Happy Birthday to ME!!

I can't believe I just turned 25!!!

(well, on the 13th...I'm catching up on the blog so bear with me)

Yes, I know what you're thinking...I should've gotten a hair cut and a straightener for my birthday(or maybe that's just what I was thinking), but new music is just more fun!

Mallorie doesn't understand anyone having a birthday without a cake, so we make it a point to have cake on everyones birthday...as a matter of fact, she calls the cake a birthday. I mean really, do you get older if you don't have cake? (I'll remember that when I'm turning 30...no cake.)

I didn't get any pictures of when Joe's parents took me out to eat for my birthday, but it was fun. We went to Cici's pizza and the nephews and Aunt Heather were able to come, too. I guess when you get older, birthdays are fun when the people around you are happy...especially the children.

I'm happy to be 25. At first I was thinking of it as a sign of getting older, but I'd like to just continue to take things day by day and enjoy the rest of my youth so that when I get older I'll be happy and content with that, too.

So, here's to many more!

Here's a rough, but fun, first sightreading of the song "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast in my new music book...DISNEY, woo hoo!

Mal's 2nd Trim

I trimmed Mallorie's hair over a month ago, but with my computer out of service I put off uploading the pictures...couldn't wait any longer, though, so I uploaded them to mom's!

Before in the antique barber chair!

During...

After in the antique dryer:)

We got the antique chairs from a house down the street that used to be the towns barber shop. The people that moved in gave them to us in return for getting them out of their house! They have come in handy...but I don't know where we're going to put them when we finish the master bath that they are stored in right now...too cute to get rid of though!

I really dislike mean computer geeks...

Okay, so we STILL have the virus on our computer! Except it's not really a virus, it is a form of malicious software called "Malware". Great. Thank you evil computer genius. Hopefully my mom and I will be able to remove it with these long and intense instructions. Times like these make me ponder why people do things like that. If only they used their knowledge for good! Life really is like a superhero movie. Glenn Beck was talking about the new batman movie the other day. He said he was flabergasted because the movie actually made some good sense. I haven't seen it, so this is just coming from him, but he said it was weird to watch a movie that had come out of hollywood that had such conservative concepts. I don't know what the rating is on the movie....okay so I just looked it up, it's PG-13. Joe and I had just figured it would be rated-R, or should be! Anyway, if you do see it, see if you see the resemblaces: Bush-Batman, Terrorists-Joker & gang, and I know there was more that he said, but I'm not as politically savvy as him and I haven't seen the movie:) In conclusion, good ALWAYS conquers evil...evil computer guy, say goodbye to your muy malo malware! *though I may have to get your good counterpart to remove it in the end!*

A quick note...

Hi all, so we've had an interesting week or so to say the least. Last week Joe's grandma, who we'd just seen at the family reunion, was put into the hospital at suspicion of congestive heart failure. We were(and still are to a certain extent) very concerned for her health and life. So we made arrangements to make the trip. When we got to see her she was doing better, but then that night she had another bad night and couldn't sleep. The next day Joe's dad arrived and he and Joe gave her a blessing. We had to leave the next day, and she had plenty of people there for the next week to check up on her. When we called to check up on her on Monday, Joe's Aunt Jan told us that she was going to be released from the hospital on Tuesday! Wow, that was wonderful...the doctors and some of the family were baffled, but God works miracles on those who have faith. She is supposed to go back to the doctor once a week to keep check on her health since she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I don't know what the outcome will be, but I thank everyone out there for the extra prayers and I know Heavenly Father does work miracles.

I'll write more soon when we get the virus off of our computer and I can add pictures!...Did I mention we've had a weird week?!...

We're very blessed and I'll end on that note:P

It's A White Family Reunion...and no that's not racist.

Last weekend was Joe's dad's side of the family's reunion--did that make sense? Anywho, it's always a blast...and a blast from the past! Joe's great-grandma just recently died, and she had lived in this house since childhood. After her passing, one of her children, Carl, renovated the house so that he and his wife could move in(installed central A/C and actually put in a kitchen...lol). Until the '80's I'm told Joe's great-grandma had a working outhouse for herself and her guests when nature called. She was doing things like she always had and how refreshing that was to me. Joe's great-uncle Carl still farms on the land.

Here is a picture of The White House...no pun intended. This is after renovation, of course. The

extension coming out of the right side of the house is the newly added kitchen!

This is me, Joe's Aunt Jan, Brandon-our nephew-, and Joe's dad "Big Joe"

Notice the pisture in the background...there was another copy of in on a shelf behind lots of other pictures. Most of the pictures looked like familiar faces, but there were some that looked really old and generic. My mom and Joe were right beside me and I said to my mom "I wonder who these people are..." She of course responded "Don't ask me!" because she has no idea who most of the poeple are of course. Anyway, I went on to say "It's probably just some generic old photo.", I then looked around to make a case for my assumption, "Look" I said, "I mean, there's a picture of Abe Lincoln!" Just then Joe loudly exclaimed "WHAT! That's great-great-grandpa such-n-such!" I burst out into laughter to find that there were a lot of old people starring at me...OOPS! Thanks a lot Joe for being discreet! C'mon everyone, let's not be bitter toward the Union forever:P

Joe's Grandma Stansel and sister Heather

This is a replica of a picture of General Lee.

His Uncle Carl has an original letter written by General Lee that was donated to the town in which they live for it's name, Dixie, GA...it's in a safe though!

Primary Water Day!

A few weeks ago, we had a water day for all of the primary children. They had a lot of fun! It's always good when things that you've planned for a while go well! We had a lot of kids show up and we did lots of summery water games with them, including a game with water balloons...which by the way took much longer to fill up than to bust. Here are a few pictures of Mal, one mid air-you go girl-, and a great picture of one of the kids bobbing for apples!

Independence Day!! May God Bless America.

This is the Fourth of July in our little town. So many people come to see the fireworks that you'd think it was a pretty decent sized and functional town if you only visited on this day. The fireworks here are the best I've seen. They beat out the two biggest towns in the 45 mile radius. I actually had a lot of pride tonight(the good kind of course), thinking about all the people gathered together in commemoration of our independence.

Let us thank God every day for this blessed land. Happy 4th to all!