it's all down hill from there...lol I sure hope that's not the case with my Drewpy, as I like to call him. I know that I have said this time and time again, but I just can't believe how fast 12 years have gone by. With all that said, on with the birthday pics. Below you see him sporting his favorite college football team with Taylor on his right and Spencer on his left. He says that one day him and Riley will go to school at LSU and play on the football team. I'm not going to be a dream squashier by telling him that I really don't want him so far away, so I just tell him to work hard and maybe one day it will happen. Kalan gave him a John Deere Hat, so sweet, at times. Okay, Okay...I know that my horse shoe is lopsided, but I had to improvise. You don't find Colts wrapping paper around here. I did give it my all, and Andrew thought it was the best thing ever.
It's hard to buy for a 12 year old boy, especially two weeks after Christmas. He did get a lot of great gifts. He likes to invite a few of his buddies over to spend the night and stay up all night getting jacked up on sugar and playing video games. This year he only had 3 spend the night. I learned my lesson the hard way. More doesn't not mean more fun, it only means more drama. So Taylor, Riley and Spencer stayed and we had no drama.
I did supply an adequate amount of sugar for all 6 kids at my house that night. I made Andrew's birthday cake to his specifications, well almost. He wanted the fish to jump up out of the middle of the cake, but that didn't happen. It was chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing. All I've got to say is they make it look a lot easier on Cake Boss than it really is. I made up my rice crispy treats and tried to shape them around a bent wooden stick. I guess the weight of the crispy treats and the fondant was just too much and the day before the party, it fell apart. No worries, I just improvised. If you use your imagination you will see the large mouth bass jumping up out of the dirty lake water. You don't see it you say, well that stuff at the end of it's body are ripples or splashes of dirty water...lol
OOOH, how could I forget the worm coming out of the fish's mouth, just in case you were wondering why it had a brown hunk of something coming from its mouth. See the picture above for a closer look.

Happy 12th Birthday Andrew Jose Garay, I love you!

Christmas 09

The Children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

These are the goods, which were far to many. Our children are the only children I know of that sleep until 8 on Christmas morning. I guess it's best not to complain.

Nathan got the wheels this year! He was sooooo excited! His very own four wheeler, no more cruising around in Kalan's pink Barbie Jeep...lol
Kalan got her pink boots, pink coat, and K necklace, so she was a very happy girl. She also got some church dresses with matching tights, a glow station (which is soo neat), DS games, and much more. I can't remember what else she got.
Andrew doesn't ask for much, lol. Sometimes he asks for the strangest things. This year he wanted a football, work boots, work pants, and flannel shirts...crazy I know, but that's what he wanted. So he got all of that and a LUS/Colts flannel reversible blanket.
Okay, this is Sir Nathan in his armor...lol He is too cute in it. He has worn it to church, to Kalan's cheer practice, to Wal-mart let's just say if I would let him sleep in it he would. It has now been incorporated in our bedtime story every night.
They are super excited. These lovey moments are few and far between!
We have a family tradition that I have been doing since I was a little girl. My sisters and I would have to call my Mamaw, who lived next door, and let her know that Santa had come. She would make homemade biscuits and we wait patiently for her to get to the house before we could open any of our gifts. We now do that with my children. They call my Mom, Dad and sister (Mindy), and they call Mi-Mi and Jason, and Uncle Mike, and Gi-Gi too. My husband thinks it's cruel to make them wait to open their gifts, but it's so much fun watching them pace at the front door. After we have opened all the gifts from Santa, we eat a huge Christmas Breakfast. I love that day!

My Baby turns 4

There are no words for my disbelief that my baby, Nathan, is 4 years old, already! It only seems like yesterday when he was born, and what a birthday that was. He scared us all to death! I never ever really believed my parents and grandmother when telling that time flies by the older you get, but it really does.

This is his Lighting McQueen cake that I made for him. This was my first do-it-yourself cake. I think that I did a very good job. Everyone loved it and it made the birthday boy happy, and that was all that mattered.

I do have to say that I did not realize how much work was involved in making one of these cakes. I had someone ask me how much I would charge to make them one and I said their wasn't enough money for me to make one for someone else...lol I would truly stress myself if I had to please someone else. This cake was far from perfect, but I was satisfied. It was French Vanilla cake with chocolate gnash filling and butter cream icing. The checkered flag design on the side looked easy on paper, but once you start making each one of the thousands of stars that make it up it was more to it then I thought. My grass turned out cute! I searched the web and found an idea to make the road out of ground up oreos and it worked perfectly.

Of course he got way more than he needed, but you only have one birthday a year... :) I only wish his birthday was during warmer months, not November, so they could have played outside more. The pinata was a hit. We did opt for the pull string type, so we wouldn't send someone from our party to the ER. When they are this age having a child blind-folded with a stick can be very dangerous.

He will always be by baby! I just can not imagine, no, I don't want to imagine him being a teenager... I'm sure those days will hold some fun times in them too. For now, I'm satisfied with him yelling MOMMY every time I come home and preferring me over Daddy to tell him his bedtime story at night. How can I forget his sweet little kisses! I love you Nathan Owen Meredith.

WOW!

I can't believe that it has been so long since my last post. The above picture is from Easter. To be honest it won't be long before the Meredith Clan make the trip to Shiloh again. Of course a lot of things have happened in a years time. I guess the first thing that I think of is my job promotion. I am now the Director of Food Service for Tate County School District. I have 6 cafeteria, 28 employees and we serve 3100 students a day. It has definitely been a challenge. I do truly enjoy my job!

After I did some training this summer for my new position and once school got started we took a family vacation to St. Louis. It was sooo much fun! The kids enjoyed Six Flags and the SL Zoo. I would love to go back one day. I don't have pictures of that on this computer, but I will post some soon.

All and all I was soooooo glad to see 2009 come to an end. I am going to do some back peddling on here. When you see pictures of birthdays and holidays they will all be from 09.