2008 Christmas Card Picture

We finally got the picture for this years Christmas card. I guess I should let it be a surprise. I was so excited that we got a good one of them I just had to share. We usually take them out to ASF or somewhere nice and put a little more into it. With the kids being sick and so much going on in our lives I really did not have high expectations this year. I knew time was getting away from me and I needed to hurry and get moving on it. We slipped them into their outfits and stepped out onto the front porch. Buddy snapped this one which I think turned out pretty good.

To all of my new blogging friends.... (lunch bunch) I would love to include you in my Christmas card list but I need your mailing address. If you do not want to leave a comment under this post with your personal address then you please email me at minnie7010@gmail.com.

Sick kids

We tried. Sooner or later it was bound to happen though.

Sean has had a great run of 5 1/2 years with superior immunities. With the occasional cold, a few bouts with croup and mononucleosis last year he has finally succumbed to a sinus infection and was put on his first round of an antibiotic in his entire life.
I know it sounds silly but I am not taking it easily. We were very proud of the fact that our child has never had to have an antibiotic. It seemed to surprise people given his age. Even his pediatrician seemed impressed when he looked back on the chart and realized how old he was and and how well he had been. Each year as he turned another year older we impressed the doctor with "still no infections or antibiotics". He attributed it mostly to the fact that he was at home with me most of the time and not in daycare.
As he got a little older he went to "school" half days but still stayed really well. I used to swear it was because he was a breastfed baby. But, I have friends who nursed their babies and the children stay sick. I guess it pretty much depends on the child's own immune system. Sean was blessed with really good immunities just like his daddy. Lets just hope he keeps it up and this antibiotic he is taking will not be a new trend for him.

Lily on the other hand was not so blessed. She seems to have inherited my terrible lungs (lets hope not) She has already had pneumonia and bronchitis a few times in her short life.


We spent yesterday in the pediatrician's office with them. They both have sinus infections and Lily has Bronchitis. They also ran strep cultures on them which came back negative at the time. Today the office called us to say that Lily's was positive after all.
So, poor Lily has a sinus infection, strep throat and bronchitis. She is of course on an antibiotic as well.

She slept most of the day today but does seem to feel a little better tonight. two days of the meds may seem to be working. Sean is definitely feeling better already.

Our Thanksgiving

Considering that Lily was sick and in bed for most of the day we did have a pretty good Thanksgiving.

The day started out as planned and I was able to prepare all my dishes with a little challenge out of respect for the religious beliefs of our guests.

The Turkey was kosher and I was not using any chicken stock in dressing or bacon to flavor vegetables. I had not planned on or remembered this in my preparation so I had to make last minute adjustments in making the dressing. We had to wait a little later to eat since I had to wait on the turkey drippings to moisten the dressing. Also, the Lima beans were not as flavorful as we are used to. But, I am sure they were much healthier without the bacon. The sacrifices were worth it though for the special time we all shared together

Lily stayed in bed much of the day and even missed the meal which was disappointing. She was feverish and threw up several times. Our guest (Ms. Anita) who is Indian and Muslim bought her a scarf for her birthday. She was happy to get it. She always loves to see Anita's Scarf s when she sees her so it was very thoughtful of her to bring her one of her own I thought. She wrapped it around Lily's head when Lily felt like getting up and I snapped a picture. I thought it was a sweet picture but I just wanted to assure you that we are not changing our religion.......

Anita & Heidi with Sean, Lily & Zeshan

Our (Un)-Traditional Thanksgiving

I am quickly getting things around here ready for tomorrow......

Getting the china out and the silver polished.... This is my favorite time of year.
I have not felt myself lately and because of that I am cheating just a tiny bit. I store bought a few desserts this year. It is usually my favorite part to make them all. But, even as I think about tomorrow I can't help but get tears in my eyes. I just love Thanksgiving. Maybe it is because I did not have much growing up. My mom always made it special for us. My kids certainly have all they need so I have to try to find ways to make the Holidays extra special for them. I want them to see that there are people less fortunate then they are. They are both very tenderhearted and especially my Sean. Each year we try to do something different or have someone different over. We try to have different family members on alternate years and also a family of a different culture. We always try to have Uncle S. since he is alone.

This year we are having Uncle S. along with a Muslim family. We also have a friend who recently lost his father and is now all alone. Buddy (Thank Goodness) thought of him at the last minute and called him. He had no place to go. So now we have a table full. Just the way I like it!

Perfect setting to get my mind off of myself and onto others and Christ centered where it belongs. I hope you all have a wonderful, safe and happy Thanksgiving with your family, or whoever you choose to spend it with.

Pinkalicious party pictures

Here are the pictures from the party finally. There were so many. I was just going to put them in a slide show instead of posting them but I could not get photobucket up for some reason. So I just did a few collages to minimize the amount of pictures since I really wanted to show them all.

We had so much fun and I am finally recovering. I did some more cleaning today. I was taking some decorations down today and Lily walked in and said in a very matter of fact voice, "WAIT! you are supposed to leave those up there until I go to college. I still have a few more birthdays you know"! Where on earth does she get the things she says from.

