The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Twelve

On the twelfth day of Christmas I am so thankful for...the TWELVE days of Christmas that we have to celebrate the birth of Christ. Every day before and after Christmas we can should think about the reason we celebrate Christmas. The twelve days leading up to Christmas gives us the opportunity, if we take it, to focus on the meaning of Christmas and not get caught up in the hustle and bustle. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and I am so tahnkful for all that I have.

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Christmas I am so thankful for...March ELEVENTH! This is my birthday! I am thankful that my parents were so wonderful and raised me like they did. I am grateful that I was born in to their family and that I am sealed to them for eternity. And there is just nothing like a birthday!

Funny Story

I just had to share this short story. We were at the Doctors office today for a recheck and while we were waiting in the room, Brielle climbed up on my lap. She then turned and whispered to me, "Mom, if we are really quiet and don't talk we can pretend we are not here and the doctor wont see us." She thought that was really funny. It was so cute, and it gave me a good laugh. Kids really do say the darndest things!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Ten

On the tenth day of Christmas I am so thankful for...the TEN Commandments. The Lord gave us the ten commandments to help us live righteously and return to Him. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who would do this for us.

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Nine

On the ninth day of Christmas I am so thankful for...the ninth day of August 2001. This is when Doug and I were sealed in the temple and I was surrounded by wonderful family and friends. That was an amazing day I will never forget. My whole immediate family was there together and I pray that can happen again someday.

ITS A BOY!

Well today was the day of my ultrasound and we found out we are having a boy! We are really excited. Doug wasn't able to go with me to my appointment because he had to work, so I had the sonographer take a picture of the baby while I closed my eyes and then she put the picture in an envelope and sealed it up. That way we were able to open the envelope tonight as a family. Brielle was so excited she started jumping up and down saying "A boy, a boy, a boy!" It is going to be great having Benson and the baby so close in age. We hope that if all works out like we want it, 20 years from now we could have two missionaries out at the same time! Now the hard part will be finding a good name for him. If any of you have any suggestions, leave a comment and let us know!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Eight

On the eight day of Christmas I am so thankful for...my 1998 Toyota Sienna! I love my mini-van and I think I will forever be a mini-van mom!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Seven

On the seventh day of Christmas I am so thankful for...my seven sisters and sister-in-laws, who are all great examples to me of what great women should be!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Six

On the sixth day of Chritmas I am so thankful for...six amazing years of marriage to my sweet hubby. I am the luckiest gal in the world!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Five

On the fifth day of Christmas I am so thankful for...the five months that have passed that bring me closer to seeing my new baby!

The Tweleve Days of Christmas- Day Four

On the fourth day of Christmas I am so thankful for...four parents who love us so much and do so much for us and our little family. What would we do without them?

The Law World

Well, the wait is finally over. This week Doug received an offer from a law firm here in Knoxville and we are so happy. It is going to be a great start at his career and the Lord has truly blessed us. We are so grateful for all the help that we have received and know that the Lord is mindful of each of us individually. The Law firm he will be working with is called Stone and Hinds and he will start working on Monday! Thanks to all for the love and prayers that have been shown on our behalf. They really helped!

The Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Three

On the third day of Christmas I am so thankful for...The three years of Law School are over!

Twelve Days of Christmas-Day Two

On the second day of Christmas I am so thankful for my two amazing children whom I love so much and I love being there mom cause they are really cute!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I have decided that I am going to blog the twelve days of Christmas and on each day until Christmas I will post something new that I am grateful for. So because this is December 12th it is the first day of Christmas and here is number one.

On the first day of Christmas I am so thankful for...One handsome, loving, caring, wonderful husband.

Pennies for thought

How many of you have tons of pennies without anything to do with them? Well, I have a whole jar full. If I added them all up I am sure I would only have about $5.00, but I have discovered a great new use for pennies rather than cashing them in. I have found that they work great as payment or bribery for kids. For example, Brielle has two jobs in the morning: 1. Get dressed 2. Make her bed. Well everyday I find myself constantly telling her to do these things and it is a battle. So, I decided to use my pennies. She gets paid one penny for each chore, but if she doesn't complete both, she doesn't get anything. So far it is working better than I could have imagined. She gets so excited to put two pennies in her bank everyday, and personally I feel she is doing me a favor by taking the pennies. This might not work so well if she actually new how much a penny is worth, but as for now she thinks she is rich. I hope one day she will find the intrinsic value of getting chores done, but for a three year old, pennies seem to do the trick!

