Christmas Tea

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Today, my mom took us to a Christmas Tea at the Ritz Carlton. My cousin Meggan had heard about it from a friend and invited us to go with her and her daughter. So we got all dressed up in our Christmas outfits and went to an afternoon tea. Each of us loved it!

While we were driving there, Cutie said, "Mom, I look like a Barbie!" She was referring to her sequence dress, quite impressive to a little girl!

My girls enjoyed being by their older cousin, soaking up every minute with her. We enjoyed little sandwiches, scrumptious desserts and delightful tea, they had my favorite, while peach!

Santa came around so we caught pictures with him. Sweetie hasn't ever believed in Santa (I know future theoropy for her since we never played that game) so she sat their uninterest and Santa commented, "Hi Sweetheart, are you ignoring me?" She didn't give him the time of day! But did take a photo!

To top off the event, my mom bought all of the girls Jeoffery Bears in honor of the Tea Master, Jeoffery who hosted the tea and sang a Christmas song. This is definitely a tradition that I would love to continue and recommend to anyone! Thanks Mommy!

Christmas Elves

I love Christmas time, it's exhausting and fun all in one month! There are so many traditions that I want to pass onto my girls, so we started a new one this year, the Advent Tree. The tradition was shared at church and we decided to adopt it this year. Each day we wrote down something we could do as a family, such as drink hot cocoa and read a story, make smores, make cards, ect. So today the tree read, "Make Christmas cookies and eat 'em!" So this morning we made them, the girls rolled out the dough and stamped the cookies out. They lost interest after a few rolls and then decided to clean the house. I loved the idea! But that soon ended too and I had to clean up from their cleaning!
Tonight we had a friend and her darling girls over to frost the cookies and enjoy dinner together. My girls loved having friends over, Cutie played with her preschool friend and Sweetie loved "babysitting" as she would call it, the younger one. Once they left and we were looking at the pics, Sweetie said, "I really had fun tonight, I'm sad they had to go." Then Cutie piped in, "They are good friend, Momma!"
Some other traditions: driving around to look at Christmas lights, purchasing gifts for those in need, making a gingerbread house, and making treats for neighbors. Share your traditions in the comments!

Life Lessons

Note to self:
1. My cat is thirsty.
2. Don't drink out of a glass of water that have been sitting around unattended!

Obviously God is trying to teach me a few lessons these past months, so I thought I would share them with you so that you can learn from my pain and not have to experience them yourself. This is how I learned a lot of lessons as a kid, my brothers would get in trouble for things and I would make a mental note never to do that offense. It worked, I hardly got in trouble, thanks bros!

Through my 2 surgeries I have learned a few things, okay a lot of things: depend on others, ask for help (even strangers), lay down and relax, read books to be entertained and grow, let others do things their way like loading the dishwasher (at least they are loaded and clean), let the refrigerator/pantry be disorganized (it really doesn't matter), take extra time to love on my kids (they need it especially when life isn't normal), trust in others, rely on others, have friends drive me to grocery shop, shop at Walmart (they actually have good prices, strange folk but good prices), trust in the Dr.'s decision, trust in the nurses/Dr's integrity as you lay 1/2 naked asleep on the operating table, enjoy walking, enjoy doing the laundry and cooking after not being able to, enjoy a shower after 2 weeks of baths, enjoy walking downstairs instead of scooting on my butt or crawling upstairs, rely on friends to pick-up/drop-off my precious cargo to school, and most importantly - that no matter what you're going through, God wants your attention and wants to teach you something.

Thank you God for continuing to heal my feet. Thank you for providing the support and love of family and friends. Thank you for all the lessons, tears, pain and joy that I have overcome through your strength each day.

Thank you friends for all your help and prayers. I feel blessed to know each of you and very loved. The weeks of meals that were provided were outstanding and such an amazing outpouring of love. I owe each of you ten times over!

An especially BIG THANK YOU to my momma. She was incredible through this whole ordeal. Putting up with my crazy, structured, over-organized life, you did terrific. Last night I took her to the Michael W. Smith concert as a thank you, we had a blast. I love ya momma!

Merry Christmas!

From the Frank's

and the Fleenor's!



Check out our new career as elf dancers on my link called, New Career.

Cutie is 4!!!

Cutie turned 4 last month and I have to put some photos up of her party.

Her party was at the park by our house, it was a parade party. All the kids brought their bikes/scooters and decorated them, then they had a parade! It was awesome, I have to give the credit to my mom for the wonderful idea, she did one for me when I was a kid. Where any of you there? Mary Jo?

So here are some pics of Cutie's party, enjoy!

No More Bunions!

Wow, I have been out of the blogging world for awhile due to my bunion surgeries. Yes, it was extremely painful but in a few weeks I'm going to have some beautiful feet! I had the first surgery in October on the left foot and just had the right foot done 2 weeks ago. Today I went to the Dr. because the bone that he broke wasn't growing back correctly. Well, it still isn't perfect but he said it will be just fine. I guess my foot won't be perfect just pretty!

So all of those days of ugly feet are over, well not yet, the right foot is still swollen and bruised. But soon! So no more jokes about being "Jobey Bunion, queen of the wild frontier." That started back in Jr. High! Soon I'll attach a foot photo but for now I'm going to make you wait!