The Best Christmas Present Ever...

...was a seven pound, three ounce, twenty inch long, red-headed, blue-eyed bouncing baby boy! I received this present 11 years ago today! Happy Birthday, my sweet Austin! You were always, and still are, such a good boy! Everyone was so proud to have you. Autumn was so excited to have a live baby doll in the house. She was your second "Momma" and loved every minute of it~

Here is my walk through eleven years with my "Little Man"!

With Ganky and Pa on vacation.

Pa's Birthday

Your 8th Birthday.

You and Josh in Gatlinburg. Remember, we got snowed in and had so much fun?

You have always been so good to your sisters! Alex loves to play video games with you!

Of course, you have always loved the beach!

Nine years old.

You were so proud of the trick we played on Dave, the Gator fan! I think he rode around for awhile with the Ga. Bulldog on his truck!

The Varsity should have used this one as a commercial!

You are so talented at all sports. I am so proud of you!

Playing in the camaro.

Of course, here you are with Ganky, who loves you so much!

Happy 11th Birthday, to my "Little Man"! We all love you so very much and are so proud of who you are and what a fine young man you have become!

I am so proud to be your Mom!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Justin Update: He is safe and has called home once since he got there and is close to a "Chow Hall", which is a plus for him, since he is surely missing his Mom's cooking! Thanks for all the prayers. Please keep them up! They really work!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merry Christmas to all!!!

To Most, He is a United States Marine...

...to us, he is FAMILY!

Need your prayers. My Cousin, Justin, has been deployed to Afghanistan and leaves next week. This is what his training was for, but it is still so hard to see him go there. I know many will have to go, but one of them is OURS!

He is such a wonderful young man. He LOVES his Family.

Justin and Autumn

Alex, Justin and Autumn

Jeff (Dad) and Justin

Justin watching Monk (his fave)

Justin wrestling with Bradley (brother)

Avery jumping in

Then Alex jumping in

Cousins (Autumn, Britani (sister), Avery, Justin, Alex, Bradley (brother) and Austin

Siblings

Justin with Ganky (my Mom)

Loves his Church. Here he is with Preacher Tommy.

Justin with his Dad

The Family

Cousins

All of us with Justin

Forgive our tears

We were not trained to be strong.

But we have been so proud of you

all along.

Your Parents have raised

Such a fine young man.

I know you will take that with you

To that far away land.

Your Faith and courage

Amaze me so.

So many will be praying for you

Wherever you go!

So, go be the Marine

You were trained to be.

Protecting this Country

So we ALL can be FREE!!

We love you so much!!

Please add this Marine and his Family to your prayer list! Thank you ALL!

My Dog is a Serial Killer!

Yep. You read that right! Most of you know some of the antics of Munson Parrish! He is a bad puppy! It is not getting any better either. He, along with BB Parrish, has killed a cat in the yard. Munson has demolished my Halloween pumpkin, ate my umbrella, my Georgia cooler Derek bought me, numerous garden hoses and more front porch handrails than I can count. This time he really made me mad! He knows he is in trouble in this picture. Look at that face. Wanna know what he did???

He murdered my whole scarecrow family! I had a cute little family of six (me, Derek and all four kids) with name tags and everything. Some were beheaded, others dismembered and he even scalped a few! I was so mad at him. He knew it. He probably even knew he was going to make me mad while he was committing this unthinkable crime on the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving dinner at our house! I hope you can make some sense of the devastation. These two pics were taken with my camera phone. Hopefully you can click and enlarge them.

It is nothing for him to jump in our cars, but this week he tried to leave with the mail carrier!

Here are some of the pics of the previous crimes.

See how he will not look at me when he is in trouble!

And here is BB, being good as usual. She is old, so no more antics for her, except the cat murder, but I have to believe she was just an accomplice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will move on to the good kids now. Here is Alex. She was told by her preschool teacher to read on her break and she did just that. She even went and got the kitchen timer just like Austin does when he has to read for school. I love that!

Another sweet girl, Avery, having applesauce before bedtime.

Austin came along to say good night to all!

I love these simply sweet moments. They are passing by so quickly.

Avery made her own Thanksgiving dinner while we were preparing the basement for the big feast.

And Alex was teaching Avery to ride her "Big Gor" bike. Isn't that sweet?

Well, I know my blogs are posting more sporadically (did I murder that word?), but Christmas season is here and I am a busy "Gor". I have four kids and a huge family to shop for! Five of us are making gifts for each other this year and I have been working on that. I can't show you yet, but they are good!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and thanks to all the people from Davis Middle who have stopped by to look at the Savannah pics. Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. That blog is below if you came to see those pics.

Have a wonderful week....

................until next time.