Blowing out the candles and cupcake tower

Tables with pink foods, green foods table and sweets table

Pinkalicious.....

Friends

Decorating Cupcakes

Decorations

Games

If the pictures are to small to see in the collages just click on it and it should zoom in.

A few pics of tables and decor out of collage

Lily's 4th Birthday Party

The Pinkalicious party is over and I am I am very exhausted from it all and need some rest. It was, well..... PINK and perfectly wonderful. Lily and about 13 of her friends had a great time playing pin the "pinktail" on Pinkalicious and Pink Flamingo Bingo. The girls decorated cupcakes and then daddy read the Pinkalicious" book.

They all enjoyed pink foods which included: ham rolls, fruit, yogurt, cocktail shrimp, strawberry applesauce, strawberry bagels with cream cheese and pink lemonade.

We also had a green foods table which included: broccoli, pickles, green grapes, cucumbers, celery, and spinach roll ups and green punch. (You must read the book to understand all of this)

We had a "Sweet Treats" table with pink candy kisses, pink m & m's, green m & m 's, pink candy cupcake suckers, white chocolate covered pretzel rods dipped in pink sprinkles, pink whoppers, raspberry cookies wafers, cherry craisens.

Cupcakes were served of course and they were just like the book thanks to Publix.

More Pictures to come..........

Lily goes to the Theatre

All my worries about Lily in the Theatre vanished tonight. I was so proud of my big girl. And my big boy too. But we already knew he could behave well in a theatre. I am really impressed at how well they both sat and how the play held their attention for 2 1/2 hours. Not a peep out of either of them and not even a yawn, which surprised me. Lily had a nap today so that helped.

The kids seemed interested and at intermission we asked Sean if he knew what was happening and he said yes. I explained about scrooge and the "ghosts". Lily seemed a little oblivious. She only wanted to know if that was the very stage where she just saw Copellia and Ms Keyana and would that be the stage where she would see Cinderella (the ballet) next week. We talked about all the different stages and she thought that was interesting.

At the end of the night the kids wanted to go somewhere for a treat. They were so good we decided to do it. They wanted ice cream so we went to Ruby Tuesdays. We got there and they were fast asleep in the backseat so I ran in and got it to go. Lily woke up though so we still all had out desserts when we got home. Yummy, chocolate tall cake......

Buddy and I have different opinions on the play. His probably matters more then mine since he taught the stuff but I loved it. Go see it if you can. The thing had me in tears.

I'm really afraid I might chase some of ya'll away from my blog because it has just been so negative lately. (no kiddin) Ya'll please don't leave me. (haha) I picked the Honda up Tuesday and paid, yep, you guessed it $500.00 for the newest repair (window) and today I noticed my check engine light was on again. I am determined not to let it get me down. I am already close to my breaking point. Buddy's truck has been making a very strange sound. We have new model Toyota and Honda vehicles and we take very good care of them so I am baffled as to why we seem to be having such bad luck with them all of a sudden. Anyway, I will focus my attention the upcoming Holiday season and on my girls upcoming birthday party. We are going to ASF tomorrow night with the kids to see A Christmas Carol the Musical. I am looking forward to that. It will be Lily's first play in an actual Theatre so I am a tiny bit nervous. She did great at the Ballet when we took her a few weeks back so hopefully she will do fine. And speaking of Lily's party, I was able to get some things accomplished on my day off. I am making the cupcake stand and am nearly finished. This will be the first year without having a cake. But it is a"Pinkalicious" party so cupcakes are a must right? I even thought about doing a cake in addition just for the sake of having one but I decided to just go with the cupcakes and make the presentation grand. I still have some more work to do on it. I am going to add some ribbon and some tiny sparkles. The top cupcake will have the same tiny tiara sitting on top of it that was sitting on top of her very first birthday cake.

Party Plans moving right along!

I consider myself a fairly good party planner. That is if I have adequate time and preparation. Every year around Lily's birthday we have the same dilemma. College Football. More specifically, Iron bowl. Well, no biggie... We just put it off a week. This year it got a little more complicated due to a certain team being undefeated. Roll Tide!!!!!!!! Anyway, enough of that. I am not very happy about having to move Lily's party up 2 weeks because it does not give me much time to plan at all. Thanks to my brilliant and very artistic and talented Goddaughter, I have less to worry about now. She made these precious invitations. And not only that, she has agreed to help me plan the party and decorate. She majored in Theatre and is a University of Alabama graduate. We are so proud of her. Thank you Nisha!!!!


I have a day off work and the kids are in school so Nisha and I are going to shop for the party. on the list are pink boas, pink tule, cupcake stand, pink table clothes, pink flowers, (will get some fresh ones the day of the party) ribbons small vases a jar and some small aprons.

Meet Leo

The Murphy Family is officially in the Market for a pet! um, excuse me! A doggie. We have all been talking about what king of dog we want and it seems we absolutely can't agree. I want a cute little lap dog and Buddy wants a great big dog. Sean has been very outspoken about wanting a small brown and white dog. Lily really has not had an opinion either way. She just wants a doggie. All of our differences melted away when we met Leo today. Leo is a Great Dane who may possibly be up for adoption. Our Goddaughter works for a humane shelter and brought him home for the weekend. She thought we would like to meet him. He is the sweetest dog and the kids fell in love right away.

