Gwynn Meets World Week Twenty-Nine

Homework Time in Wynnie's Room

Wynnie is working on her driving skills! 

Time for homework....I got the marker!! 

Daddy worked on site words with Layner....and she's great at them! 

Hayden worked on writing her name and doing math. 

Birthday Adventure!

On Monday we went over to Grammie and Pop's house to help them "clean out their fridge"! They have been getting so many meals and they needed help eating all of the food. While we were there Jan gave me my birthday present...MONEY. So, on Tuesday the girls and I spent a little cash and had some fun. We had to drop some cookies off to Whit at DMS, so we stopped at a park kind of place on the way home. ROLL DOWN THE HILL!! 

Running races! 

Silly faces! 

Climbing "mountains" 

And more rolling! 

Then we were off to Dairy Queen for dinner!! Fun day. We were going to get our nails done (well, they were) but Layne started to get a little cranky so we headed home. 

Copilot

Wynnie has graduated from the infant car seat to the big girl seat in the jogging stroller! She still looks so tiny in there, but since she can sit up she officially old enough for it! 

This picture is for Pap! We were over at Grammy and Pop's house last night for a visit. They had a bunch of food for us to look through-Grammy is on a strict diet and can't eat a lot of what they have in the house. As we were looking through stuff we saw this stink bug crawling around!! So, this stink bug picture is for you Pap!! 

Grandma Layne

10th Day of School celebration! Yes, Layne's hair is gray! 

What a cute little grandma! 

And of course a cute little girl!! 

Gwynn Meets World Week Twenty-Eight

Dress Up, Cartoons, and Hugs!

On Thursday Layne's school will celebrate the 100th day of school. I was asking some of my elementary teacher friends why that was such a big deal and they really didn't know....but we do it anyways! So, for her 100th day she needs to dress like someone that's 100 years old! Here's a little teaser to the outfit! 

Watching Monday morning cartoons with sisters this morning, since they didn't have school. 

And of course we had to take some sister pictures! 

I just love them to pieces!! 

Sisters and Sitting Up!

Aren't they all just beautiful!? 

Look who's sitting up these days!

Awards Day

Miss Hayden got three awards during her awards day!! Blazin' Behavior, Honor Roll, and a Reader Award! 

Gwynn Meets World Week 27

After The Race

After the race we all got these "mugs" filled with chocolate fondue, hot chocolate, and all sorts of treats to dip in the chocolate. As you can see, we all had fun with it!! 

This was our serious picture before we got into the chocolate mess. It was a fun race to do. I will do it again for sure next year, but I will make sure to train better so that I can do the 15K instead!! 

Red face runners! 

Mommy and her girls right before we got in the car to race off to Discover Point! 

6 Month Check Up

Here is the sweet girl waiting to see the doctor. 

More smiles since she doesn't know that she's about to get 4 shots! 

Stats from the appointment: Height-26 inches {50%}, Weight- 15lbs 11 oz {50%}, and Head-44 3/4 cm {95%}. All in all it was a good visit. She's doing everything that she's supposed to be doing. 

Smiley Sisters!

The other day we declared it dress day....because you can do that when you have all girls!!

Happy baby the other morning before our run. At least one of us was happy about it! 

It Really IS Official!

Here's the beautiful business license that we've worked so hard for......It deserved a very beautiful frame to live in, don't you think!? 

Hot Chocolate Race

Here are the girls at the Hot Chocolate 15/5K Expo. The girls, Jeremy, Lisa and I went to the Expo this afternoon to pick up our race numbers and awesome sweatshirts! Lisa and I had both planned to run the 15K which is about 10 miles.....but neither of our trainnings went as planned so we are both running the 5K instead. Oh well! We still got the really awesome sweatshirt. 

After the race there's a Hot Chocolate Post Race Party complete with hot chocolate, fondue and tons of stuff to dip in the fondue! Too bad it was 75 degrees here today and will be the same tomorrow....not really good weather for hot chocolate! 

Gwynn Meets World Week 26

Washing Mommy's Car

You can't totally see but this child is wearing her purple pj's (some of her favs because her favorite colors are purple and pink!", pink high heel dress up shoes, and she's holding her little toy yorkie while she scrubs mommy's car! What a nut! 

And Hayden is just a little clown these days. So weird and funny! I love it! 

Sleep, Smiles, and Reading!

Look at that precious baby cuddling with her blankie while she sleeps. I know that I say this all the time, but I just adore her. I remember a friend having a conversation with me when I was struggling with the fact that I was pregnant for the third time. The same thing happened to her and she said that I would be able to enjoy her so much more because she was the third and I knew what I was doing and the other two would be in school and it would be special because I knew that she was the last so I would want to take in every single moment. Angela was exactly right!!  

I was thinking the other day about how spoiled little Wynnie is. Then it hit me...I am the spoiled one! I get to spend every single day with this precious little one. Then I get to spend every afternoon and evening with two more precious girls! And even better than that, I get to spend every evening with an amazing husband. God has blessed me is so many ways!! 

