Note on previous post

A dear friend of ours, Katie Kizziah, is a very gifted writer. This was her comment about my previous post of Wiley telling me he loves me and my savings at the grocery store:

"Praise the Lord for moments you can't put a price tag on and for those moments you don't have to pay the price on the tag!"

Amen to that, Katie!

Blessings

This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table preparing my coupons and grocery list. Evie was still asleep upstairs and Wiley was playing in the Living Room (Shane is out of town for a couple of days teaching). Wiley suddenly stops playing, runs over to me, and says, "Mommy, I've got to tell you something!" I asked him what and he whispered, "I was you!" (Which is how he says I love you) It was one of the sweetest moments! Needless to say we had a very sweet and very fun hug/tickle session right after that!!!

(On a much smaller note, I got $87.00 worth of groceries for only $23.00 today. I'm loving this whole couponing thing! Double blessings so far in this fine day!!!)

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Monday, August 24th, is my parents 35th Anniversary. My siblings and I decided to give them a nice celebration. We did a renewal of their vows ceremony complete with a mini reception. We surprised Mom with having Grandaddy there to "give her away again". Shane officiated the wedding and wrote out a beautiful service for them. It was really special when he asked, "Who gave this woman to be married to this man 35 years ago?" We are all so thankful that Grandaddy was able to be a part of this special event. My youngest sister and brother stood in as Mom's maid of honor and Dad's best man. The 3 grandsons walked in as ring bearers and the eldest granddaughter Kirsten carried the other granddaughter, Evie, in as flower girls. We got their original kneeling bench down out of the attic. Grandaddy made this for them to use in their wedding 35 years ago. They were very surprised to see the old bench! It was a beautiful service and very special for us kids and grand kids to be able to watch this renewal of their commitment to one another!!!

After the ceremony, we served them a private meal. Kirsten was their waitress and did a fabulous job!

After dinner, we had a mini reception. My sister Dawn made a precious wedding cake for them. There is a story behind the characters on this cake. Years ago a friend of my parents drew two precious cartoon characters with the saying "Love is..." . These framed drawings have hung over their bed for as long as I can remember. So my sister recreated the characters, though a little more gray and a little more bald, and wrote on the cake "Love is...35 years together"

After the cake, we watched a wonderful video that my sister and brother put together. It was really creative and well made. The video opened with footage of each member of our family then was followed with a slide show of photos put to music. The photos chronicled Mom's and Dad's relationship from dating, engagement, and marriage and ended with photos of the grand kids. Dawn made copies of the video for all of us to have. After we watched the video, we sent Mom and Dad home. We had decorated their car and we blew bubbles as they went to their car.

It was so much fun and very special to be able to do this for Mom and Dad. They have demonstrated a beautiful marriage relationship to us 4 kids and are now doing so for their grand kids. Thank you Mom and Dad for honoring your commitments to one another and to God over these past 35 years. We are praying that the Lord will bless you with several more years together, happy and in love! We love you!

Wiley Playing Indiana

Shane's Aunt Paula and Uncle Bill gave Wiley this cool Indiana Jones toy and he's had a blast playing with it. Wiley often hums the Indiana Jones theme while he is playing. This was too cute to pass up filming. (Of course, as soon as I got the camera out, he started looking at me, but he often plays very intently while just humming away!) Enjoy!!!

Here's Wiley being Indiana Jones. This was a rare treat for him to play with this "real" whip that we'd borrowed from my brother for the party.

Indiana Jones Birthday Party

Saturday we celebrated Wiley's birthday with an Indiana Jones party. He is really into Indiana Jones (I just want to say for the record that he does not watch the movies - though we have let him watch a few scenes before). He just likes the hat, whip, and swinging like Indiana Jones. Every time we ask him why he likes Indiana, he says, "Because he protects people." (Happy parents about this answer!)

