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!

All I Want for Christmas is Well Children!

I considered not even blogging about this but then I remembered that one of the reasons I blog is for my kiddos. Instead of scrapbooking, I blog so that one day they can look back and see important things that were going on in our lives. And for Jill this has been a very challenging time to say the least! Months ago this journey began with strep throat and I breathed a sigh of relief because we all know how easy that is to treat and how quickly little ones are on the mend. However, the relief was short lived when two weeks later we were back at the Dr. with another sore throat. This time the strep was negative but her tonsils were a mess, so they called it tonsilitis, gave us meds and sent us home. After a couple of days the fever subsided but only for two days. Then, while still on the antibiotic, the fever returned and Jill's tonsils still looked, well, NASTY! Fortunately, this happened on a weekday, not a Sunday, and we were able to see our pediatrician. She did blood work, strep test, and mono test - diagnosis... mono! Little did I know how TERRIBLE a diagnosis this would be, especially as we were entering the fall/winter months! Since that diagnosis, Jill has had another round of strep, two tummy bugs, walking pneumonia, and today - influenza type B! Poor thing has already missed 7 days of school this nine week period and will miss this entire week! I was so excited when she made it to school everyday last week but that excitement was short lived.

Friday begins Christmas break for us and I am so glad that I will have all my kiddos home with me. As for Jill, her Christmas break began this past Friday as the Dr. doesn't want her back at school before Friday (and I don't want her to go Friday just to pick up another illness!). While they are all home, I hope to get them all well before I have to send them back to that germ-infested place called school in January. I think they each may find Airborn and vitamins in their stockings this year :)!

Wishing you all a germ-free, fever-free, doctor's office free Merry Christmas!!!

Santa!

What an exciting time of the year! We cannot wait for a visit from the big man himself, so while we wait, Luke decided he needed to go visit Santa and let him know what he wanted for Christmas...
"I want a race car and a motorcycle... and Jill wants a pillow pet!" (Poor Eli got left out but we know that he is such a good boy Santa will have no problem choosing some great things for him as well.)