Feeling Grateful

-"There is room for improvement in every life. Regardless of our occupations, regardless of our circumstances, we can improve ourselves and while so doing have an effect on the lives of those about us."

-"We remember the Lord Jesus Christ in reverence and with love. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. He has brought meaning to our mortal existence."

-"We must work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it."

-"People wonder what we do for our women. I'll tell you what we do. We get out of their way and look with wonder at what they're accomplishing."


I took a few minutes the other day and tried to concieve the impact President Hinckley has had on my life. I would say his influence has been one of the most cherished and guiding in my life thus far. His words have without fail strengthened, encouraged, pushed, and lifted me through my years of growing up and starting a family. I remember going to Elder Maxwell's funeral and as President Hinckley walked in, the congregation began to sing "We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet". I was immediately overcome not only with his presence in the room, but with the spirit. I realized that this was the first time time I had actually ever seen him in person, and still I was a few hundred feet away from him. I thought of how interesting it was that I could feel such a deep love and connection to someone I had never met. I know with all my heart that he is a prophet of God and I am thankful for his life and service. I appreciate his example of optimism and his spirit of love and progress. And I will miss his jokes at conference.

June 15th

Christmas Pics

Dancin at the Wright Bros Museum

Reynolds Ladies

Grandma with all her grandbabies

Christmas at the beach! Outer Banks, NC

Braden's entire family gathered to North Carolina for more than a week over Christmas. We got things rolling by taking Anabelle to urgent care within the first few hours and his brother Cody also went to the ER before we could even unpack. Anabelle had another kidney infection. Which she happened to get at the same time as a flu virus. Which she gave to me. Details of the next ten days involve a lot of body fluids which Braden cleaned up every time (I love you Braden). The 15 hour ride home was one for the books. The good news is Anabelle got a few new outfits along the way and her car seat finally got the wash it should have had a few months ago. We washed it a few times actually.



But other than that it was a hoot to hang out with the Reynolds clan, as always. It is always a party to be with them and I look forward to those funny late night moments with them whenever possible. We feel so blessed to belong to this family.

Lights at the B-ham Zoo

Before Christmas we took A-belle to the zoo to see the festivities. It turns out the animals understand the Christmas season about as well as Anabelle did. We set her on Santa's lap just because he was there and she was only concerned that I not walk very far away with her bag of animal crackers. She looked him over, took his candy cane, and went on to see her furry friends in the petting zoo. The great part came as we were going home and Braden wanted to stop at Krispy Kreme. I wanted to stay in the car so Braden and Anabelle walked in together. I'm sitting in the car watching and I can only see Braden. He's not looking around for Anabelle although she's not in sight and hasn't been for a while. He studied the menu. I can see his brain rolling: "Chocolate with chocolate filling or do I get the creme inside? Lemon & raspberry, is that new?" I continue to wonder as at least ten minutes go by and Braden is acting like he is a lone man in a place of all that is good and fattening. He did forget about her once and leave her in the car for a while when she was a few weeks old, but I think by now he's used to remembering that she's ours. Finally they come out of the store together and Anabelle's face is glimmering in a layer of glaze and she is happy as a bird. Braden fills me in on the details that sum up our child- they walk into the store where she spots an off duty Santa Clause with his wife. Anabelle who has just scored loot from a similiar looking man, walks right up to him, asks to be pulled to his lap, and begins eating his donuts. And there she sat, enjoying his merry goods for the next ten minutes. And they say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Or Santa Clause for that matter. Well, do I have a story for them...

Happily, she does not care for mice. I have already told her the old "salmonella when I was 8 months pregnant with you" story.

