Happy 13th Wedding Anniversary, Maynard!

                                                                  March 27, 1999
Don't we look like little kids?  Not bragging or anything, but I think I still look the same, but Maynard looks so young.  Poor thing, being married to me has aged him over 13 years!

Here's a few pics, but they are not very good quality, this was pre-digital days.

My bridesmaids: (from left to right) *Tara Parker (Maynard's neice)
                                                      *Christy Hodge (My sister)
                                                      *Melissa Harper (My Youngest sister)
                                                      *Me (lol)
                                                      *Annette Walls (Maid of Honor)
                                                      *Angela Day (Oldest Sister)
                                                      *Rachel Grimes (2nd Cousin)

                                      I Loved my Cathedral train.  The favorite part of my dress.

                        Lighting of the unity candle.  Our preachers, Jim Suits and Kevin Prisock.

Our entire wedding party. (except my bible bearer, he was eating.  Said he hadn't had one bean that day) lol

Maynard's Groomsmen (left to right) *Terry Baker-Friend of Maynard's
                                                         *Michael Hodge- My brother-n-law
                                                         *Kenny Day- My brother-n-law
                                                         *Todd Harper- My brother
                                                         *Mike Carpenter- Best Man & pastor at the time
                                                         *Brian Harper-My oldest brother
                                                         *Jacob Harper- (1st little boy) my baby brother who is now
                                                                                   19 and getting married in June.  YIKES!
                                                         *Corey Fugate-Friend of Maynard (The one who left to go eat, ha!)

Aren't my flowers beautiful? I would still choose the same boquet today if I had too!

                       I love this man, ya'll! I am such a blessed person to have him in my life!

Ever tried to cross arms and drink punch with someone who is 6ft 6in tall? I don't think we ever got a true sip!

See me in our car? That is all dress in there.  It took 2 people to shove my dress all the way in the car!

Anyways, just thought ya'll might want to stroll down memory lane with me. I can't hardly believe it has been 13 years already.  13 years and 3 kids later! I am truly blessed.  Yeah I whine and complain, but I am so happy with my life.  God gave me a promise when I was a teenager that said, "I will instruct you and teach you in the ways that thou shalt go and I will direct thy paths." Psalms 32:8.  Well, here I am today.  Maynard and I have been through a lot.  A few car wrecks, death in families, church trials, unemployment, and other hard battles, but look where we are today! Maynard works hard to provide for us and I get to stay at home and raise our children.  We are blessed to send our 6 year old to a christian school.  I used to have a great job and made good money with great benefits.  I had opportunities left and right to succeed and keep moving up.  But what happened? God blessed me with a baby and changed my priorites.  Money isn't important to me anymore.  Yeah, I like it and it makes life easier, but I'm where I'm supposed to be and wouldn't change a thing!

I'm gonna leave ya with a quote of something Maynard said to me when we first got engaged, :
"I'm glad God gave you me".  Oops, did he really say that? Lol  Yes, he did.  We have laughed so hard over the years about that.  He meant to say he was glad God gave me to him, but got messed up! ha ha  Love it!!

Signs of Springtime

                        Yep, a dirt ring in the bathtub! Sure fire sign of springtime at my house!!!!!!!

My kids are loving all this warm weather.  I wish I had my yard fenced in because I have so much to do in the house and my kids are begging to go outside.  I live on a deadend road so I can kind of trust Josiah and Titus, but Amelia demands to be out there right beside of them. Josiah promises to keep an eye on her, but he's a little forgetful.  I opened all the windows and raised the blinds and tried to keep watch that way. 

We have started in on our second week of revival with Bro. Rocky Kirk and I have been buried up to my ears in laundry.  I got so tickled at myself the other day when I decided to count how many pairs of socks I had just folded.  The grand total: 38 pairs!!!! It was either wash them or go buy new ones at this point.  Hey, we had clean laundry to wear to church that night, but I can't promise about the hot water for baths and showers!! Ha!

So, most people post flowers and trees in full bloom at the first sign of spring.
Me? Dirt rings in the bathtub!!

Enjoy this awesome weather, ya'll!

Goodbye, Papaw Taylor

I lost another Grandparent last week.  This was my Papaw Taylor, my Mom's Dad. We didn't see him very often because it was always a 5 hour trip to go and visit him, but we took as many trips as we could in the summer to go and visit him.  He lived in a Cabin on a little farm and all 7 of us kids had the best time in the world when we went to visit him.  He was the lovey, huggy type and always had a hug for us.  I truly loved my Papaw, and will miss him greatly. 

