Twelve Years, REALLY??!!

I can hardly believe that my first-born will turn 12 on Thursday!!! It seems like just yesterday I was holding you in my arms while we exited Huntsville Hospital but it also seems that I have loved you forever! You will never know just how much your Mom and Dad love you, Eli David. You are one special kiddo and I know that God is going to bless you beyond your wildest imagination! Keep dreamin' your dreams and reaching for those stars. Remember, "if the hard work pays off, the easy work is worthless." Invest your time and continue to be a young man after God's own heart!

My Beast! Never give less than your BEST!

Be goofy and have fun!!!

Work hard...

and play hard :)!

Happy 12th Birthday, Eli!!!

Sweet Summertime

Summer is in full swing and I absolutely LOVE this time of year! June is crazy busy for us but by getting everything done in June we will have lots of time to spend with our cousins in July! School got out on May 26 and the next day we loaded up and headed to the beach for a week! Jamie and I love the beach however our kiddos were done with the sand after about 3 days. We will have to work on them as the beach is Jamie and my favorite vacation destination. I would have loved to get a few pictures of my children on the beach but after years of enduring this form of obvious torcher they balked this year so this is all I got...

After the beach, the next thing on our schedule was Infinity Sports camp at our church. Eli has done camp since 3rd grade and this was his last year to be able to be a participant. Next year he hopefully get to work because he will be a YOUTH! Jill will get to participate next year and she has already decided that baton will be one of her sport tracks.

We had 134 participants and 5 of these kiddos prayed to receive Christ. I had the honor and priveledge of praying with one of those!!!


Because Jill wasn't old enough to participate in sports camp, Aunt Donna saved her so to speak. On Wednesday, we met in Trussville and she took Jill to spend a little time with Anna Beth and Katie. While there, Jill was able to go to their VBS and she loved it. She was also able to help her cousins with a lemonade stand. I am so glad that we live close enough that they are able to spend time together. They are the best of friends!



While Jill was away, Dalton and Dylan came and spent a few days with us so that Michael and Ashley could have some time away to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. I wish that I had pictures to share from their visit but for some reason the camera never came out. I guess becuase we were too busy sword fighting, "falling" in the lake, and swimming in the pool to worry with pictures. We loved having those boys here and I am so glad that they are all such good friends!

This week Jill has been attending VBS at her friend Avery's church and she is having such a great time. She is in a class with three of her friends and Avery's mom, Lori, is their tribe leader. The theme is Pandamania and it is so COOL.


Now all that is left for June is horseback riding camp for Jill and our church's VBS. I love all the fun things we are getting to do but I must admit I am looking forward to a little more down time in July!

beast... i am soccer

This soccer season is coming to an end and I would be sad but summer soccer is just around the corner - Yay!!! And there is NO sarcasm there - I admit it, I really do LOVE soccer! Or maybe it's just that I love watching my boys play soccer - either way, I love it! We had a good season this season and Eli, who has always played defender actually changed positions a played a little offense this year. He scored 5 goals for the season and I am one proud Mom! Eli is a BEAST on the soccer field and never lets up! He is so excited about having the opportunity this year to try out for the high school team. He will actually do camp with them this summer and he cannot wait! Here is a snap that one of Eli's teammate's dads made during our last tournament. (I believe he is making a goal kick and I am so glad that I was not in front of that leg.)

Briarwood Ambassadors U11 soccer team enjoying a little break in Pensacola, FL. We came in 2nd place in the tournament we played there and those were some hard fought for medals! Great job boys - you made us proud!

Jill's 6th Birthday

I can hardly believe that our little princess is six years old - my how the time flies! As you all already know, she is our little horse-lover and so it was only fitting to have her party at her favorite place in the entire world - the farm. Jill takes riding lessons at Cameron Oaks Farm and we have the BEST trainer ever and she helped to make Jill's birthday a day she will never forget. Jill got to ride to her hearts content and so did her family and friends. Enjoy her day in pictures...

Jill showing off a couple of her presents...

Jill on Miss Lylah - the first horse she rode at the farm. Lylah was really tired after having already done 4 lessons this day. She even bucked twice but Jill never missed a beat and of course did not fall off. She let Lylah know who was in charge!

