A Labor of LOVE...

 It's time to grill at our house! The smell of a grill heating up brings back so many memories:
Summer Days hanging out around Nonna and Poppa's pool in Farmington grilling burgers.
Camping at Devil's Den and eating grilled veggies and chicken legs.
The year we  lived in the camper while we built our house on the mountain and EVERY meal was grilled, pancakes and all.

I believe that was year Jay fell in love with shishkabobs! The idea of shishkabobs is a beautiful thing. They are pretty and they taste wonderful but it is a process that requires love. First, you have to marinade the meat. Then you cut up all the veggies. Next it is time to put it all on the sqewers! (This is when the hand cramp sets in!) Praise the Lord I married a man that is a master on the grill!!!

As I was preparing this dish for my loving husband this past weekend I realized, once again, how hard you have to work to creat a shishkabob but how happy Jay was about the fact we were having shishkabobs!!

I would have to say that it may be my least favorite thing to prepare for the grill but I hope I get the priviledge of preparing them for my, sweet grill master of a, husband for many years to come!!!
I love you, Honey!

Loving Spring

On one of the first warm spring days Claira made a pallet for Paxton (our sweet nieghbor & Claira's "Little Brother") outside under the umbrella. It was sweet to see the two of them relaxed in the warm sun.

Spontaneous Helicopter Ride!

Step 1 move the helicopter out of the hanger.

 Jay met a friend in LPN school who is a
helicopter pilot. Jay, JT and I got to take a ride in the helicopter for FREE. It was so awesome! It was the first time any of us had been in a helicopter and I have to say that I am a fan...a big fan! I could just picture us in Africa flying over a herd of elephants running on the plains...what a sight that would be. I was begging JT to become a pilot one day so that we could take adventures from the sky all over the world!

Step 2 take a picture before the ride.

Step 3 beg your son to become a pilot!!

Our shadow is on  top of the building.

Claira's Birthday Party #3!!

February 27th!

This was the unveiling of the doll house! Claira asked for her doll house, which was one my dad had made for me, to be “made over” for her birthday. The entire month of February was spent making trips to Nonna & Poppa’s to work on the house. You guys did amazing working helping me with the house. It turned out just perfect and she has played with it just about every day since having it back.

Claira chose Cajun Chicken Pasta for lunch and Strawberry Cake for dessert! It was great to have everyone there to celebrate.

Claira,
It has been wonderful to see you grow and watch how you are becoming a woman but thank you for not growing up too fast! I am so glad that you desire to keep your imagination as long as possible and that you still enjoying playing will your doll house, American Girl dolls & Webkins. You are so incredibly creative in how you play and l love listening in and hearing all the clever dialog you come up with. By listening to you I can tell that you are going to be a wonderful wife, mother & friend!
I love you Angel Face!

Claira's Birthday Party #2

We celebrated Claira and Poppa Jerry’s Birthday together @ Grandma and Poppa Jerry’s house in Rogers.

The best part was our special guest Uncle Carl. What a great weekend we had catching up.  Although, it was quite strange to not have Andrea, Madison, Nathan & Lauren there it was good “guy time” for Jay and Carl.

Jay met Carl while they were in avionics school in Memphis, TN. Carl and Andrea married the weekend before us the same year. Both Carl and Jay were stationed to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station at the same time but attached to different squadrons. Our friendship grew deeper after JT was born. God has really used them in our lives in so many ways. I was looking through pictures the other day and we have been blessed to see the Daggett’s every year since we all moved from Whidbey Island. It is so wonderful to have friends that you don’t have to see every day but when you get together again it is like a day hasn’t gone by.

Happy Birthday to Claira! #11

Claira was very clever this year in her old age of almost 11 and decided to have an early party at Bighouse with a few of her closest friends.

It is amazing to me how fast time goes by and how more and more beautiful Claira is becoming inside and out.

With Katie Anne, Miriam, Meghan, Emma, Claira & Jessica we made cards and tie dyed t-shirts.