Doug's new do

After you get past the tears from laughter, I have to explain this picture. I was getting ready for the day and Doug came into the bathroom to give me a big hug. As he was hugging me my hair fell over his head and we decided it was a picture we couldn't miss. He quickly grabbed the camera and we posed in the mirror. So if any of you were wondering what my sexy bald husband would look like with a full head of dark hair, here it is! This is one for the generations.

Here Comes #3

We just wanted to share our exciting news that we are expecting a baby!!! I am about 4 months along and due on Doug's birthday, May 4th! We are thrilled. It is a little sooner than we had anticipated, but we can't wait. My belly is getting more round by the day and I think that my body just gave out this third time around because it knew just what to do. We get to find out what we are having in about 4 more weeks so we will let everyone know via this blog site! Brielle is so excited to be a big sister again, and she is convinced that we are having a girl. Benson has no clue and I think it will be quite the shocker for this mama's boy! We are so happy to continue our little Rose family and we will keep the updates coming.

Our Community Helpers Preschool

We had preschool at our house this week and our topic was community helpers. I chose to focus on Firefighters and what they do for our community. We did our regular preschool routine where we talk about the letter and number of the day and then we moved on to talking about firefighters. The kids were so excited. I made fire engine cookies out of graham crackers, frosting, oreos, twix bars and raisins and let the kids eat them while I read them a few stories about firefighters. I had also taken each of their pictures dressed up in a firefighter costume and we made a special thank you poster for the fire station in our area. After they finished their snack, we loaded up in the van and went on a field trip to the fire station. The firefighters took us on a tour of the station, and then showed us all the parts of the fire truck. I had never been to the fire station before and thought it was fascinating. The kids even got to sit inside the fire truck. I forgot my camera of course, and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, but the kids had a blast. I have decided that it really doesn't take a lot for three and four year old kids to have fun, you just have to make the time.

Super Why

Last weekend Brielle was invited to her friend Draven's costume birthday party. I couldn't think of anything for her to dress up as and was planning on borrowing something from a friend, but the morning of the party she informed me that she wanted to be a cartoon character named "Super Why". Now if any of you have ever watched PBS you will know just who I am talking about. She loves this cartoon. I like it too. It is educational and entertaining. Anyway, she is always pretending that she is Super Why and even wants us to call her that instead of Brielle. So Saturday morning I spent the time before the party putting this costume together. It is not exactly what Super Why looks like, but it was close enough, and she loved it! She was even more excited when she went to the party, and some of the people there knew who she was.

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween this year was great. Brielle absolutely loved dressing up as a princess. I am not really sure why she was so excited, because she dresses up in that costume everyday, but nonetheless she was thrilled. Benson on the other hand was not too excited to be dressed up as her ferocious dragon. As you can see from the picture, he was a over Halloween before it began. That night we went over to our friends the Smartts house for a little dinner and some good old trick or treating fun. The guys took the kids out trick or treating while my friend Laura and I stayed behind to pass out candy. The kids loved being out getting all the candy they could imagine. Benson stayed in the stroller the whole time and was perfectly content to watch the kids race door to door. Brielle was so sweet about it too, she took Benson's bag for him and asked each person if she could get some candy for her brother. She was really funny. Doug told me that every door they went to Brielle would have to stop and chat with whomever came to the door. The two little boys, Liam and Tipton were getting a little frustrated with her because they wanted to hit as many houses as possible, but Brielle just wanted to talk about the people's houses or Halloween decorations! She is such a social butterfly. We had a fun night and I am still enjoying all the candy the kids conveniently forget about.

Happy Birthday to Benson!

I know it has been forever since I have blogged, but sometimes life is life right? Things have been pretty busy around our house and now I am just going to update the fun stuff. On October 19th we found out that Doug passed the Tennessee Bar Exam!! Yeah! It was a great relief. Now the key is to find the right job for the future. We also celebrated Bensons ONE YEAR birthday on October 20th! I can't belive that my baby is one year old. He is the cutest thing ever. He walks everywhere and is into everything. He has had four bloody lips in the past three weeks, and is such a boy. We love him! These pictures were taken at the little birthday party we had. My mother in-law Lyda and my sister in-law Kim were out visiting just in time to celebrate with us. It was so fun. I only made a little cake this year for Benson to dig into, and I chose Thomas because all boys should love trains right? I know it is not professional, but it is the best this ex-cookie decorator could do. He had a great time getting really messy and I think Brielle loved it just as much as he did.