Here's Hayden reading me the instructions from the corn bread box the other night. I am just so proud of her. She tries so hard in school and loves every minute of it. She's just so driven and smart but very sweet and tender hearted at the same time.  

Sugar & Spice Sweets Update

As most of  you know, 19 months ago I was baking up a storm! Jeremy and I honestly thought that we were doing everything "the right way" when it came to Sugar and Spice Sweets and the licensing. The Rockdale Citizen ran an article about the business in the paper and the next day I received a call that shut my business down! It was heartbreaking at the time. Jeremy and I knew that I could just bake again and fly under the radar, but we wanted to do things the right way. If the county said it was illegal then I wasn't going to do it until it was legal! I really didn't think that I would ever bake out of my home again. I just figured that I would bake again professionally once the girls got older and I could purchase a bakery.

As soon as I was shut down Jeremy began looking into how to go about changing the laws in Georgia and Rockdale. He found a group of home bakers that had done a lot of work trying to make changes in Georgia. In September of 2012 the state made some changes and baking in the home was allowed! As soon as that happened Jeremy contacted the commissioners in Rockdale and started to press them on the issue locally. He had countless conversations and we attended board meetings (Jeremy even spoke on the behalf of S and S Sweets at one of them) in order to make sure home baking was permitted in the county.  In December 2012 Rockdale County changed the law in the county in order to allow home baking!!  

So much has happened in the 19 months that I've been out of business. God has really revealed a lot to me about my priorities and the business over the past 19 months. The time off really gave me the time to take a look at the business and how much time it took away from my family and Him and how much stress I piled on myself over it.  God also blessed us with baby girl number 3 during the 19 months off....a complete surprise to us! Looking back at everything, this break has been such a great one for my family and for me. God really knows what He's doing even if we don't always understand why at first (or ever).

So, two days ago the Department of Agriculture called me in order to set up a time for them to come out and "inspect" the kitchen. You will see a little later why I put the word inspect in quotes. They were going to be in Covington-the next county over-the next day (Wednesday) and wanted to know if they could come by that afternoon! I said yes but then freaked out once I got off the phone. My plan was to clean the kitchen this week, but it was a little bit of deep cleaning each day. Now, I was going to have to do a major deep cleaning in 24 hours! So, I got to work. Once Jeremy got home he got to work too :) We decided that it was a great excuse to really deep clean/ reorganize everything......refrigerator, freezer, oven, stove top, microwave, cabinets, kitchen island, counters, pantry, light fixtures, tile floor...... It was madness! 

Yesterday Jeremy was scrubbing the floor with an abrasiveness cleaner and I was trying to get the rest of the house in order. He came to me and said, "I need your help. I cannot get the floor cleaner to come off of the floor. I've been trying everything and I just can't get it all to come up. It's now drying and we need to get it off of this floor." So, we finally came up with a solution that worked. He brought the outside hose in and squirted the tiles and grout while I vacuumed up the water with the shop vac! Thankfully, he had moved EVERYTHING out of the kitchen so it was easier to maneuver the vacuum around to get the water up. When I took the girls to school this morning I was noticing that my back was sore....then I flashed back to all of the intense frantic vacuuming that I did yesterday with the shop vac and I realized why I am so sore! We got it all done and everything looked amazing when all was said and done. 

So, around 1pm the doorbell rang and the two inspectors came in. No joke, they took one step into the kitchen and said, "Looks good. I don't think we're going to have any trouble." And that was it....honestly!! I said with a smile, "So, you don't have to check anything?". What I wanted to say with a very angry face was, "Listen here, my husband and I have cleaned this kitchen top to bottom for you two! You better at the very least get your white gloves on and do some inspecting!!" So, there was no white glove inspection, no opening drawers, no checking temperatures, no measuring, no ingredient check, NONE OF THAT. Just a look and some small talk and they were on their way. I am super glad that I have a spotless kitchen and I am even more glad that the inspection was so easy. 

So, Sugar and Spice Sweets is back in business.....to God be all of the glory!  

Vision Banquet

Last night Discover Point had our Vision Banquet. It was such a nice night. We went to another church in Covington and had dinner in their banquet hall and the childcare was in another building. One of our church members catered the food, it was delicious! And I made the cake for it. 

It was a great night with a good look back at how far God has brought Discover Point and a glimpse into what He has in store for us in 2013! 

Super Sisters!

We're introducing a new series in Discover Kids this Sunday...Heroes vs Villains! In order to kick the series off we are asking all the kids, parents, volunteers, anyone to dress up like a super hero tomorrow. That means the girls had to actually look like super heroes! 

Layne wanted to be Super Dancer!! 

Hayden wanted to wear the cape that Aunt Jamie made for Layne a few years ago, so she is Wonder Woman...her version of Wonder Woman any ways! 

And Gwynn is Super Baby!