Carolina Fun

This weekend we made a trip to North and South Carolina. Jennie, my future sister-in-law and I have been wanting to get together since we live so close (well not too far) from each other. So we finally found a weekend that would work with her intense school schedule.. she is studying to be a Physician's Assistant. So we made plans to meet up with Jennie in Morganton, North Carolina at Foothills cornmaze. It was so much fun and true to southern fashion it was designed as Noah's Ark with a cross, rainbow, sunshine (the works), it even had Faith spelled out in it. It was fun! Dustin especially loved splitting up so he could cut through the corn and scare us. While we were there we decided to take the hayride that stopped at the pumpkin patch but we only let the boys pick out a small pumpkin because the regular size ones were 6-8 dollars... which is, no offense to the farmers, a RIP OFF. We are going to get our carving pumpkins here in TN. Anyways.. we had tons of fun getting to know "Aunt" Jennie a little better and hope to do something fun with her again soon.
Towards the end of the week Dustin got an email from one of his fave mission companions and Best buddies saying he was going to be visiting his mom in Colombia, South Carolina so he was hoping that we could meet up somewhere. Well since we were already in the neighborhood we decided to drive down and see him, so after saying farewell to Jennie we made the 2-2 1/2 hour drive down to Colombia. We had fun meeting Derek's wife Jackie and reminiscing about the mission. We wished we could have spent more time with the Scheer's but we had to return home. Although our trip was short and sweet..WE HAD A BLAST! The drive there and back were BEAUTIFUL.. and the trip was so fun!

Bubble Fun

WEEKEND WONDERS

Our weekend started with a little HALLOWEEN party at our house with some friends. We decided to decorate canvas trick or treat bags with my cool HALLOWEEN sponges (they turned out much cuter, the picture shows an unfinished product). My TOTALLY AWESOME friend Tera made the TOTALLY AWESOME, FESTIVE food. She made the pasta salad with deviled eggs on top so they looked like eyeballs. She made the best eyeball juice.. it was creepy but delicious to drink. The sandwiches were cut out into halloween shapes. She decorated those adorable monster cupcakes that were too cute to eat (well almost). Plus she supplied all the festive halloween paper supplies. It was tons of fun! Saturday we woke up bright and early and went to the mountains. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.. the leaves are starting to change so it was so nice to hike in all the color. We hiked half of Abram's falls but little Mason took a spill and it was getting to treacherous for the boys so we turned around. But while on the trail we saw the AP's (missionaries) and the mission President and his wife. After the mountains we came home to watch a hopeful but disappointing TN game. The boys had fun shaking their pom poms. Then the boys and I finished the night with the Shriner circus... they LOVED IT.. I have never seen Mason sit so still, so quietly. Sorry the pics didn't turn out so well so I only posted one very dark one. The boys loved the circus even though we had to leave early so we could prepare for Sunday. Sunday we went to church then Mammaw's and Pappaw's house. We had a busy but fun weekend!

Our Weekly Adventure

Every week we go to story time at the UT gardens.. I always tell my sister about how much she would love this place.. and that she would have probably worked here or studied here if she had gone to school at UT.. SO this past week I took pictures of parts of the gardens so she could see what I was talking about. And I threw in some random pics that I thought were too cute to pass up.

Bob the Builder

Mason's latest obsession is Bob the Builder. Everytime anyone is at the computer or watching television he begs for Bob because he knows he can watch it on either one. He loves his Bob books and brother's bob clothes. Whenever we go into Walmart he becomes very excited because of the Bob ride right inside the door. And they adore my uncle Bob because they think he is BOB the builder.. they even call him that. Austin's Bob the builder doll is now his and nobody can touch it but him. He insists on wearing his bob boots with anything (although mom objects when going into public if they don't go with the outfit) And He loves to wear his bob slippers around the house too (thank you Telisa for the slippers, they have to be more comfy than the boots)Anyways needless to say when I was over my friends house the other day who has a little boy, the first thing he did was come walking out with this hat on saying mama BOB, while pointing to his head.

LONG weekend

This is how the boys put themselves to sleep yesterday for nap.. I had laid Mason in bed but I guess he still wanted to play for a little longer and past out while playing. Then a little later..I came out of the bathroom to find Austin out cold like this.. must be comfortable.

Are they talking to me?

Conference never ceases to amaze me, my questions and concerna are always answered. I know that they are truly inspired by the Lord I look forward to this weekend every April and October. This conference in particular.. life has been filled with stresses and being a mom has really been overwhelming lately. It was a very rewarding experience for Dustin and I and I am glad we got to attend it. We ended up having to attend all of the sessions at the church because we couldn't get the sound to work properly on our computer. But it turned out to be a great experience.. the boys didn't go nuts until the very last session which is understandablo that is when I start to get a little restless too. Anyways I LOVED ALL the talks this time.. they all touched on something I needed to hear, however, some that really stood out to me were President Uchtdorf's talk on Hope. Elder Wirthlin's talk (his story about the blind date was so HILARIOUS).. I loved how he said to Laugh.. laugher really does help.. I find myself laughing as a mother ALOT. President MOnson's talk in the sunday morning session was great too.. ok so I just loved them all. Please comment/share what your favorite talk or quote of conference was.. I love to read aobut them.

The "Unthinkable"

Back in August I had blogged about how Austin allowed a bird to sit on his arm. Well the picture has finally arrived! For those of you who don't know my Austie.. this is a big deal..he likes animals and bugs from a distance but if they try to come near him he basically freaks out.. so lets just say that when I told Dustin about it he couldn't believe it. This is proof that the "unthinkable" really did take place!

Under Water

For those of you who don't know we had an unfortunate occurance during our "relaxing" Sunday nap... we were woken up by Austin banging on the door yelling mommy, daddy there is water.. water is everywhere. So we jumped out of bed. My feet were greated with a nice sloshy feeling as I went to open the door. The edge of my pants quickly became soaked from inches of water flowing from the bathroom. Something had happened with the toilet! So we quickly soaked up as much water as we could,and moved the furniture and junk so that it was not near the wetness. We called Emergency Maintenance. They came and said we needed to depart for the night so we packed up and went to Mammaw and Pappaw's house. We ended up being there until Tuesday morning. However our apt was still not ready for us so Dustin went to work and the boys and I crashed at our friends the Stockings all day. Tera ended babysitting the boys while I came down to help Dustin fix the carpet and move furniture back into place. Needless to say the apt is still in disarray but at least we are living here again. Below are pictures of some of the flooded areas and our adventures at Mammaw's. The pics don't really do justice and you can't really see but they will help us remember this wonderful adventure!

Women's Conference Pictures

This is a picture of the friends I sat with to eat dinner and do the service project.

I am sorry this picture turned out fuzzy but it was a picture of the lovely white dots we painted on the ornaments for the children's hospital to sell at the fantasy of trees.