Thanksgiving 2009

Gatlingburg was great for Thanksgiving this year. We had a lot of fun and it actually snowed on Thanksgiving day for about 5 minutes. It was great to be with family in the mountains during the holidays. Thanks Mom for getting that together for all of us. Here are a few pics from the trip.

All the kiddos loved the air mattresses. Jumping and running all over them was their favorite thing to do in the cabin. One day we took the kids to ride rides. The swings was Isabella's favorite ride. She rode it about 4 times! I thought she might throw up afterwards. We had to make her get off them.

Mom and Arles and Granny and Mom eating dinner the first night.


Isabella at the Old Mill. Buzz and Woody were the only ones that could make our child happy at that restaurant. She was extremely "cranky"!! The next pic is a train ride. That was fun. She loves trains.


Tessa and Isabella pretending to sleep in the big bed. Me at 25 weeks pregnant. I am currently 28 this week.



The family pic with the mountains behind us. Little Pierce is hiding behind my coat somewhere. I am always thinking of him now as part of the family even though he's not here yet. And the next is Amanda holding Harrison, Mom holding Tessa, and me holding Isabella and "carrying" Pierce.


Abbie, Isabella, and Lillie reading books in the floor.

I have not posted a blog in forever! So, it's time to update this thing for sure. I'm currently 24 weeks preggo today. I'm a little nervous about going to the doctor on Monday. I just know they're going to tell me I've gained a whopping 30 pounds! No, not really, but I sure feel like it. Finding clothes to fit me right now is not much fun but I sure am glad it's the winter season so I can wear black everyday. :) I'm finally feeling baby Pierce kick after waiting a long time. I felt Isabella for the first time when I was 16 weeks and with him it was more like 21 or 22. We decided on his name to be Pierce Hayden Thompson. Pierce has a very similar meaning as Peter. Peter means rock and Pierce means stone. Hayden means child of the heather-filled valley. We thought it was perfect to have our names added into his in someway. And being a teacher and trying to think of a name is hard as well. I wanted it to be something I hadn't heard of very much, but yet not to "out there". Everyone seems to think of Pierce Brosnan when I tell them the name. Hey, that works for me. :) I have to have a 3rd ultrasound next month because they couldn't get a good look at his face and spine. The doctor said that's very common and nothing to worry about so that made me feel better.
Peter and I are still in the search for a church home. We're visiting Cornerstone right now and we're seeing how that goes. It's really the only place where Peter and I can go to church together since they have a Saturday night service. Peter works every Sunday right now so that was a huge factor in trying to find somewhere for us to go as a family. And they have awesome worship and the word is always good.
Tonight Isabella and I are meeting up with the girls in the family and headed to see the Rockettes! It's been a few years since we last went so I'm so excited to go back. I think Isabella will LOVE it.
Ok, so I saw Twilight for the first time the other night with Peter and I really liked it. However the acting was not so great. I think I could have done a better job playing Bella. Sorry Bella lovers, but seriously, did she not have a personality? After the New Moon craze dies down I'll have to check that one out too. Peter and I went to see The Blind Side last night and it was awesome! I highly recommend it to anybody. Sandra Bullock was fantastic and it was neat to hear them talk about Tennessee so much.
Well, off to get ready for the Rockettes. I'll have to post pics of tonight on here soon.

What's been going on at the Thompson house

Peter and I both graduated from Beech and decided to reminisce and go to their first home football game. Neither of us had been there in over 10 years so we thought it would be fun to take Isabella. She loved watching the band, the mascot, and the cheerleaders.
It was a great time.

Isabella got into my jewelry box and came out of my room looking like a gypsy woman!




In September we celebrated mom's birthday at Laredo Cantina in the Gulch. It was a great time and wonderful food! If you've never eaten there before I'd definitely recommend it. (BTW, Peter had just gotten off work. He wouldn't normally wear a zoo shirt to dinner. :) )



So, if you've visited our house in the last month you'd probably see this queen sized mattress in our living room. Not that I think it goes well with the furniture, but Isabella decided since we were cleaning out the extra guest bedroom this was her perfect time to have some fun. And oh boy has she! We put all the furniture in our dining room until we could figure out where to put it and she just had to get that mattress out and jump all over it. Turning flips, running down it, going backwards across it, and you name it. The guest bedroom is now her new "big girl" room.




Here is a picture before we painted it and as you can see Isabella would not let daddy paint it all by himself. She had to join in.



What a wonderful little painter she is!



Here is her almost finished room. Her bed is all together and I got most of the furniture in it. I'm still waiting to find out what the baby is before I decide what furniture I want moved for sure. We find out in exactly 1 week from today what the baby is. I'll be sure to post it.




Here is Isabella on video in her new room. She loves wearing hats right now. I have a basket of dress up hats so she can play. I'm also going to try and have a friend of mine paint a large tree mural on her wall behind her bed with leaves on it and maybe an owl to match her bedding. So, I'll post the final pics later.

Finally made time.....

