Beautiful Day

We've been watching the weather all week anticipating Sunday's beautiful weather. 

We met up with the family at a sweet little park tucked in the woods beside a neat little creek. 

Fulton is ready to practice his t-ball skills. 

And then we moved to football. 

I enjoyed catching up with my mom and sister and just 

enjoying this beautiful day with family. 

We are just so eager for warmer weather and the chance to get outside. 

The guys grilled up some hotdogs and we enjoyed a nice picnic dinner. What a sweet afternoon with special memories made. 

Life Lately

I just realized two weeks has gone by and 

I need to catch up on what's been going on.

Nothing too exciting, but we are just enjoying this season of life. 

Fulton got this remote control Jeep for Christmas from Mema and Papa and literally broke it within the first five minutes. We brought it home and it sat in the garage for the last two months. We were cleaning out last weekend and found it. Matt was able to put it back together and get it working again (yay for a hubby that can and will attempt to fix anything). Fulton couldn't have been happier. I caught these two enjoying a moment together. 

And when it comes to enjoying moments together, 

these two are pretty much inseperable at school. He loves his buddy Elijah.  

That same day, Fulton snuck over to my room to give me a quick kiss--yes he really does that and it makes my heart smile. And I said--let's take a quick picture. He loves having me right next door. I will miss it when he moves up to a new class next year. 

Two weeks ago we had our big missions week at church called World Reach. This year I was on the planning committee and was coordinator for host homes. I enjoyed having a part in this huge week and learning the behind the scenes planning. We got a picture of some of the kids in our small group sporting their snazzy World Reach shirts. Chloe, Fulton, Luke and Anna Claire. 

That Friday Fulton and I went to a few consignment sales where he picked out this saxophone of which he kept calling a trumpet all day. 

That night we participated in Feeding Children Everywhere. Our church was able to pack 111,000 meals that will be shipped to North Korea. 

 Loved serving along side these sweet ladies. It just really makes you stop and think that we have anything we could possibly want to eat at our fingertips and these precious lives are desperately waiting on these meals to arrive to curve their hunger. We take so much for granted. 

Saturday Bob and Larry were in town and we got to meet them. Fulton was super shy and gave a silly little grin, but he thought it was pretty cool. 

We enjoyed a great fellowship with our class Saturday night where we were able to hear from a particular missionary and how we can be a part of their mission work. 

Monday Fulton and I braved the drizzle and dreary day and headed to the baseball game at Matt's school. He asked a million gazillon questions about the game and was ready to put a helmet on and get on the field. Sweet boy loves some sports right now. 

We enjoyed some libray time on Wednesday and Fulton quickly made 

himself comfortable in the fiction section. 

We got to church a little early Wednesday night and he is into this thing where he wants to pretend to drive. I cannot even think about my little buddy driving one day. Sniff sniff. 

Friday night our sweet boy had a spend the night party at KK and Pops house. Earlier that day we were talking about it and he said--you can just drop me off Mommy. As in--you don't need to come in, just open the door and let me out. He thinks he is such a big boy. I tell him all the time that he is my baby and he will quickly remind me that he is  "a big boy."

Friday night Matt and I enjoyed a date night and then met up with Mom and Dad to show Fulton the Vulcan. It's been quite sometime since I have been to this and we thought Fulton would enjoy it. 

It was pretty cloudy and overcast, but the views were still beautiful. 

And as we left church today, Matt said--let's go eat Chinese. Fulton replied with--I don't want to eat at Happy China. He changed his mind pretty quick and loved some wonton soup, eggroll, and sesame chicken. He is now a lover of all things Chinese food related. 

Snow

It has been so cold lately!

We have had a late start to school several days lately and have had to stay indoors so much because of how cold it has been. 

They were predicting snow/ice for several days before and Fulton could barely stand it. Tuesday night we snuggled up before bed and talked about how we might get to play in it the next day. 

School was even cancelled in anticipation of it. 

Well, we waited all day and only saw rain... until about 8:00pm. We were about to put Fulton to bed and looked outside one more time and the flakes were coming down. I am so glad we made the decision to just head out in our PJ's and postpone bedtime. The sweet awing look on his face was worth it. 

We even had enough to scrape up a few snowballs. 

It started coming down pretty good and Fulton just couldn't believe it. 

The great snow of 2015. Our friends in North Alabama got way more than we did, but we were thankful for what we saw. 

Our sweet neighbors came over to play in it with us. The kids had a ball making snowballs and throwing them at each other. We were finally frozen and decided to call it a night. Special memories were made and it was worth it to forgo the bedtime routine for a night. 

Visitors

I have some catching up to do from the last two weeks. 

We have had lots of visitors at school lately because it's Community Helpers month. Two weeks ago the dentist came to speak. Here's Fulton and his best friend from school, Elijah. They loved it!! It was actually Fulton's dentist that came, so he thought that was pretty cool. They even got to take home some toothpaste and a new toothbrush. 

Later that night we went by KK and Pops to visit the family and have dinner with them. Fulton looks sad in this picture, but he just loves getting his snuggles. 

Last Friday Matt went out of town for a Deacon's retreat. But he left this sweet note on the mirror for me that morning. His love language is words of affirmation, so he is always 

giving that to me to fill me up. What a great way to wake up in the morning. 

Friday morning we spent some time playing with our best friends. These three are so silly when they are together, but I pray they can by lifelong friends like their mommy and I are. We headed to Chick-fil-A for lunch after a fun morning of playing together. 

