Christmas in Tennessee

Me and my fixing to be sister in law Amanda.
Ashley and her boyfriend Kyle. He has 2 pluses in his favor... he is a BOYSCOUT and he has straight A's. :)Ashley and her best friend Tripp.
Ashley and I enjoying the snow in downtown Franklin.

We had such an awesome day. It started snowing and snowed harder and harder as the day went on. By the time we left to go home we slid alot. School is canceled tomorrow and Mom and Ashley get a "snow day". Yeahhhh. Dad and I are seeing the nutritionist and then going to spend time with Ash and Mom. Ryan and Amanda came over and we had a snow party and Ashley and I made her teacher gifts. I even got an early christmas present from Ryan and Amanda. Toooo sweet. :)

1 more wonderful day with my family and then flying back home, but don't fret... I will see them again friday when they drive down for christmas. lol

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2010-12-11 BDay at Tennessee

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I am having an awesome visit with my family in Tennessee. I got to watch Ashley perform with her show choir and attend a IHS basketball game and watch Ashley cheer. Needless to say it was a very rough school with police presence and "Momma Bear" had to come out, but we had a blast. I love watching Ashley perform in anything she does. I also got to watch Ashley practice partner stunts with her cheer partner Tripp. They are awesome!!! The following video is them practicing. This is super hard. I watched them pratice over and over and over.

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No More Chemo Cruise

Ashley and Mom posing by our ship the Carnival Triumph. Each night we had diner at a table that overlooked the ocean. It was definitely adventures in eating. I had duck, lobster, steak, and tons of other great food. Everyone's (except mine) fav dessert was the melted choc cake. My fave was the creme brulee, but they only had it one night. Mmmm.

At Progresso we got some awesome bottle cokes. I think they were so good b/c we were sooooo hot.

Look how excited we look. My Mom has decided that this is the only way to spend a family vacation. She was already planning our next cruise before this one was over. I soooooo can't wait. It was so much fun. I loved spending all of the time with my family.

Me looking out over the deep blue water. The wind was awesome. It was so relaxing. Just we learned quick "Skirt alert". haha

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Chemo is over!!!

Chemo is over and I hope to have more time to keep up with my blog. I hope to publish it for me one day like a scrapbook. It would be pretty neat to read about all of our precious memories. I am going to add the No More Chemo cruise pictures soon. I can't believe it's almost been a solid year since I have updated my blog. It was just hard keeping up with my caringbridge, blog, and Facebook. I chose Facebook. Sorry. If anyone knows how to have their blog printed please let me know. Tks.

2009 Girl Scout Mall LockIn

LeAnn, Hannah, & Abbie. Super excited before all of the activities started.

Sorry I couldn't move the pictures so they are backwards. Sorry The above picture is Emily & Savannah trying hard not to go to sleep. Sleep won later. lol

Brooke, Paige, Symphanie and her Mom after all of the activities winding down for the rest of the night. (2 hrs haha)

Anna-K was already asleep, but Katie and Danielle stayed up playing all night long. Katie wanted to go home at the beginning of the night, but I convinced her to stay for the activities and she ended up having a blast and giggled and played all night long. She'll definitely want to go to next years mall lockin. :)

Kailey, Amber ? (can't tell from this picture), and Sycoia (our tagalong which is does not have a troop so she hung out with us all night) See all girl scouts are sisters at heart. Even if they are not in our troop they are friends of ours b/c we are all girl scouts.

Then we have LeAnn & Hannah. 2 Peas n a Pod. Super sweet.

Here are some pictures of us line dancing. Yeah I didn't get to get out there this year, but all the other mother's did. I bet this is what they look forward to every year. lol The girls love it also.

Katie line dancing.

Sarah, Danielle, & Morgan line dancing.

Alyssa getting her nails done with Sycoia watching.

Katie & Ashley getting their nails done.

Anna-K getting her nails done. The Kappa Delta Sorority girls are awesome to the girl scouts. They helped with the line dancing, craft, nail painting, & pizza. The ULM RN students taught handwashing and the girls really learned it. I was amazed. You would think at 2 am they'd be too tired to learn something, but they weren't.