We Bleed Orange

To live in the great state of Tennessee, you have to "bleed orange". This statement means that you are not afraid to where bright hunter orange at any place or anytime. It is crazy around here. Everyone, whether they like football or not, can be seen wearing orange at any given time and there is not one thought about it. Orange is not really my color, and I think style magazines you would shun anyone who wears bright orange for fashion, but around here it is the way of life. The Tennessee Volunteers football team has a following like nothing I have ever seen. I thought BYU football was big, but it doesn't even compare. It is so ingrained in everyday life that the radio station will play the cheer song, "Rocky Top" on the radio all the time. Brielle knows every word of the chorus of that song and I will catch her singing it as she plays. It is pretty darn cute. Tennessee is a wonderful place. I love living here. It is beautiful (especially with the leaves changing for fall) and life is good. If anyone would like to come for a visit, you are welcome anytime, just don't forget to bring an orange shirt or two so you can fit in the crowd!

Like Father, Like Son

This picture was taken when we went to Utah at the end of August this year. Doug was in the backyard practicing his fly fishing cast and Benson was fascinated. He watched Doug so intently and was so excited when he finally got his turn to cast a few times. He absolutely loved it. He was grinning from ear to ear the whole time and would just giggle every time Doug put his arm back and forth. It was so cute. There is just something special about a dad bonding with his son. Doug can't wait for the day that he gets to take both Brielle and Benson fly fishing for real. I think it will be his dream come true!

The Digital World

I have decided that digital cameras are a great wonder and a great pain. Granted that Doug and I have had our digital camera for 5 years, but you think that the batteries would last for more than two pictures right? Well, our camera finally died the other day and I am heartbroken. I would always get so frustrated with that camera, but now that I don't have it I feel like I need it all the time. Especially now that I have this wonderful blog to actually post the pictures I take. So regretfully, unless I get pictures from some other source, this blog will be picture less. I know what you are thinking, pretty boring right? Well maybe it will be, but I will try to find pictures on the web in the mean time. Like this one of the wonderful invention, the digital camera.

Mr. Gobble

You are probably wondering why I put a picture of garbage bags on our blog. Well, I wanted to introduce all of you to our little friend Mr. Gobble. Mr. Gobble is an ordinary kitchen garbage bag with extraordinary powers! He has made life at our house much better. Mr. Gobble has come to live at our house to help clean up the mess at the end of the day. Instead of me threatening Brielle that I will take away all of her toys if she doesn't clean them up, we tell her that Mr. Gobble is going to come and eat them and she wont be able to play with them for a week. It is amazing. A simple little garbage bag gets her cleaning at top speed and she has even heard Mr. Gobble crying because he was so hungry for her toys. ( That is her imagination of course.) She loves it and clean up time goes so much better. I suggest this "special" garbage bag to all mothers out there that need a little extra help and you will find there is less nagging and much more fun! the cost is great and the benefits are better. I just hand up Mr. Gobble in the closet and every time I need him I pull him out. It only took the first two times for her to realize Mr. Gobble wasn't giving the toys back, and I have to say he has been going hungry for quite a while.

Family Home Evening

On Monday night we decided that we would have Family Home Evening at the park. So we loaded up the kids, brought a soccer ball along, and had a blast. Doug spent most of the time teaching Brielle how to play soccer, and I played with Benson and snapped all the pictures. Brielle was so cute. She really wanted to learn how to play, and listened to everything that her dad told her to do. After we were done playing she told me that she was a super soccer player! We also took some time to swing on the swings and watch the dogs play at the doggie park nearby. It was a great night as a family.

Preschool days

Last week Brielle had her first day of preschool. Six of us in the ward with 3 and 4 year olds decided to start our own little preschool. Every Wednesday from 9-12 we switch off having it at each others houses and the kids absolutely love it. Us parents love it too becuase we are the teacher helper one week, then the teacher the next and then we get 4 weeks off! That three hour free time with only one kid to cart around is so nice to get things done. Brielle loves going to school. She feels like such a big girl. Usually in the mornings it takes her forever to get dressed, make her bed, eat breakfast , and brush her teeth; but on preschool days she does everything in about a 1/2 hour. She gets so excited to learn and has already learned how to write her name. I asked her what her favorite thing about preschool was and she said " I love to learn about the letter B cause it starts with me!" Hopefully we can keep this excitement up until she goes to real school right?

Best Buddies

Brielle and Benson are becoming best buds. They are fighting one minute and loving each other the next. Benson has been really sick and Brielle is so sweet to him. She always reminds us to pray for him in our prayers, and will get him any toy he wants when he is crying. I am sure one day he will not enjoy having two mothers, but for now it is great help to me.

We have now joined the world family of Bloggers!

Hello there from the Rose family. We are really excited about having our own blog. Thanks for everyone encouraging us to do it. I had no idea how easy it was. Wow! Hope all is well around the country. Enjoy!