Disclaimer: I'm giving all the party details for my own record, and for some of my out of state friends who wanted to hear all about the party. Plus, I got most all my ideas from reading about others' parties online so thought I'd post our details in case any other moms out there are trying to find Indian Jones party ideas).
For the party, we decorated our front room up with a tent, a large tiki statue wall cling, plants, and stuffed jungle animals. We had a great turnout for the party - 11 kids total!

When the kids arrived, they had to hunt through the front room to find little treasure boxes I'd hidden. When they found their treasure box, they brought them into the Living Room where they painted them and decorated them with stick on jewels.

When they finished, we called everyone together and said we'd just gotten a phone call that something had happened and we had to turn on the news. We turned on a videotape that my niece made where she pretended to be a reporter. She said that Indiana Jones had been hunting for treasure when he got trapped by a booby trap. He was in need of hero crusaders to go and rescue him. This began our hunt to save Indiana!!!

The hunt began with the kids playing a game of pin the hat on Indiana Jones (Because, of course, he needed his hat before we could go rescue him!) Shane did a great job drawing a picture of Indiana. When they finished the game, they got their first clue.

The clue sent them through the Forbidden Forest. Here they had to climb through a large spider web made out of rope and through the jungle vines (hanging streamers) and find their second clue hidden in a plant.

The second clue sent them to the Cave of Mystery but they first had to disable the booby trap leading to the cave. To disable the trap, they ran through a tunnel made by the parents (like parents make after a soccer game), while I chased them with a giant boulder (big exercise ball). When they got to the end, they had to throw a bean bag through the hole in our corn hole board.

After they all disabled the booby trap, they had to use a pretend torch and crawl through a pop up tunnel into the Cave of Mystery (another tent). Once inside, there was another board with a hole in it. They had to put their hand inside the hole and say the magic words, "Goblet, goblet, go goblet!". Then my brother who was hiding behind the board put a little goblet in their hand.

After all the kids got their goblet, the next clue sent them to the Sands of Sapphire to dig for gold. I found crayola sand at Wal-Mart that is blue. I spray painted rocks gold and burried them in the sand. The kids had to dig through and find 3 gold nuggets each to put into their goblets. Once they all got their gold, they received their final clue.

The final clue led them to Treasure Cove (our garage) where Indiana Jones (Shane) was caught under a net. The kids had to pour their gold into a bucket that was tied to the net by a long rope. When they all poured their gold in, the bucket lowered and pulled the net up off Indiana. Indiana then got up and thanked all the kids for being hero crusaders and rescuing him. He then led them the final few steps to find the treasure.

For the treasure, we'd made an Ark of the covenant out of a styrofoam cooler and gold spray paint. We set it in the laundry room and turned off all the lights. We put electric candles inside the cooler so when they opened it it would glow. They all carried the ark out into the Living Room where the parents were waiting to cheer for the hero crusaders!

The treasure was full of candy and small toys. Indiana used a golden goblet to scoop treasure and pour it into each kids' bag. After the treasure was passed out, it was time for cake and ice cream.

I was thrilled about how the cake turned out. Again, found lots of great cake ideas online. My sister and I worked together to make the cake. It was a 3 layer cake of Indiana on top of a mountain with a waterfall coming out of the top. There were vines and leaves coming down the mountain. I found these awesome milk chocolate candies at Wal-Mart that looked just like little rocks so we sprinkled them around the water. We made a large whip out of fondant and wrapped it around the bottom layer of the cake. Then we made a little Indiana hat and put it out front and stuck the candles in that. We decided at the last minute to just write Wiley's name on paper and stick it on the cake at the bottom of the water. Shane wrote the name for us. I had no idea how awesome it would turn out. He colored the letters to look just like Indiana's name on the DVD cover!

After the cake and ice cream came the presents. Then the kids all got to take home their bags of "treasure" and chests they had decorated.

It was a really fun party and Wiley had a blast! Can't wait till next year's!!!

Happy Birthday Wiley! The Big 3!!!