Sean put his Indiana Jones hat on him, and Lily put her pink feather boa on him... He was a great sport!

Prozac Please.......

If the right people would have seen me yesterday having a little hissy fit in the middle of Dexter Avenue in the pouring rain, let's just say I may have been taken away in a strait jacket, loaded up on some sedatives, given shock therapy and put in a room full of people starring at paint chips on the walls.

It seems our little black cloud of bad luck has chosen to stay a little while longer. Every week for the past month or so something has gone wrong with an appliance or a vehicle. And it always seems to be somewhere around a $500.00 expense. Except for me stepping on Buddy's laptop. I don't want to remind myself how much that was

This week: (yesterday)

The motor in my automatic window broke and of course (Murphy's Law) it was raining! So, I was standing in the pouring rain getting soaking wet, while trying to hold and umbrella in one hand, tape a bag over the window with the other hand while talking to Buddy on the cell with my third hand (ha). I yelled a sweet lady who was only trying to help... Then I started crying. But, I needed to get dry so I sat in the car and hung the umbrella out the window so it would block the rain from coming in on me as I sat there feeling sorry for myself. It was a big black umbrella so the privacy was good!

I was finally able to get the bag taped over the window and met Buddy and the kids at Chris's Hot Dogs for lunch to switch his truck for my CRV. Since I was going back to work, we wanted my car parked safely under the garage so it would not get wet until we could get the window fixed.

Anyway, I don't know if it was the stress of the day or the fact that my seizure meds are being adjusted but, I was sitting down to eat and I had a seizure right in the middle of Chris's Hot Dogs.

I was doing so good too. Several ladies sitting around us helped out with the kids as Buddy helped me. The kids were sweet and Sean wanted to pray for me.

Today I was bummed that I could not make the blog luncheon. Buddy is driving me! So, I pulled myself out of my depressive funk and got my little Fancy Lily all dolled up to go to her friend's Fancy Nancy party. We all went, even Sean dressed up. As Indiana Jones of course.

And now I am sitting here watching the Alabama/LSU game. more stress aaagggg! Where's my meds?????

From Beth Moore

This was something very encouraging I saw on Beth Moore's site that I thought was worth posting:

A United House

To my beloved Sisters who I esteem so highly and consistently find to be part of the solution to our problems in the Church rather than the cause,Please join me in praying for our President-elect Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and his precious daughters, Sasha and Malia. Go with me before the Throne of our sovereign God and ask Him to grant wisdom from above to President-elect Obama and the indwelling presence and power of Jesus Christ. In the words of the Apostle Paul, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior..."Please also join me in the active and deliberate pursuit of unity and purity in the Body of Christ at this historical time in our country. I implore you in Jesus' Name to have zero tolerance for prejudice whether it is regarding party-affiliation, color (whether you are Black, White, or Brown), economics or the like. Disagreement is not sin. Prejudice is. Satan has plotted events and planted attitudes that, should he be successful, will result in havoc. We must not stand for his schemes or cooperate in a single way. We would severely displease God and invite untold chastisement upon Christ's Church in our nation. Speak clearly to your children and graciously but emphatically draw a line in your work places and social circles regarding your stand against prejudice of any kind."Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.'" (Matthew 12:25) A united house stands. A divided house falls. The devil has much to gain. But he also has much to lose.We are the Body of Jesus Christ and we have an opportunity to show His character. This is our watch. We stand for what is right not from our feet but from our knees.I humble myself before you and make these pleas under such bold direction of God that I could not resist it nor disobey it. He made it a fire in my bones.I love and esteem you so much. Shoulder to shoulder, Dear Siestas. Let's leave not one inch for the enemy to come between us."Then will I purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve Him shoulder to shoulder." Zephaniah 3:9

Indiana Jones and cheer Barbie

Mathematics of Halloween candy

one pumpkin basket from school party filled with candy......

+plus, one Halloween gift (candy) from friend

+ plus, Sean's trick or treat candy

+ Plus, Lily's trick or treat candy

+ plus, a little left over pass out candy

= Equals WAY to much candy in the Murphy house...........

Cute things kids say!

Sorry about the lack of posting in a few days. If you read my facebook at all you may know that we got all of Sean's curls cut off. But don't worry, they will grow back. (fast) Anyway, his teacher tracked me down the other day and said that she had overheard a conversation between him and a friend "Grant" the day he came back from having it cut. It was to cute not to share:

Sean: Grant, do you like my haircut?

Grant: Yeah, but I was really likin those squiggles.

Sean: Oh!

Grant: But I guess I like those strait ones too...

Sean: OK!

Grant: But do you think those squiggles will come back soon?

When he got home I asked him about the conversation and how did he feel about his haircut. He said he loved it and then started telling me all the names people had for his curls. One boy called them "swirls"! I loved that one.....