I have to say I believe my favorite part was the cake she chose. Chocolate cake covered in milk chocolate ganache filled with peppermint ice cream! Wonderful!

She would say here favorite part was opening the presents! (Still almost 11)

Let Snow....& Snow....& Snow!

This February we have had some incredible weather. We had two rounds of snow back to back. We all decided the Lord must have known that we needed a rest even though we didn't. With school cancelled and roads iced over we spend 5 days straight at home having jammie days and soup with the neighbors!

Another great thing about living in the Woodway community is that there are always plenty of people to play in the snow or borrow cooking ingredients from when it is too cold to run to the store!

Little did we know that we would go back to school for a day before we recieved another round of snow that was 2 feet deep!! So, for another 5 days we stayed in our jammies sharing food with neighbors and watching movies!

Thanksgiving Traditions....White Family Style

Grandma & Grandpa White love having all who can come together for thanksgiving. They were so kind to rent a lake house for all of us "Out of Towners" to stay in. The family members that weren't able to come were missed greatly!! It was nice to see all the Aunts and Uncles together again. Baby Reece made his debue and was a great hit. His poor little cheeks were probably sore from all the kisses they received. It iced and snowed on Thanksgiving day but Grandpa braved the weather to sit at the table covered with Blue Willow dishes and delicous food.

Pecan Pie!

Family Photo!

Connie & Jerry with Levi and Jay. We missed you Lori!

Ryan, Nikki & Reece

Thanksgiving "On the Mountain"

We have been snowed in for five days so I am trying to catch up on all my blogging for 2010 so that I can start blogging 2011.

Thanksgiving "ON THE MOUNTAIN" is always full games, food and noisy, mostly happy kids. We enjoy fried turkey, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, chocolate pecan pie, and Nanny's famous chocolate dream pie. I appreciate that my parent's put no presure on us to be at their house on "the day". Most holiday's we celebrate early so that we can all be together. This year we celebrated Thanksgiving the Saturday before. We had great weather so we played games outside. Everyone stayed all day long so we were able to eat lunch and dinner together. Thanksgiving leftovers are the best!

Worship begins...

JT you have been blessed with the ablity to play music!

Recently he has been playing in the worship band at his youth group. He wrote a speech on worship that he gave to his speech class this month. I am very proud of his attitude toward worship and the material he put together for his speech.

What do you think of whan you hear the word Musician? Do you think of a rock star rocking out on a stage: maybe you think of a guy just playing guitar. When I hear the word musician I think of a servant. I was told once that in medieval times musicians were not like rock stars they were just known as jesters. There job was to dance an dplay music as a servant to the king.

Playing music and listening to music are great abilities that God has given us. We use music in all most everything. Music is everywhere! Even if you tried to get away from music you would probably find it really hard. I think if we did not have music it waould be very depressing. So, what I am trying to say is music is a big deal in life. Every cluture has some type of music, but even if you don't like to play music the key is to like what you do and do what you like!

When I was 11 years old I really wanted to start playing guitar, but I had no one to each me so I started to pray, a lot! A year later I went to this church event called Winter Chill and at Winter Chill there was this guy named David Murray. (He was really good at all intruments) After being scared to death of asking him I finally got up the courage to walk up to him and ask him if he would teach me guitar. He said, "Yeah Man!" After a long converstaion he was not only going to teach me guitar but teach me for free!! I was schocked! It was a big blessing from God. it was the best feeling in the world to know that I was giong to get FREE guitar lessons. I thought I was just going to learn guitar but David used guitar to teach me how to worship and what worship really is.

God made music and it can fill the empty space in our lives. 2Samuel 22:50 says,"Therefore, I will give thanks to you Oh Lord, among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name." Also, in 1 Chronicles 23L5 it says, "Four thousand praised the Lord with musical intruments, which I have made for giving praise." When I play on stage at my church it's really hard because I have the temptation to stage dive or do some cool solo. Whenever I am faced with that temptation I just remember that I am a jester to the King of Kings!