His funeral was in Morristown, Tennesse this past Sunday.  Let me go into great detail how my weekend first started.

Friday night- I received a phone call, "Hi, Amy, this is Christy you care if we crash at your house Saturday night and then leave for the funeral on Sunday?"  I say, "Of course, that is fine, we would love to have you."  So I hang up the phone and furiously start doing some housework.  Now, I had cleaned all day and my house looked pretty good, but not company good if you know what I mean. 
I got my house clean and we all hit the bed at 9:30 because the next morning we were going to have cleanup day at my friend, Michelle's house from the tornado damage.

Saturday night- Rise and shine, time to go to work.  I was trying to figure out exactly how much work I would be able to get done with 3 small kids and broken glass and trees everywhere, when a dear friend called and asked for my boys to come over and play.  How awsome was that? Perfect timing for sure.  Now that left Amelia.  I asked her if she wanted to go to Mamaw Tara's house.  Her reply, "nope."  I really didn't think she would stay without her brothers, but I dropped her off and she walked right in toting her purse.  We headed to work.  We didn't end up getting there until around 11, but we worked hard until around 5 pm and that was only because my phone was ringing.  "When in the world was I going to go and pick up my kids?"
So, we left and picked up our kiddos and headed to the house to give them baths because somehow they were even more dirtier than me and Maynard were.  My sister and brother-n-law, their 3 kids and my younger brother all arrived.  After baths and a change of clothes we were ready to go find some supper.  My brother-n-law said anything I was fixing would be just fine.  Ha!!!! So after he was quickly shot down it took us an hour to all agree on where we were going to eat.  We ended up at Ruby Tuesday's.  There was a little wait and we were starved.  The hostess asked us again how many kids we had, which was 6.  My brother-n-law (he is hilarious ya'll) said, "6 right now, but might be 7 by the time we sit down to eat.  It struck me funny and I still laugh about it when I think about it.
We went home and I went straight to making beds for everyone and ironing church and funeral clothes.  Then I had to prepare for my Sunday School lesson.  It was 1 a.m. by the time I layed my weary body down in the bed.  And the good news???????? We lost an hour that night.  Out of all the most inconvenient times to lose an hour of sleep was this particular weekend!!! ARRGGGHH!

Sunday-My alarm goes off at 7 and I let off a string of profanity.  (ha, just kidding)
Me and Maynard quickly dress and start laying out the big breakfast I have prepared.  Yep, I went all out with not only chocolate donuts, but also had white sugar ones too.  I am the all-time, most favorite, best hostess ever!
We went to Sunday School and took my neice and nephew with us while it was time for the 2nd shift to get up and shower and get ready.  I'm not sure if my water heater held up or not, I was too afraid to ask.  After Sunday school we met back up with them and stopped to eat lunch at Sonny's BBQ.  Our server was laughing because we had semi-undressed our kids while they ate so they wouldn't get dirty.  They had napkins in the front of their clothes and all bbq sauce and ketchup bottles were conviscated. She said, "why did you bring your kids to eat bbq when you are dressed for a funeral?"  Good question, I know, but ya'll we didn't have an hour to spare to all agree on another restaraunt again so this was agreed the night before.
We left and headed to the funeral home.  We arrived around 3 and the funeral service started at 7, so it was a long time for us and all our kids to sit and behave that long.  They got in trouble several times, but it truly was hard on them to behave.  The bad thing was my Papaw's casket was very unsteady.  Me and my sister-n-law had a small bet going of who's kid was going to tip him over first.  My dollars was on Titus, but thankfully he never got dumped out.  However, I was told that Titus was spotted running up to the casket and tapping my Papaw right on the forehead.  Now, I didn't actually see it happen so I'm going to pretend that he was framed.  We got there about 15 mins before my Mom did.  So when Titus seen her come in he ran to her and screamed, "Mamaw, Papaw Taylor is dead, he really is." This made my Mom laugh and kind of eased the tension a little.
I was very pleased that my whole family got to be at the funeral and support my Mom.  It was a 5 hour drive for most of them and I know it was a sacrafice, but I know my Mom appreciated it.  It's not easy to get not only 7 adults plus spouses and their children all in one place at the same time.  Well, we did have a few of the smaller ones that didn't get to make it.  And if I had it to do over, I probably would have left a few of my kiddos behind.  It's kind of hard to grieve, when your 2 yr old is feeding goldfish to her 4 year old cousin in the pew in front of her and her 4 year old brother is screaming he is bad, bad hungry and Mill-Mill won't share.
We made it though the funeral and the big group of us headed to eat at cracker barrel.  If I was the server that night at cracker barrel, I probably would have just quit right there.  I'm telling you, our kids have eat out so much that they know how to order a server around.  13 kiddos and 11 adults!!! Wow!!!
We made it home and crashed into bed.  I didn't set my alarm and I let Josiah sleep right on through his school day.  I knew he was wore out and I wasn't going to make him go to school when I knew I would have to beat him to get up out of the bed.

