What the Boys Do….

When we go to visit Paul at his office, the warehouse is the place to be! Mommy isn’t really ‘allowed’ back there. This is where the boys hang out, Elijah practices his karate, and they do things like….target practice with a nerf dart gun. David is Elijah’s practice buddy. Tonight we went to take Paul dinner because he had to stay late. Elijah brought his dart gun and took it back into the warehouse to show it off to David. He is pretty darn good, this is what happened:

 

They are too funny! They love my boys and have known them since they were in my tummy. A fun group and the boys love to visit!

ABC’s !!!

 

Finally…A Closet!!!!

It is crazy! I am still shock that we have a closet, finally! After months of saving money, going through many options, and living out of boxes – Paul got his wish of having a very nice, organized closet. I am thankful every day that he talked me out of the normal wire rack closet. We would have gotten it a lot sooner, but we wouldn’t have had nearly the storage space we do now.

Before:

Delivered!!!:

Installed!! Finally!!:

 

 

It even has a built in ironing board that pulls out from a storage space!! Paul actually irons his clothes now!

AND Paul installed all of this himself. He is becoming quite the handyman since we bought our house ‘unfinished’.

Our Peace

 

Our Place of Peace!! Camp Glisson….oh how we love thee. This place is so magical for the Freeman Family. This is a camp that Paul and I grew up attending in the summers, where we both worked as counselors when we were in college, where we started dating, where he proposed 6 months after, where we married 12 months later, and where we baptized our first born, Elijah. It is my spiritual home and where I come to ‘connect’ again. It is also where McKinley and I used to come every day, when she and I lived in Dahlonega, to run and get our exercise. So she was ecstatic when she saw the gates of Glisson the other day.

I took the boys and McKinley last Friday on a little trip to see the Fall leaves. It was cloudy, foggy, and just a PERFECT fall day!! We had so much fun! I gave them a tour of the entire camp, and Elijah cannot WAIT to be a camper!

   

Above is McKinley enjoying her favorite place. She even got in the COLD water just so that she could swim.

This is the most wonderful rustic chapel where Paul and I married 7 years ago, and where I feel the most connected and whole! I love walking through the big wooden doors, and will never forget the smell.

  

Elijah talking to his new friend, God, about his friends and all the plants =)

What I try to teach my children every day!

    

After the excitement of our tour, we took a little hike through a back trail where I was able to show the boys ‘Fred Glisson’s old cabin. Of course Elijah had to be silly and make a funny face =) I am posting more pictures on our website since there are too many to post on here.  www.ourlittlestinker.com   We LOVE this place and can’t wait to go back soon.

TV in my Family

I am definitely not one of those moms that say "Oh tv is just horrible, my kids are never allowed to watch a second". Being a mother of 2 young, very rambunctious boys, having a husband that works very long hours, trying to run a camp, and what ever else comes along with life, I LOVE my TV. I sometimes use it as an escape for myself and timeout to just recoup, I use it as a friend (something to keep me company and to keep me updated on the world), but I also use it to get chores done in peace. Meaning, I start a warm fire, set my kids on the couch, and let them watch a show or 2.  Most of the time the alternative would be a trip to the ER because they are so rambunctious with each other and if I can't watch them and referee almost every second, someone will end up breaking a bone of some sort =) And I would rather them watch TV when I need to get something done than them do something else, like...I don't know....say....get into the vitamins and down a few too many. Many of you know what I am talking about, hehe.

Anyway, a lot of the younger shows are very educational these days. Eli will sing a song or two every now and then that he learns on TV - sometimes they are about sharing, some about manners, just good lessons that are easy to remember in song.

But nothing will beat my little Noah the other day. He is just too cute, still learning how to say many things - working on his tongue movement, and learning how to put sentences together. I will never forget him asking for a water, and when I brought it to him he said "Syeh-Syeh Mommy" with a little grin on his face, not even thinking twice about it. That means 'thank you' in Chinese. Thanks to Ni Hao Kai-Lan on Nick Jr., he is picking up bits and pieces!

Caglewood Heads to Cumberland!!!!

