Karlie's Speech

Karlie had to write a speech for school that the woodsmen of the world is sponsoring Titled Someone who has touched many lives, Karlie decided to write about my Mom, her Mom-Mom. We are really proud of her speech.

Here is what she wrote.


A Person Who Has Touched Many Lives,
My Mom-Mom

A person who has touched many lives in my life would be Helen Frazier, my Mom-Mom. Not only has she touched my life but she has touched the lives of everyone around her.
My Mom-Mom lives in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania with her husband, my Pop-Pop Jeff. Mom- Mom was born on March 9, 1945 and grew up on a farm in Centre Hall where she lived with her 7 brothers and 4 sisters. After growing up and moving to NJ for many years, where she worked with mentally and physically handicapped children, she returned to Pennsylvania to live in her home town.
My Mom-Mom has done many things that make me look up to her. One of my favorites is that for the last few years she has been sponsoring a girl that lives in Tennessee; this girl is from a very poor family and needs the extra support that my Mom-Mom provides. They send her things like clothes and school supplies and even one Christmas they fulfilled her wish to own a Game Boy. This girl is very thankful and writes letters to them all the time thanking her for her help.
My Mom- Mom is also a quilter and is always making quilts for special needs people. She provides a quilt to them so that they have something to call there own and to help keep them warm. I love the quilts she makes especially the one she has made for me. She has even started to teach me how to sew when I go to visit her.
She also has started a program at her church that welcomes home service men and women who have served overseas. Mom - Mom makes a special patriotic wall hanging to give to them during the church service as her special way of saying thank you for all they have done for our country. This makes me very proud because my Dad is a Marine.
My Mom-mom also helps with the elderly, she helps by cleaning there homes, running errands and spending time taking them places that they may need to go. Many of these women would not be able to get out of their homes if Mom- mom did not help them.
Mom- Mom also donates food to her church food pantry to help her neighbors in need and she and Pop-pop also help serve public dinners to raise money for their church.
If you visit my Mom-Mom’s house you will notice her beautiful gardens of flowers and in the summer she has a wonderful vegetable garden. She is always willing to share her flowers and teaches others how to garden. I hope that someday I will have the green thumb she has.
I am very proud of my Mom-mom and all that she has done in her life to touch other people; I could not imagine a life without her to look up to. I love my Mom-Mom very much.

Snow in North Carolina

Well our kids got their first official "snow day" off from school. It is a rare moment in time that we see snow here but it started snowing this morning and it is still snowing now at 4pm. Karlie and Cory(okay and my self) are really excited to play outside. We have had a sled in our attic for 8 years waiting to be used! LOL

bird watching

Since we got home from traveling at Christmas, the birds have really been coming to our bird feeder, the kids love to watch them. We have had so many new ones, and here is one of our favorites, its a Tufted Titmouse. (this was taking taken through a screen that is why its not so crisp)

Happy New Year!!!!

Waiting for Santa

Dressed up for Church Christmas Eve

The cold must have frozen them them together

I am going to make the perfect snow angel Mom!

Wahoo!!!!! We love sledding!

Wow Can you believe that it is 2009 already?!?! I can't, 2008 went by way to fast. My wish for everyone is to have a healthy and happy New Year!

I was in PA and NJ over Christmas and was home before the New year but I wanted to share some pics from our trip. The kids had a great time playing in the icy snow at my Mom's house, and we were all happy to see our family over the holiday.

Christmas pics

Well this is as good as it gets after taking a bunch of photos this is the only one that semi came out! I could not get them to pretend to like each other any longer than that! LOL Well Merry Christmas!!!

Crutches till Christmas!

AAAACK the doc said he wants me to use the crutches at least till Christmas day and wear my boot through the new year. I know it does not seem that long in the scheme of things but I have been on them since Oct 10 (not to mention the countless times in the last 3 years dealing with this issue) So any way that is my Christmas present I guess you could say.

foot update- sort of

Well its coming along slowly but surly! I have to go tomorrow to get my feet casted for orthodic inserts for my shoes and I see the doc again on Monday. I am hoping I can ditch these crutches really soon!!! My wrist and shoulders are done for! Not to mention Christmas shopping is a pain in the rear when you are crutching around! I will update again after I see the doc on Monday!

One Skinny Leg!

Well its true, I have one skinny leg, well okay semi-skinny LOL From not being ableto walk my right calf is significantly smaller than the left. I have been wearing one of those lovely boots that goes up to my knee and I got to wondering, do they make these for the thighs???? If so I would like a pair of them! My thighs can use all the extra help they can get. Unfortunaly the doc said no as he laughed at me! (the nerve of him). So for now I guess I have to settle for one skinny leg!