So that was my weekend! Oh yeah, we also started revival Monday night too!!!  See, I told you, I could really have used that extra hour this weekend!!!

This is so unrelated, but I have to share....................
My kids are at the library in their story time while I'm typing this out.  A lady came up to me with a notebook in her hand and said, "excuse me, but is the little girl with the yellow bow belong to you?"  I jump up and say, "WHAT DID SHE DO?"  The lady starts laughing and ends up being a reporter for the newspaper and she was just doing a story and had took her picture for the paper.  How exciting is that??????

See ya next week>>>>

I don't have time to spell check and proofread so please ignore the typos.  I really need to go watch my kids before they really do, do something!!!

Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore

As many of you know, we were hit with a horrible tornado last Friday night.  I am blessed to say that my family or home was untouched.  I wish I could say the same about some dear friends of mine.  A great church friend of mine lives in East Bernstadt where the tornado killed 5 people.  Her road is an absolute mess.  Her brother's trailer that sets real close to her house, was completely blown away.  He had took shelter with her in her basement and was fine, but her other brother was still in the trailer with his 2 small kids.  The storm threw him out along with his 7 yr old daughter and 3 yr old son.  He has suffered a few broken bones and ribs, but he is gonna be fine.  The 3 yr old boy was sent to UK hospital, but he is fine too.  I am so glad that they weren't hurt any worse than what they were.  Friday night was a fearful night for all of us and I hope we dont have to deal that again anytime soon.  Here's a few pictures, but honestly, pictures doesn't even give you a little hint of how bad this area looks. 

This is Michelle's Road.

Michelle's Driveway.

What's left of her brother's trailer.

Her neighbor's house.

More pics of her rd.

And what was going on at my house?????????????

According to Amelia we were hiding from the storm.  Anytime it thunders, she says, "Let's hide".  (Please don't judge me on my gothic storage room.  We have not touched this room in our house other than to keep piling it high with junk.  Evidently, there was a gothic teen who lived in this room and painted it black, yuck!)

Here's a video clip that Michelle's brother was interviewed on CBS if you guys want check it out to hear the story. I can't even begin to tell it all of what happened so check it out!!!!
http://cbsnews.com/video/eveningnews/
His name is Jason Jackson.  I hope I did this right.

I got to go shopping!!!

So last Saturday it was declared girl's day out. Being that I'm not really social with a whole lot of women, this only involved 2 of my friends at my church. I would love to say that my husband volunteered to watch all my kids and I enjoyed the day completely child free, but................. that's not exactly how it happened. Amelia is actually a girl. So, it was completely fair for her to be able to enjoy girl's day out with us, right??? Well, that was her dad's intake on the whole situation. Maynard did keep the boys and that was so helpful. We left around 9:30 Saturday morning and stayed gone until 11 o'clock that night. I had so much fun and Amelia was absolutely amazing. I never had not one problem out of her. She really shocked me at how good she was. She was perfectly happy to sit in her stroller and she even used the potty at about every bathroom stop we took. She enjoyed getting her own kid's meals and not having to share off of anyone's plate. But back to me, I think the Lord knew I needed a peaceful day and blessed me with a great one. I stopped in at Children's Place and got an awesome deal on Easter outfits for the kids. Yes, they match again, Duh!!! LOL Sorry, I know that Josiah keeps getting bigger and very soon that's going to be hard to do for much longer. I got all 3 outfits for $93. That's about what I spent on each suit alone last year by the time I got all the hemming done. Rephrase, by the time I paid to have the hemming done!!!!
Anyways, I was able to come home and be able to face everything again with a whole new breath. I love my kids, but sometimes, I just have to get away. Usually by a couple hours I'm ready to go home and see them again. I can't imagine being away from them for a whole night! Bedtime is a whole different story.
Well, duty calls! It's babygarten time at the library!!!