Here's little Miss LeAnn getting her nails done.

And Morgan.

And Abbie.

Here's the girls learning handwashing.

Here is Sarah & Ashley doing the craft. They made bath salt. Mom's the recipe is rock salt, 2 drops of food coloring (no more), and 2 drops of whatever smell you'd like. Hope you all enjoy it.

Here's Abbie making the bath salt.

Here is our whole group minus the 8 Mom's that helped. Thank you super super super much Mom's. I could not have done it without you. That is a fact. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some of the Mom's: Dana, Jennifer, Sherry, & Kelli. We initiated the new Mom's in good with the Mall LockIn and staying up all night. It was fun though. Dana, Sherry, Jennifer, and I are repeat Mom's. We had so much fun last year we couldn't wait to attend it again. Hope my new Mom's feel the same way for next year. lol

Here's one of my new Mom's and her 2 girls: Tru & Alyssa.

Here is Emily & Hannah enjoying the pizza after the movie.

Here's another one of my new Mom's Serena and her daughter Morgan enjoying the pizza with Katie.

Here is Symphanie, Sycoia, & Paige enjoying the movie. We saw "Cloudy with the chance of Meatball." It was great. I don't usually like kid movies, but this one was good.

Here is Sycoia, Katie, Brooke, & Sarah waiting patiently for the lockin to start.

Brooke, Sarah, Ashley, & Morgan with their build a bears.

Emily & Savannah Don't you just love their swap hats. :) Cute.

Here is my three muskateers: Danielle, Katie, & Anna-Katherine.

Amber, Alyssa, & Natalie my little group for the evening. They were super sweet and I loved watching how much fun they had.

Paige & Symphanie excited for the evening to start.

All in all we had a blast. We had a few go to bed early, but we put our campout spot in the quietest spot in the mall so that worked out. Since I had lots of help this year we split the group up and that mad the scavenger hunt work this year. It also probably helped that I warned the girls that if this year's scavenger hunt went badly like the last 2 yrs we would immediately stop and not do it next year definitley. The girls earned it for next year. Yeah girls!!!! Thank you for making the night easy on me and having a great time. You all are super girls and I am so glad you all are in my troop. I am so looking forward to making this year of girl scouts loads of fun for you all.

Mrs. Brandi

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Chef Brooke

Brooke's fav hobby is cooking. She loves watching the cooking network and I am so about helping my kids work towards their goals. Ash has watched the weather channel since she was 3 and now she knows shw wants to be a meterologist and Brooke wants to be a chef. So in helping Brooke I bought her a kids cookbook and let her pick the menu then I took her shopping and showed her where everything was at the grocery store. Once we got home she did the cooking. I told her what to do and she enjoyed every second. She made a tropical fruit dip that was super with strawberries and grapes to dip in it, a salad for me and her, spagetti pie (which Jason had 5 helpings it was so good), and dirt and worms for dessert. We ate by candlelight and used my good dishes and my rarely used tea glasses. Brooke announced when it was time to move on to the next course and she had a blast with everyone (including Jarrett) saying how good everything tasted. Afterwards everyone helped me clear the table. It was a great family night. Next up: Game night for us. Jarrett and Brooke picking out the next Brooke's supper night menu.

Jarrett being super good. He patiently waited until Brooke announced we could eat.

My little chef super proud of her supper.

She did a great job. I was very suprised how well she did for an 8 yr old.

See how good the spagetti pie looks. Mmmmm It was good.

Brooke cutting the strawberries for the fruit tray.

Brooke browning the hamburger meat. Yeah I was right there the whole time helping.

The kids and I love Halloween so much that they just couldn't wait to take pictures of their costumes. Yes this is a witch outfit, but we aren't wearing the hat just the dress and we bought a 50's looking hat and I will make her face look pale and ghostly.

Jarrett is going to be Optimus Prime from Transformers.

I'm glad we bought it early so they still had tons in their sizes to pick out. My kids love the Halloween store by the house. Jarrett only cried once while we were in there, but he didn't want to leave when I finally had to pry them out the door. They love to look at all of the scary stuff.

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