More pictures in the daffodils

Joy came by with the boys today so we could take some more pictures. It was really warm this afternoon! It did not feel like March at all. I started out with my camera on the wrong setting, and the pictures were way too bright. Those first few pictures were the best one we got of the three kids together. Of course. I'm still kicking myself over that one! Ugh!

I love this one, really love it.





This is my favorite one of Jackson.

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This is my favorite of Justin.

This is not a good picture, but I love their faces. It makes me laugh every time I see it. :)


For some reason Blogger just would not upload the color version of this picture without lines all through it. This one uploaded fine though.

This was one of the few from the beginning that wasn't totally washed out. Changing it to black and white helped, but I'm still totally kicking myself.

Tennessee Christmas

Here are some highlights from our Tennessee trip over Christmas weekend, in no particular order. It was an awesome Christmas, and we had a great time. Rebecca had so much fun playing with the boys! It was definitely one we'll remember for a long time. And maybe in a year or two we'll have a big family Christmas in Arkansas!

We were driving through the mountains and saw a bunch of elk. They walked in the road in front of traffic and didn't seem to be in a rush.

This is one of the overlooks we stopped at after we realized Clingman's Dome was closed.

At Ober Gatlinburg

We were waiting to ride the slide at Ober Gatlinburg, and by everyone I mean not me. The slide looked like fun, but I didn't want to ride the chair rail up there. Rebecca really, really, really wanted to ride the carousel, so Aunt Kelly rode with her. After it stopped, Rebecca said "I go slide".

Here are the Marquez's (is that grammatically correct? I don't know). It looked like fun, but someone had to take pictures. :)

Rebecca loved the slide.

Stephen and I took an afternoon to ride through the mountains while Rebecca hung out in Gatlinburg with Aunt Kelly, Uncle Joe, and the boys. We didn't really plan to go anywhere, just drove to the visitor center, saw a sign for Cade's Cove, and decided to go there.

There were deer everywhere in Cade's Cove! So cool! This is one of the bucks we saw. He was just munching on his snack and keeping an eye on us. He didn't care at all that we were snapping his picture.

The boys mined for jewels in Gatlinburg and Rebecca played with a little water and dirt.

Santa came for a visit on Christmas Eve and brought Rebecca and the boys Christmas jammies. Rebecca wanted the present, but she didn't want much to do with Santa.

Christmas morning opening presents. This was a dog that Nana and Pappaw gave her. Aunt Kelly named it Bernie. Rebecca really likes it.

a Baptist church in Cade's Cove

a cabin and barn at Cade's Cove

The whole family Christmas day

This is Minga Falls in North Carolina. The climb for this one was not bad or as crowded, and was beautiful.

This is Laurel Falls. The climb up to it was not so easy. It was 1.3 miles back in the woods, and almost 700 feet higher from where we parked. But it was really pretty too. I remember trying to get my family to come here when I was a teenager, and I could never talk them into it.

After we left Minga Falls we went to Cherokee, and on the way there an elk walked out of the woods right by the car. He was huge! I didn't have the camera ready though, so this was the best picture I got.

a Methodist church in Cade's Cove

Rebecca loved spending time and playing with Aunt Kelly, Uncle Joe Joe and the boys. In fact she cried when we put her back in our car instead of their van!

This is a view of Gatlinburg from one of the overlooks in the Smokies. I love to see the mountains like this, when you can really see why they're called the "Smoky Mountains".

Psalm 144:5 Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.

I still love going to the Apple Barn! They've added a lot to it since I was younger. It used to just be the restaurant, store, and cider mill. Now there's a candy shop, another restaurant, a winery, a Christmas store. It still brings back memories though.

Petit Jean fun

Leaf pile fun. . . .



I love this goofy picture. :)


Jackson was cracking me up. First he was looking for dinosaur bones (white rocks) on the playground. Then we went up to the gravesite overlook, and he was calling all the big rocks dinosaur footprints. He's all about the dinosaurs lately!

Trick or Treat 2011

Finally got these to post. Our Internet connection has been slow at times, and tonight it's painfully slooow. They're not the greatest pictures, but this is the best I could get tonight. This was Rebecca's first time trick or treating. The only candy she knew were the "pops" (lollipops). After one trip around the block, we went back to Joy's house where she soon forgot about her pops and the rest of her candy. We had lots of candy, so we took some of all three of the kids' candy and gave it back out to the neighbors while Stephen set up his telescope for trick or treaters and parents to look at the moon. Then we stopped by Aunt Sandy's house, which Rebecca was excited about. Rebecca always gets candy at Aunt Sandy's house, even if it isn't Halloween! :) We had plans to make a couple more stops, but Rebecca would soon turn into a pumpkin.

Corn Maze

I love fall and doing all the fall activities, pumpkin patch, hay ride, pumpkin carving. We took a trip to the corn maze last weekend. It was kind of warm for a fall activity, but it was lots of fun nonetheless. There's a lot of things to do, lots of places to play.

The corn maze of course:

Rebecca thought it was her job to rid the corn maze of loose corn and corn husks. She tried to take corn with her.

I'm always the one taking pictures, so there never seems to be any pictures of Rebecca and me. So this time we actually got one.

We got a pumpkin before we left, but this isn't the pumpkin patch we usually go to. We're planning to go there tomorrow. We won't get a pumpkin since their prices are much higher, but we always go there in the fall. And I think Rebecca will enjoy it more this year.