The cake - our poor horse was sinking in the buttercream grass :)

Mrs. Deana and Cameron Oaks gave Jill blue ribbon pierced earrings... now to convince Jill to get her ears pierced!

Meet Blugle - the most beautiful show horse! Jill loves to ride Blugle and they make a great team!

The hayride!

Silly brother Luke with Jonathan enjoying playing with the party decorations - Jill's Breyer horses.

Cameron Oaks has everything - even a playground!

Eli finally gets his turn on a horse. This is Emily!

Our sweet little friend Camryn Mae riding America.

Luke on America. He loves horses about as much as his sister!

Anna Beth on Emily.

Best of friends - Jackson and Jill (or as we like to call them, Jack and Jill)

Party favor time!

Kelsey and Jill enjoying the petting zoo at the farm.

Jill's sweet friend since she was 2, Avery!

Our very own Princess... Carsyn. I am certain she will marry a prince one day!

Thank you to all our family and friends who helped make Jill's birthday so very special! And to my sweet Jill, Mom and Dad love you to the moon and back a million times! Happy Birthday sweet girl!!!

God is Good!

All my friends and family know that I think this is the most amazing, most handsome man on the planet! Today I am so thankful that God chose to let him stay with me a while longer! The results of last Saturday's bike crash could have been so different. When the human body hits asphalt going 47 mph the results are never good but we know we were so blessed with the lack of permenantly disabling injuries and as Jill so frankly put it, "He could be dead." But praise the Lord, he is not - he walked away from his crash with just some nasty road rash, bumps and bruises and muscle trauma. All things he will recover from!!! We are still watching the shoulder closely and may have to have further tests on it but even if we have to go through rotator cuff surgery, we will take that and feel so blessed to still have our Jamie with no brain or spinal cord injury and NOT DEAD!!! Thank you Lord for giving me more time with him - I will never take him for granted!

Fast Forward...

I am really behind on updating and I am not sure how that happened - life just gets really busy sometimes. Just a quick update, Jill has started horseback riding lessons and LOVES it - we think she has found her "thing." She loves going to the farm and seeing "her horse" and is learning more and more at each lesson. She may actually get to participate in a show in the fall!


Eli has started spring soccer and loves being back on the field. I must admit, I love watching him out there too. He has a new love as well - his bike. He will actually have his first race on March 27 at Oak Mountain. It is a duathalon in which he will get to show off two of his talents, running and cycling! The neat things is that they also have an age division for Luke so he will get to race too! (Yes, Luke learned to ride his bike without training wheels. As a matter of fact, he never learned to ride with training wheels so that worked to his advantage. We love the balance bike!)

I wish I had a picture of Luke on his bike to share but I haven't even made a snap shot yet. Those will be forthcoming. I also have pictures from Jill's Daddy/Daughter banquet at church that I need to download and share. I am going to try to do better but I make no promises :)!

Christmas, Christmas & More Christmas!

Yes, I know it is now the New Year but I have a little catching up to do, so here goes! Hope you are ready for lots of pictures because that really is the best way to show you what all we have been up to...

At church, the kiddos received dreidles and loved learning how to play a game that we believe Jesus may have played as a young child. Here they are enjoying an early morning game - or at least I like to say it was an early morning game as the kids still have on pj's :)!

Koopa!

Baking also kept us very busy! We baked 18 mini loaves of poppyseed bread for all the workers at church who volunteer their time to teach our children about Jesus - we owe them so much more but we at least wanted them to know that we appreciate them! We also baked cookies, cookies and more cookies, along with 6 full sized loaves of poppyseed bread. My mixer really got a workout!

In addition to the goodies we baked to eat, we baked cinnamon dough ornaments. We made enough to decorate small trees for Grammy, Nanny and one for myself!

I loved how the ornaments turned out, other than a little excess flour on a few and hope to make this an annual Alexander tradition.

I have much more to post but this little post has taken 30 minutes so I need to break for now. I will be back tomorrow to finish out the Christmas post and hopefully move on to the new year!