Winter 2012 Family Trip

Ya'll I have decided to start my own blog.  I have no earthly idea what I'm doing and one day when its not so late, I will figure out how to post pictures and all that stuff.  I just thought since we had some free days available to take a little 3 day trip that I would share a little bit about it with you all. (sounds like I have great faith that people will actually be reading this.)

Maynard is a contract empoyee which means he never gets off work for paid holidays or vacations or any of that good stuff.  He came home Thursday evening and announced that he didnt have to work on Monday, President's day and would I like to go to Gatlinburg for a few days.  Immediately, we began calling trying to reserve a cabin.  Everything was booked solid because of Valentine's weekend.  We made so many phone calls.  We had already arrived in Pigeon Forge on Friday and finally called the Chamber of Commerce.  They gave us a few extra numbers to try.  Well, we were so excited!!!!!  We found a cabin.  Sounded just like what we were looking for.  However, it was higher than what we had planned on paying, but we realized we didn't have much of a choice, pay a little extra more or get a regular boring motel room.  Like any other reservation, we had to pay for the reservation over the phone.  The owner said he needed to go clean the cabin real quick and would meet us at the office and for us to call when we got close.  So after 20 mins the owner calls and says the cabin is ready.  I'm thinking, ........20 mins.  It took you only 20 mins to clean a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom cabin?? So we arrive at the office and go in to talk to the owner.  He showed us pictures of the cabin and it looked fairly nice.  You can look for yourself at www.gatlinburg.com/pine/.  Its the one called Hilltop Hideaway.  The  manager explained that those pictures were kind of outdated and a little old.  He even said the front yard looked like a bomb had exploded because they were laying gas pipelines and never got around to fixing it, but hey, he was getting free gas now.  By this time, me and Maynard are eying each other like, "what have we got ourselves into."  This is our most absolute favorite thing he said that day before we made our deciding factor, "now, you all will have to provide your own toilet paper."  I'm sorry, but this man just swiped my debit card a few hours earlier for $422.79 and just told us we had to provide our own toilet paper????????????? Was we ready to go see the cabin now? "No, thank you , sir, but if you will kindly refund our money we will be on our merry way."  Scary and unsettling news? His credit card machine is located at his house not in the office and he has to go home and run our credit back through on our debit card.  I have grieved myself all weekend over this money.  I called the bank and see where the charge was taken out, but no credit has come through yet.  We called the owner and he said he ran it through, but it might take a few days for it to show up at the bank. That has somewhat caused a damper on the rest of our trip because we were budgeted an X amount of $ for the trip and now we had to pay for another place to stay.  We lost $422 to spend on shopping and activities on this trip.  Somehow our money has stretched like we needed it to and my kids haven't been deprived (unless you count them not getting to ride go-karts)  Did you know that it cost $23 for Maynard and the boys to play putt-putt golf? That's one round of golf people, not an all you can putt-puttdeal.
So anyways, we ended up getting a good deal on a family suite motel  not the nicest room there ever was, but its 2 bedroom and only $45/night and its very clean.

Day #2
We ate breakfast at McDonalds.  (Maynard doesn't seem to know that other restaraunts serve breakfast too)  Then we headed to The Titantic.  We actually enjoyed that pretty well, except it was a little boring to the kids.  Maynard and I love to read everything, but our kids were driving us insane!!! Josiah was mad because we never went up on deck of the ship.  I tried to explain that they didnt include that in the tour and boy was he dissappointed.  Me and Maynard didnt survive the Titantic, but all our kids did.  Titus actually got to be "jack" and Josiah was a hero.  Amelia married a rich man and she was a survivor too.  We ate lunch at Texas Roadhouse (my favorite restaraunt) and then played putt-putt golf.  We went to a few stores like Hammers and Goodwill (of course), but we didnt buy anything.  We bought bologna and bread and headed back to the motel and rested.