Karlie is on Crayola!!!!

Karlie was one of a few children from her school to be selected to have her picture submitted to the Crayola website! The theme was "Green-Earths favorite color" you can view her picture on the link below! We are soooooo proud of her!

http://www.crayola.com/theartofchildhood/gallery/artwork.cfm?entry=5393&st=NC&gr=5&se=&CFID=3899707&CFTOKEN=18394192

Happy Halloween!!!!

We hope that everyone had a Great Halloween, We did! Thekids loved their costumes and had fun trick or treating and then when they came home we had a party for all of their friends! It was a little cold but I think everyone had a lot of fun, especially making each other into toilet paper mummies! LOL We had a ton of food, I always make too much!

This picture cracks me up! It totally defines Cory's mood lately!! I wanted to take a pic of him in his jacket, I thought I would make a scrapbook page about how he always has to be all zipped up.(all the way up) so I was ready with my camera when he came home from school and did not have a good day nor did he want his picture taken. His poor glasses some how got knocked so out of whack they were barely covering both eyes! My poor baby, I sure do love you!
Now on to my foot, well it has been 18 days, 18 very long days! I still have my stitches but I was finally able to get it wet! A hot shower was very nice today. I should be able to get my stitches out next week. I still can't have any weight on it for at least 2 more weeks though. I am ready to throw the crutches out the window!! LOL So here is a pic of my stitches I put it on photo bucket so if you did not want to see it you didn't have to. the incision is about 3 inches long. Enjoy
http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h12/audinoki/?action=view&current=Sept2008009.jpg

Stir Crazy!

Okay so I am on day 10 of recovery and I am going stir crazy!!!!!!!!!!! The foot is still really painful but I guess it could be alot worse considering I can't take anything because of my allergies. I am bored, I have all these ideas I would like to do for scrapbook pages but I can't get in my scraproom, Steve has decided to make it into a storage room and blocked my walk way and I can't get to my table grrrrrr. Not to mention I need to keep my foot elevated. IF I even sit in a normal position Steve hollers at me to put it up! He says " I need your foot better" Well no kidding so do I! (love you babe). Its been 3 years since my first cast went on, and I am so over it!

Scrapbook TakeOut's new kit

I just love the new kit that Scrapbook Takeout put together this month, Antique Autumn, I can't wait to get my hands on it! Check it out and get yours today http://www.scrapbooktakeout.com/sneakpeek.html

Great Job Shakira Francine and Vernell!!!!!

Surgery update

Well I came home Friday afternoon as expected, my foot was totally numb (was being the key word there) toting a pump that is helping keep some of my foot numb with instructions to keep my foot elevated above heart level for several days. So I woke up yesterday and the numbness has worn off and pain has kicked in, they say it would be a whole lot worse with out this pump.

The doc said the surgery went well , I was unfortunately awake for a better part of it(not by choice) I woke up cause I was having an allergic reaction to the narcotics they had to give me, and got to listen to the not so lovely sound of the saw, yes the saw that they used to cut through my bones! not a sound anyone needs to hear! He said he took out alot of bone and put in a screw. That's right ladies and gentlemen I have been permanently screwed!!!

So now I am at home in bed with lots of pillows under my foot and my laptop in my hands where it seems I will remain for the time being, no weight bearing for 4 weeks!!!!!! And crutches well they don't like me much, I am already getting sore in my upper body from using them. UGH!

Here is a pick of my foot the ball laying next to my leg is the pump with medicine in it. Enjoy!!!

Surgery Tomorrow!

Well tomorrow is finally the day!My Foot surgery is finally here! It will be at 915 Friday morning so think good thoughts and say a prayer, I will update as soon as I can, if all goes as planned I will be home tomorrow afternoon.

Halloween Invitation and Fall card

I made the fall card over the weekend from one of the tutorials on splitcoasters website and today I made about 30 of the Halloween Invitations for the kids party. Both stampsets are CTMH.

Karlie made cards!

Saturday Karlie made 3 cards all my herself, I was so proud of her!

Fishing With Cory

Today I decided to take Cory to the pond at the front of our housing development to go fishing. He has been really wanting to go for a while so we took his rod and some hotdogs for bait and off we went for a relaxing afternoon of mommy and me time. We did not catch anything except for some minnows and tadpoles but it was fun! Next time we won't wait so long to go again.

My Boy Scout

Cory got his uniform yesterday, doesn't he look so handsome!

A thought

My sister sent me this email today and at the bottom of the email this is what it said

'Good friends are like stars........You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.'

it truley reminded me of all the friends I have out there whom live so far away, Love you guys!