Doin a lil' jig. Always doin a jig.

kisses for the goat

"Ello goat"

speed addiction

Ok so this is how it goes- Braden throws Anabelle in the bean bag and flys her through the air. Very fast and high and rough. Many, many times. Over and over and over again. She's not laughing or really even smiling. But don't let that fool you. You want to see a world class, pitifull crying tantrum see below where Braden tries to stop. He was dog tired and she just wasn't giving the giggles that warrant continuing through exhaustion. Each time he stopped she would throw herself at him, climb onto his chest, pulling at his shirt to help him up, curl the lip over and just let the tears flow. It was so dramatic Braden and I were laughing our heads off at our daughter's 5 star performance. She has this thing on the swings & any other activity too- never high enough, fast enough, long enough. Hmmmmm, this should be a lot of fun when she's 3. Or 13.

Mixing business with pleasure...

...in Longview, Texas. Braden happened to have a business meeting right in the little town where my dear ol grandma lives. Anabelle and I checked our schedules and amazingly found ourselves very available that particular weekend, so we went along to hang out with Grandma. I mentioned to Grandma that I had never had sweet potato pie and before I had finished my sentence she was shuffling out to the garage. She came back in with a bag of sweet potatoes and immediately started boiling them. We spent the afternoon baking the pies and I also happened to tell Grandma that I don't know how to make sausage gravy and biscuits. Same thing happened- she went to the freezer and got sausage to defrost. We had sausage gravy & biscuits and sweet potato pie for dinner that night. It was a great chance to hone my southern cooking skills. Sweet potato pie and Blue Bell ice cream is something that should be enjoyed regularly. I reckon we'll get started on that.

We also went to a fantastic park with very unique toys to be explored. We however, did not get past the swings on two visits there. It was actually quite nice because the swing was big enough to fit Braden and I so we took turns holding Anabelle and pushing each other. Her love of the swings is something unreal.

My uncle Greg (who is a personal hero of sorts to Braden because of his meat smoking skills) hooked Braden up with his own Briskette to take home. It was quite entertaining to be driving down the road and look over to see Braden with a huge pan of cow on his lap and a full quart jar of BBQ sauce for dipping.
Grandma said Anabelle is the happiest baby she has ever seen-and the most active. I think Anabelle may have worn her out a little bit. It was great to spend a few days with her and other family we rarely see.

Aldridge Gardens

We live down the street from a Botanical Garden. I absolutley adore this place. It has a lovely little lake with a trail around it, a boathouse to picnic in and feed the 456 resident turtles your leftovers which husband says he will eat but does not, and beautiful flowers and trees. We go there most mornings and walk or run and often times don't see another soul. Finding the gardens actually made me feel more at home in Alabama because it is so Virginia-esque. I took these pictures the other day when we had a fall picnic.

a few factoids about us...

We love the outdoors. We are big fans of road trips-both to explore new places and to visit dear and familiar ones. We like to travel. We make a point of discovering mexican restaurants with good chips and salsa and no ground beef. We cherish the days on our tire swing and are really glad nobody ever died or got seriously stuck up there. We like to read. We are enamored with documentaries on the Discovery Channel. We REALLY like to eat nachos together and then talk about them the rest of the day. We consider Costco a date and go several times a week. We like to meet new people. We believe french toast is the way to start a day and that guacamole is nothing short of a gift from heaven. We do not like to go to the post office because a very uptight woman works there (if I owe you a present or package of some sort -now you know). We like to sing the tamborine song in the car. We have great fun watching A-belle dance her heart out-she's a machine, she cannot be stopped. We've made a habit of sneaking into her room to admire the product of our people making skills at least 27 times after we've put her to bed. I like to try new recipes and Braden likes to eat them. At least that's what he says. Mostly. We love to visit family and get together with friends. We ran out of gas in the middle of the mexican desert on our honeymoon. We like to people watch. We love to laugh with each other (Have you ever heard Braden's imitations and accents? They make our house fun). We are into camping. Rocky Balboa is a very real part of our lives. We once ate the most amazing thing ever concocted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We like to run first thing in the morning. We have a special place in our hearts for Buena Vista, Virginia. We have a luke-warm place in our hearts for Provo but miss our family and friends there. We like to drive to James Taylor, Jim Croce, John Denver and Simon & Garfunkel. We both love the Buns of Steel video, just for different reasons. We fully support jumphouses for any occasion. I like to see Braden'e eyes light up as we discover new BBQ joints around the south.

a disclaimer of sorts...