Today is Wiley's birthday! He is 3 years old. It is so hard to believe that 3 years have passed since our Wiley guy entered our lives. God is growing him into such a fun and loving little boy. He is very energetic and loves sports, running, wrestling with Daddy, pretending to be Indiana Jones, having people tell him stories, being tickled by Mommy, eating, making Evie laugh, making anyone laugh for that matter - we are realizing that we might have a little comedian on our hands. He is very loving and gentle and a great big brother! God has given him such a great personality and we look forward to seeing how God will use him as he grows up. Our prayer is that he would learn to love God with all of his heart from a very young age and that he would seek to glorify God in everything he says and does. We love you, Wiley and we are so thankful God has allowed us to be your Mommy and Daddy!!!

A few photos of Wiley's new scooter, spider-man helmet, knee pads and elbow pads.

Evie is 5 Months!

Our little lady turned 5 months old on August 14th. She is getting so big and so mobile. Her current favorite activities are watching her big brother play (so far he can make her laugh more than anyone else), grabbing our faces, kicking, and learning to use her hands. We are so thankful she is happy and healthy and are praying for the Lord to make her heart love Him as she grows up.

Expressions by Evie

So I don't want Miss Evie to get jealous about all of the "Words with Wiley" blogs so I thought I'd give her her own. Here are some of Evie's more common "words":

* Grrrrrr (This one is usually made with a thick gurgling sound)

* Ahhh (A high pitch squeal)

* Ooh (Her owl sound)

* Hah (made with a sort when we tickle her neck)

Words with Wiley

The other morning, out of the blue, Wiley asked his Daddy if they were going to go to his Motty and Poppy's house to play. Shane replied, "I hadn't planned on it." Wiley responded, "I had planned on it."


The other day Wiley was standing on a step stool and I was kneeling in front of him helping him get dressed when he looked down at me and asked, "Mommy, will you marry me?" (Precious! I think he thought about that bc I was kneeling in front of him on one knee - except that he got the roles reversed!)

Potty training has been going very well, however, the other day Wiley had a bit of an accident because he wasn't looking where he was pottying while sitting on the toilet. I cleaned up the mess while he was sitting on the toilet but he said, "Mommy, I don't want to get into that mess, so I better swing like Indiana Jones to get down." (You have to understand that swinging like Indiana Jones is his favorite thing to do lately. This simply means hanging onto our arm and jumping/swinging off of stools, couches, beds, or anything else that is up off the floor. He's tricky - he'll try anything to get a swing in!)

Yesterday I asked Wiley to dance with me. He said, "No, I want to break dance instead." He then proceeded to show me how to breakdance. Then he stood up and said, "That's how you break dance. You go whirrr (spun his finger around while saying this) like that and then on your head. Then you play a basketball game when you finish." (Needless to say I laughed hard at the basketball part. Not sure where he's been watching his breakdancing!)

Today Wiley was noticing our green mouthwash. He asked, "What does Daddy turn into when he drinks this? Does he turn into the green hulk?"

Trying This Coupon Thing!

Okay, so the other night a woman's small group from my church held a coupon class. I attended and am determined to join the crazy world of couponing and save my family tons of money. There's a lot to figure out and it's fairly time consuming (at least initially), but I can't justify being a good steward of our money when I know I'm basically throwing money away if I don't take the time to look for deals. So, after my first shopping trip with this, here's how I came out:

First time shopping at Publix grocery store
First time using coupons (at least, effectively using them)
I purchased $114.62 worth of groceries and only paid $31.32!!!
(I even got 9 double shot espresso and cream starbucks drinks for my hubby for free and actually made .09 cents by doing it :)

I'm thrilled! I know it's going to take a lot of work to understand this whole "coupon world" and I don't want to become the crazy coupon lady, but I do want to be wise with the money God has given us and my husband works so hard for! Pray for me as I try to be faithful with all that we have.