Day#3
We slept in today.  We missed the 10:30 deadline for breakfast at Mcdonalds(I promise you all, it was not intentional) so we splurged and went to Shoney's.  We only had to pay for one kid's meal. Yay!  Then we stopped over in a little shopping outlet where they had an Old tyme photo shop set up.  I really wanted a family portrait so I just mentioned it to Maynard and he said, "sure, let"s go".  I was a bit nervous with how my kids would do for us, but it was amazing.  They all loved playing dress-up.  The boys chose to be confederate soldiers and Amelia wore a beautiful dress.  She chose her hat and all her accessories on her own.  One included a huge, big gawdy, gold purse which later the photographer was able to trade a baby doll for in exchange. The pictures turned out okay, but i was plum shocked to death when it was time to pay.  I'm beginning to wonder if its really bad or if I have just become a cheapskate over the years.  We drove around awhile and found a bowling alley in the Community Center.  It was alchol free and such a nice environment that we decided to go bowling.  My boys were tickled to death.  We went in to pay and understood them to say come back in an hour because they were having a fundraiser league right then.  So we drug the kids away and promised to take them back in an hour.  An hour later we went back.  Got to the counter and they said, "Once a year we have a fundraiser day and today is that day and we are charging $15 per person to bowl.  Hmmm, $60 for my family to bowl one game??? Sorry, not today.  The normal charge, $2.50 per person.  So we promised the kids we will try to go back the next day when it was cheaper. By now they are so tore up that I happen to look up and see a Mr.Gaitti"s.  I figured that might help make up for thir dissapointment and it did help somewhat.  However, I noticed Josiah barely ate 2 peices of pizza,  Keep in mind that he has eaten 9 slices before in one trip.  I figured maybe he was excited about playing games and didnt want to eat.  Maynard said, "I really would like to go the Flea-market they have here."  So we headed that way to realized they were closing in about 20 mins and the vendors were packing up.  By then Maynard said, "let's just head back to the hotel."  On the way back Josiah said, "I don't feel good.  I think I have a fever.  My belly hurts. Josiah is known for his dramatics so I wasn't too alarmed.  We got back to the room and I put the kids in the tub to get ready to go to The Dixie Stampede later that evening. Josiah jumps out of the tub and throws up in the toilet.  Then he says he feels better.  I go ahead and give him some ibproffen because he mentioned his head hurting and I thought well this will help until maybe after the show tonight.  He started acting better and we were off to The Dixie Stampede.  We were enjoying the show.  Amelia had to sit in my lap and I had to share my food with her in order to not have to pay for her a ticket.  She laid claim on my food.  She ate my garlic cheese biscuit, and my "bologna", (slice of pork), she ate my corn on the cob, a few bites of my chicken.  She took over my pop and cried if I even tried to get a sip.  The worst part was she took my apple turnover too!!!!! She drank so much pop that she peed through her clothes on me not once, but twice.  This story gets better ya'll, I really hope your still reading.  Remember the part about Josiah not feeling well before we went?  Anybody know what I'm fixing to say??????????? Throughout the whole show I kept asking Josiah, "Are you ok"? He would always say, "Yes, Im fine."  The only thing he was interested in eating was his soup and biscuit.  We had about
15 mins left of the show.  When I heard, "Mom, I'm gonna puke."  If any of you all have ever been to the Dixie Stampede before then you know how you are all crowded in and sitting next to people you don't know.  Well I helped pull him up to the step behind us.  As soon as he stood up straight he literally puked all over a man behind us and all over their table.  The man jumped up and hollered and I just grabbed Josiah and ran to the bathroom.  I was trying to clean him up and I started bawling and couldn't stop.  Josiah thought I was mad at him and I had to explain that I wasn't mad and it wasn't his fault, I was just upset.  After cleaning him up I made the dreaded trip back to get my purse and tell Maynard why we had to leave while sobbing on every breathe.  I didn't have to worry about seeing the people he puked on.  They had packed up their stuff and left.  We left and I continued to cry and Josiah continued to feel worse.  I went to Walgreens and found him something for his stomache.  I checked his temp and it was 101. He has a headache and is chilling all over.  I guess this is just the joys of Motherhood as they say.  We are back in the motel room and it's almost 1 a.m. and here I sit venting away at the keyboard.

Guess what? We probably won't go bowling tomorrow before we leave.  Guess what?  My kids are going to be so dissappointed once again.  Guess what? We have 5" of snow waiting for us when we get back home.  Guess what? I want to go home sweet home?

Dear friends, this was my first blog.  Normally, I wont write so much, but somehow I really needed to get this off my chest.  Even if I can't even figure out how to actually get this posted.  Good night, Ya'll!

Amy