So Braden and I were chatting the other day about what we're supposed to write on this blog. What qualifies as bloggable? I guess I feel a bit hesitant to spill my guts to an unknown audience of cyber people. I mean the fact that we've even got one of these to our names is something big. It's been months and months of working past the tacky teenage image that blogging conjures up in my head. In my mind I see "bloggers" as being socially inept teenagers (or even worse, 30 something-year-olds) who hang out at home constantly -eating hot-pockets and drinking yoo-hoo's, are passionate about Japanimation and bizzare video games, and use web cams for things other than showing grandchildren to grandparents. These things make me nervous. And sometimes in my mind they even wear shirts that say things like "The voices in my head are talking to me" or "I hear voices and they don't like you". I shudder to think what might be blogged by such an individual. In short, we hope never to enter that realm of blogging or even stumble upon such a place by accident. We have enjoyed seeing friends and familes blogs and see how their lives are changing although we are far apart and lack frequent flyer miles to see anyone. So it is with that intent that we tip-toe into this world of blogging. We are hoping to be better about keeping a family history for ourselves, while also bridging the miles between family and friends by sharing what life is like for us in the deep, dirty south. (I can say that because I have sincere affection for the south. It's been great for my complexion). I feel better now that I have all that out there. Wheeww. Maybe this blogging thing will be good for me after all.

Anabelle Goes Trick-or-Treating

Ok, so here's how it goes. Julie is too health conscious to allow me to fill up with candy. So this Halloween thing is a prime opportunity to score some sweets. All I needed was a pawn. And this year I have my own ... Little Ms. Anabelle. We have these friends, the Kieslers, that we met in our first apartment complex, and they have a beautiful little girl named Annabrook. We decided to go out on Halloween night with Bethany and Brooks Kiesler, Bethany's sister and her husband, and then there was us. That makes six adults and two kids, only one of which was old enough to be eating candy. Off we went from house to house trick-or-treating. Annabrook was a Princess and little Anabelle was a chubby little chick. It was too funny. Anabelle is obsessed with anything soft and fluffy so the little chicken costume was a hit. It was like a new stuffed animal she could wear! She has been "practicing" wearing her Halloween costume for weeks now. Anabelle didn't have a little candy bag so she would just go up to the door and stick out her two little paws, always scoring double the goods, much to her father's satisfaction. At most of the homes she decided that she wasn't ready to stop at the door and thought she would just wander on in and make herself at home. We literally had to grab her and pull her back so she didn't head straight for the sofa to kick back and take a break. She was a hit with all the other trick-or-treaters. One time we turned around to see her mingling with a crowd of 11 and 12 year old kids. I don't think 'shy' is a word we will ever use to describe her. Sometimes she even worries me a little bit. She doesn't get the "stranger"concept. "What, he has food? I'll go anywhere with him." So we sure had a good time on her first Halloween outing. We probably only hit 10 houses, and by the 5th she had the process all figured out. And we couldn't end the night without a couple of messes to deal with. First, she found a mud hole to walk through in her little duck feet. No big deal. But then we forgot to take the bag of Peanut M&Ms from her that she got at the last house. By the time we had walked back to the car she had slobbered and eaten her way through the bag and sucked out all the candy. When she was discovered she just gave a big six-tooth chocolatey grin and all we could do was laugh. I suppose she deserved some sort of reward for her efforts. She also added "pumpkin" to her vocabulary. Although it sounds more like "punckin". We also remembered that last Halloween was her big appointment with the cardiologist who gave us the great news that her heart had indeed "cured itself". What a blessing that was and what an amazing year we have had laughing our heads with her. Sometimes at her.