Ok, so I finally sat myself down to write on my blog today. Let's just say the past several months have been so super busy and I have been beyond tired to keep up with this lately. I will be 12 weeks tomorrow and I have never been more tired! This pregnancy has been very different than with Isabella. I guess the timing of going back to work with school starting and having to be on my feet all day long and coming home and being mommy has made the difference. I've been putting Isabella to bed and off to bed I go! I have felt sick to my stomach the whole time, but I'm praying this eases soon. It's even kept me up at night a lot. But I know it should not last too much longer thank the Lord! My class this year is really wonderful. The children are so precious, with only a couple who try to push the limits. But that is totally expected with 20 five year olds. Overall they are so great and I am so happy to have them this year. I just hope my energy levels go back up soon so I can keep up with them and give them all the attention they need. I've also started a devotional at school for any teachers and staff that want to attend. It's very unlike me to lead any type of Bible study or devotional like this for adults, but I felt like that's what God was asking of me all summer long to do for our teachers. He has definitely blessed it. I've had anywhere from 8-15 teachers in it since I started. It's only about 5-10 minutes right before school on Tuesday mornings. It's been so beneficial for me to encourage myself and at the same time be able to encourage others in the things of God. We are blessed to have a principal and school that allows that to happen. Isabella is in a new mother's day out program at Bethel Baptist near our house with her cousin Tessa. She still does not like to be dropped off, but she always ends up having a great day. I have to brag on her a little bit though, she knows all of her colors, can count higher than some of my Kindergarteners, and has been talking in complete sentences now! Just today she said, "I want a hot dog, Mommy." I was like "awwww!" I totally understood every word and she continues to keep adding more and more words to her sentences. We are going to see the Wiggles in concert tonight! It was a gift from her Gigi for her birthday. We are very excited about it. We've watched them on DVD for so long and it'll be nice to actually see them in person. How fun! I'll hopefully post pictures soon. Peter is still at the zoo working on catering events and managing their food/beverage department. He still enjoys it and we love visiting him too! In fact I think we're going to go tomorrow since the weather is supposed to be so nice. Well, that's about it for now. I think I'll go rest before the Wiggles! Hope everyone is doing well......enjoy this nice week coming up!

Isabella's Birthday and her Birthday Party!

On Isabella's birthday, July 11th, we woke up and had some special visitors come over bright and early. Tessa couldn't wait to give Isabella her birthday present so they came by for a minute that morning. She got her a Backyardigan book and DVD which she loved!

Later that morning we met some friends and took her to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. I don't know why we haven't taken her before now, but it seemed fitting since she's old enough to run around and play. She loved the horse carousel and the climbing area where she could slide down the slide. Of course, I had to get her up in it since she couldn't quite reach so I had quite an interesting time wiggling my body through all those small spaces. But it was so fun to watch her smile, laugh, and hear "momma come!"

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Here's the cake I made her for her actual birthday. It's very simple, strawberry cake with strawberry icing. She says "cake" REALLY well!

It looks like she's not quite sure about the candles, but after we showed her how to blow them out she kept saying, "again, again, again" so we practiced about 5 times before she finally ate into the cake.

Having one of the cupcakes.

Making circles in the icing with her fingers.



She had quite a day without a real birthday party. We booked First Baptist's Family Ministry Center in H'ville this past weekend to have her official party with her friends. They didn't have her birthday weekend opened so we just make it the next one. I don't think she really cared. :)
She had 20 of her family and friends come and had a blast! It was the Backyardigan theme and she got so many presents it was like Christmas in July. I am so appreciative of my family and friends for loving her as I do. I have the best group of people in my life! Thank you to everyone who came and partied with us and showered her with a gift. We love you so much! (and Aunt Amanda, Uncle Greg, Ron (Paw Paw) and Uncle Shawn too! even though you guys couldn't be there. We missed you!)

The group picture was a little hard to get. Everyone did great except, guess who!, the birthday girl. She kicked and screamed and cried. She did not want to sit down and take a picture. She hit Mikayla, poor thing, by slinging her arms around. I felt sooooo bad! Poor Mikayla, I'm so sorry! And then the kids were just so pooped, they looked so tired in the picture. I tried really hard to put on a smile, but I was thinking "OMG, this is sooo not working and Isabella is driving me nuts right now!" :) I got over it very quickly since we went straight to the party room for pizza. Much better! Her cake turned out ok. I wasn't thrilled with two of the characters faces, but everyone else loved it. I guess it was just me wanting everything to be perfect. But it did taste really good!

Angie and Harrison playing.



Peter talking to Abbie and Lillie.


My friends Susan and Krista.

My nephew Alec looking very red faced and tired!

Jackson and Isabella. She loved this area to climb up and down on.

Mom helping Brock get his shoes off and Tessa watching every move she makes.


Hi Tessa!

Smile!

Mom, me and Isabella (not looking too happy). Can we say tired and ready for bed!

Luke and Eli

Jeremiah and Adrienne

Isabella thinking what should we do? Mattie thinking, hum, how about take a break? Mattie was such a great helper with her in that big play area!


Mikayla and Leshia

Gram Gram and Aunt Stephanie



I could add about 100 more pics on here, but that's about all for now. Sorry if I left anybody out. We had such a fun night and I hope everyone else did too! Happy Birthday Isabella! I think you've had quite a bit of partying this year. I hope you loved it my precious!