This is a picture of some of our group from last year. For those of you that have never heard of Cumberland Island...look it up. Such an amazing, beautiful, and rustic place.

Yes, it is 5am and I am blogging. I have been up since 3am, told my hubby goodbye, they met the campers at 4am, and now they are off! And of course, now I cannot go back to sleep. So coffee, a girl movie, and blogging for me=)
This week has been so very hectic, I am SO glad to see that they are finally on the road. I don't think I have ever talked about how much preparation goes into our camping trips. Paul and I deal with all of the reservations (months in advance), the meeting letters, the planning of the trips down to the hour, all the gear, food to cover every meal for every person, packing, organizing, arts and crafts, and so much more. Really, I do everything by myself until the day before because of his work hours, but he helps me get the gear from the storage unit and then pack everything up into the truck the night before and the morning of.
Cumberland is really our most thought out trip of the year. Reason being, the campers and counselors have to ride a ferry to the island and because of the ferry ride, everyone has to pack in their own food and gear for the entire weekend. How much gear do you really need, you say?? Well, see below:

This is what our garage usually looks like before a trip, nd this isn't even all of it!!! 8 sleeping bags, 5 tents, misc. gear, and all of our food. No cold food, so we have to be creative and bring in small, high calorie meals, some that are in powder form so that you just have to add water and voila....yummy dinner =)  Can you believe that all of this has to go on their backs? And they do wonderfully!!
Paul was in Las Vegas all week on business and didn't arrive home until 7 hours before he had to leave again to head to Cumberland. Even with all of that, he was still pumped this morning at 3am! I, on the other hand, am absolutely exhausted. All of this packing was done while Paul was out of town with the help of 4 little hands and a lot of patience from those 2 little bodies. I think we will all be happy once next week gets here and we can relax and see daddy again.
I am very excited about raising my boys in this environment, though. They are already our youngest counselors and what they will gain from being a part of this organization is so exciting!! And now they will have TWO special needs cousins and maybe more if my sister gets her way =) so that is an exciting adventure ahead.

Wonderful Wednesday

Oh my big boy! What a great day today was. Beautiful weather!! I had an amazing day with my boys, we just had so much fun together. Elijah got in the car today just beaming. He then pulled out a card (pictured above) that said that he got the 'Musician of the Day Award' in music class!! What he said to me...

"When I was in music class, it was over. And in front of everyone, Miss Lori said 'ok, the musician of the day award goes to a little boy in blue jeans, with a batman shirt on, with a long sleeve shirt under it'!! I said oh, oh, me, me!!! And I stood up and got my reward, and said THANKYOU. Mommy, now I get to be her helper tomorrow!"

The excitement on his face just made me melt, I was so proud of him. I think his class takes music with another class meaning there are about 30 kids in there. So he was just beaming and so proud of himself. Tomorrow should be fun =) He just loves school.

And to top it all off, my sister in law, Markana, found out that she was in remission today!!!!!

GREAT DAY!

Our Halloween

Oh how holidays are so much more fun when you have children!!! Elijah has been asking about Halloween for 4 weeks now. We have had so much fun decorating, wearing different costumes every day, etc... Even though it rained while we were trick or treating, the boys didn't care. Noah was amazed that he could go knock on people's front door and they would give him a candy bar! I don't know how many times he said 'Thank you' from utter excitement, but he would say it over and over again because he was so excited about this new trick he had learned. He tried to eat every piece before we even left their front steps.


Noah was suppose to be Batman. We got him a batman costume because he wanted to be batman so badly. Sooooo, once we tried to put it on, he was terrified. We tried for 3 weeks, he pouted every time and said 'no'. For some reason he is scared of dressing up, I think he hates the masks and hats. We had given up and decided that Noah would be going as 'Noah'. But lo and behold...Halloween DAY, my hubby asked Noah if he wanted to put on some warm snuggly jammies (talking about Elijah's old lion costume) and Noah said 'YES'. He was so excited and he didn't take it off until bedtime. YAY! So we had a lion and Raphael the Ninja Turtle. Of course Lion didn't like having his picture taken for some reason.


And Yes people, that is a Halo pumpkin in the first picture. Can you guess which 'carving team' was in charge of carving that one??