Beautiful.....

And when I say Beautiful, I am not talking about her being America's next top model, Nor dare I say that she could take your child in a beauty pageant. "I mean she does have legs that never quit " but that is besides the point"  :)    She has a Personality all her own, SHE is AMAZINGLY unique, and runs with it every chance she gets and I LOVE IT !!!

Madi, had a very tough week last week re. some friendships she has here and therefore so did I...  we are both struggling with emotional things right now and let me tell you... THIS GIRL ROCKS...  She has the heart of  gold the soul of a saint and attitude of a athlete.. This girl never gives up..

I am blessed to be able to call her mine... I can honestly say...  I cannot remember a time I was even upset with her, where she had let me down, or she did not do the right thing despite the actions of others..  She struggles with sooo much when it comes to learning, and for her to even bring home a C is such an accomplishment for her and she never seizes to amaze me..  When she makes you a part of her life it is FOREVER.. and she takes the roll on with complete and utter dedication... 

She was my biggest fan when she found out I was pregnant with Solomyn...  Madi had begged, and pleaded for years for me to have a baby boy.. ( like I had the choice)...  But she wanted to be the only girl in the family and 3 days before her Birthday God blessed our family with Sol...  And she took on the role of Big sister once again.. She is Amazing with Karson and I knew that she would be the same with Solomyn...  I know deep down in her heart she claims that baby as hers and well I let her............

Because ..... When I get to witness it " There is NOTHING more BEAUTIFUL..." :)

The Lazy 5

So it was the last day of Kris' vacation, the older kids were in school and we decided to head out on an adventure... We had heard about this ranch called the lazy 5 that you get to drive through and feed the animals from your car, so we loaded up the van and headed out with Sol.  When we got to the farm, I took Solomyn out of his car seat and sat with him on my lap in the back of the van...  We start to drive through the trails and within seconds we see this..

After about 5 seconds Solomyn starts screaming and I am thinking to myself that this is one of those ideas that seem like it would be fun until you actually get there and then it turns into a complete disaster..  He is arching his back, screaming and trying to get down off of my lap as if to try to find away to get the heck out of there.. To my " SURPRISE " he gets down and quickly climbs up to the front seat to get a closer look at the animals and then into Kris' lap to take control over the food and feeding them...  It was AWESOME.....

not sure what the noise is in the background.. But it makes the video that more funny though.. lol

ok.. that is me with the cackle laugh.. But it is funny.. and I would go no where near those birds.. :)

Soooo much fun...   They also have wagon rides that will take you through the trails so you can get an even closer look at them...

We enjoyed having the option of rolling up our windows when they came a little to close for comfort..  LOL...

They also had the most beautiful girraffe's..

The cutest newborn pot belly pigs...

And the BIGGEST cow we have ever seen... 

                                     "Just notice Solomyn"s face in the mirror...  he is like is that thing for real.."

Although we only went through the trail part we had a BLAST..  They also have alot of other things to do but the drive through was enough for us for the first time there and for the price it is well worth the drive over there to see..  Soo if you are looking for something to do over in the Charlotte area this ranch gets a 2 thumbs up from us..  :)

A mountain weekend...

It was Amazing,  NO, Let me take that back... It was UNBELIEVABLE...  Over Easter weekend the kids. my mom and myself made the long journey to the beautiful mountains of Plaineville Georgia where we met up with her husband, Kris and Logan.. And let me start out by saying this, when approached with this trip I was a bit hesitant to even go.. I was told this.. ( we are going to go to a construction site, lots of dust, maybe no air conditioning, no flooring, no beds, we will have to go to the grocery store 30 minutes away just to get some food, no t.v., no Internet, and no cell phones) Sounds like fun, Right?  But, I am usually game for anything and thought lets go for it.. So when we arrive at 1:30 in the morning, I am definitely expecting the worse and what I saw was definitely a surprise..



The cabin is beautiful, it is under complete construction, But just Beautiful..  We are in a complete remote area on the top of a mountain, and the kids have no entertainment ( ie: Computers, tv, ipods, friends ect).

Soooo I think.. :)     So we wake up the next morning after getting zero to no sleep, and there is NOO coffee anywhere so I put together a special forces unit to hurry to the closest store, gas station or any place that may have coffee and we are off...  When we get back to the cabin, my mother and I drive up to see my husband and kids experiencing this.

To wake up in the morning and have horses out your door waiting for you to feed them apples was just Awesome.. The kids just LOVED it... and Madi was in heaven ..    Now, for anyone who knows Kris, he likes to (think) he is an expert about well, anything.. Sometimes it is annoying and other times you have to roll with it.. Soooooo when Wesley ( the owner of the horse) asked him if he knew how to ride, and he said YES!!  I knew this was one of those times you just roll with it.. In the 20 years I have been with Kris he has NEVER rode a horse so I am anxiously waiting for him to show his stuff.. LOL..
As soon as he mounts that horse, She takes off into a full gallop and kris is off.. Holding on for dear life and yelling out for her to stop and needless to say Wesley had to chase them down and quickly got him off his horse.. LOL...

Good times...  :)    Now left to there own.. the kids are off to explore the 10 acres of land.. After they have been gone awhile I go out to see if I can find them and to my surprise the kids have found a rope swing.. Now not any rope swing. this swing goes over the side of the cliff, a little scary, But, soooo much Fun..

I might have been a little hoggy of that swing, But it was a lot of fun and mom's need to have some fun tooo..   Now one of the best experiences for me, was watching Logan interact with Solomyn.. Out of all the kids Logan was the one who did not want to be there, and when I would just back off and watch I captured some really great moments with him and his brothers which now a days are few and far between.

So after everyone pitched in to to try to make a fort....

pretending to jump off the deck into a pool...

taking the motorcycles and 4 wheeler out...

painting the deck.....

playing cornhole...

feeding the horses....

taking long walks...

We settle in and try to put together a bom fire to make smores.. Needless to say, We have no idea how to make a fire and seemed to only make a lot of smoke.. Soo we enjoyed are marshmallows with pieces of chocolate pushed into the middle of them and just sat around and chatted it up till the sun went down.

And to think, we came here thinking we would have nothing to do.. :)

The next morning, We woke up to a beautiful Easter morning, had breakfast together and then we sat up the chairs on the open porch and Garth gave us a wonderful Easter Service, the kids had a little Easter egg hunt and we had a simple, Easter lunch before we headed back to NC..

What a Wonderful weekend,  It was a great to have family time with each other with no interruptions from the outside world.. The kids had a blast when left to find there own fun and we had a great time just spending the weekend connecting and holding true and meaningful conversations with each other..  We are blessed to have had the opportunity to spend the weekend at the cabin and are already excited about going back..