Now, let's get to Friday night. I thought it might be "fun" to let him sleep with me. Hah! That was a joke. Fulton has never and I repeat never slept in our bed and I am so thankful we never started this. And it's apparent he doesn't enjoy any bed as much as his own. We made it until about 9:15 and little buddy just couldn't do it. He was flip flopping around like a fish and I finally took him to his room and he didn't object one bit. He loves his space and so do we!

Saturday morning we went to story time at the library and then we were heading to get a haircut. A much needed one. Our girl wasn't working, so we had to wait a few more days. Daddy came home that afternoon and we were so excited to see him! 

Monday we had Fulton's friend Andrew over to play. I snapped this picture of the monitor while they were playing in his room. I heard Fulton say--I locked the door. They were giggling. It was too cute!

Tuesday was a big day. The school bus came to visit. Fulton loved this!! He is constantly talking about how--when I get big, I can ride the school bus. So he was pumped to actually get on one for the first time. 

Later that morning we went to the kitchen and made muffins. This guy was a pro. I let him help in the kitchen a lot, so he was pretty comfortable with stirring the batter. 

Playing with some of his buddies at school... still needing that haircut. 

Thursday night we decided to have our dinner in front of the fire because it was so cold! 

Valentine's Love

Fulton's school Valentine's Party was today. They had to postpone it from last week because so many kids in his class were sick. 

His sweet little class. They are still missing one that wasn't feeling well. 

Chick-fil-A kids meals for lunch. Can't beat that. 

And Daddy got to come! Yay! Fulton was so excited to have him there. 

This afternoon after he woke up from his nap, we let him go through all his goodies from his friends. 

He was so proud to open them and kept asking who they were from. 

He quickly found the m&m's! We had a fun day celebrating with him!

Meeting My Man

Today I am linking up with  Andrea at Momfessionals blog to talk about Meeting My Mate!

So, here's a little background on how I met my hubby. 

 First, I will share this little gem with you from my 11th birthday party where I had a "Wedding" at my party. Guess who was the bride? Me!! Good thing my mom didn't make me wear this dress. 

Let's get started. Matt and I met our Sophomore year in college at Jacksonville State University (January 2002). We actually had a math class together our first semester of Freshman year, but didn't even acknowledge each other then. Back to Sophomore year... we had a Geography class together and I was actually dating someone at the time (but that didn't last much longer). We had class and lab together and I had an old lab book (with answers-eek!) from one of my sorority sisters and he decided to start chatting with me because... well, let's face it, he just wanted the answers. 

So we started hanging out after class and had a little "study group" going which usually ended with us going mud riding in someone's jeep, and not really studying much. So after weeks of this, cutie finally asked me out on a real date. I pretty much knew by this point that I was going to marry this man. So our first date consisted of dinner at a little diner called Cecil's Place and a drive in movie. I should tell you here that Matt was about to go off on Summer Beach Project with Campus Outreach and his disciple mentors highly discouraged him from getting into a relationship. So, he followed their lead and told me we couldn't date, but maybe when he got back from project. Thankfully he just couldn't stay away from me and quickly decided he couldn't wait that long. Insert me saying hooray~~ This is a picture of us during May term when we made a little day trip over to Six Flags. 

So we spent the rest of the month of May hanging out everyday. We would go bike riding, have picnics, cook dinner, and just truly enjoyed each other's company. During that month he came home with me one weekend to meet my family. They were pretty much hooked from the get go too. He came to the lake with our family for Memorial Day weekend and this was our last weekend together before he left for project for two months. Boo hoo!

We wrote letters, called, and sent care packages and finally my family went down mid July and we got to see him. We headed home from the beach and he only had a few weeks left before he would head back to school. Hooray!

 We spent August enjoying each other's company and many fun 

weekends at the lake with my family. 

Our Junior year was fun and we enjoyed having time just being together. 

Matt quickly became the fifth member of our family and enjoyed all our family vacations. It was on this beach trip that I later found out that he asked my dad if could marry me. This was July 2003.

This was one of our engagement photos. Precious right. We got engaged in September 2003. It was a regular Saturday night and he cooked dinner for us at my apartment. Later he suggested we go get ice cream and then we drove up to the top of this mountain in Jacksonville where you can see the whole city. Lots of sweet words, fond memories and talk about the future and it was proposal time. With one rose for each verse, he handed them to me as he read 1 Corinthians 13 out of his Bible. With that he was on one knee and asked me to marry him. Yes, yes and yes!

My family and his were so happy for us. I had not always dated the best men and I was so thankful that the Lord was so gracious to me and allowed my husband to be such a Godly man that would lead our family to serve, love, and know the Lord better. 

So we spent the rest of our Senior year enjoying our engagement and planning our wedding. I graduated in April 2004 and Matt still had one semester to go. 

We were married July 10, 2004 (just a few days after we both turned 22). We were just babies! But we knew we couldn't wait to spend the rest of our lives together. 

The next day we were off on a plane to a romantic resort in Jamaica where we spent the week. 

Here we are a couple months later for our first Christmas as a married couple. 

And now, we are coming up on our 11th wedding anniversary and I couldn't be more in love with this man. I truly can say that I grow more and more in love with him each day. He is patient, kind, selfless, humble, and gospel driven. Thank you Lord for this marriage you have allowed us to have!