Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Kindergarten classes at Audrey's school were asked to make leprechaun traps for St. Patrick's Day. She could build it any way she wanted, she just had to be able to set it up on the 16th at school. We were also reminded that a leprechaun's favorite color is green and they LOVE gold! So here's what we came up with....

The trap bottom is covered in "gold"(tissue paper) and we have our pot of "gold"(Mardi Gras beads) inside. The trap is held up by a dowel so when the leprechaun tries to get the gold, it will be knocked over and he will be trapped inside our green basket.

Audrey drew a rainbow and some four leaf clovers to decorate the top and also added some gold glitter glue.

Daddy helped her with this project. I started with a different idea but it wasn't working out so well, so Daddy stepped in and helped her engineer everything. I quickly let him know that he had just earned the privilege of now being the go to person for all projects that come our way in the future.

Audrey set her trap under the teacher's desk at school. Hopefully she got one!

On another note, 11 years ago today, Jay and I had our first unofficial date. Jay, thanks for going to the effort of tracking me down just so you wouldn't have to eat dinner alone and being smooth enough to make it look like a recruiting function. Only you, Babe, only you....It's one of the many reasons I love you. (heart)

To all the rest of you, have a great St. Patrick's Day and don't forget to wear your green!

Thanks for the package Granny!

Starting baseball

Well, Audrey and Reed are now part of a baseball team. This is our first try at team sports and I am looking forward to seeing how they do. As of now, they are very excited and their first practice went really well. Jay is also excited to be getting them started in baseball and is teaching them all the basics. He took them shopping for their gloves and cleats...he even got Audrey's in pink! Their first game is in 2 weeks and I will definitely be posting pictures. Here are a few from the practice. Sorry they are little bit far off...I was taking pictures through the fence.



Audrey taking a swing at her first pitch. She hit it!





Reed getting ready for his first pitch.Audrey learning to throw

Reed running the bases

Valentine's Day Project

We were in Florida at Pop & Gigi's house for Valentine's Day. It was a very dreary and rainy day, so the kids convinced Pop to make them something in his shop. I suggested that maybe Pop could build Reed a house for one of his stuffed animals. I really just thought he would go out and nail a few boards together and make a simple box. I was totally wrong. My wonderful daddy drew plans and built two wooden houses (one for Audrey & one for Reed) with arch doors and porthole windows on both sides. They have had so much fun playing with their little homes. We love them Pop! Thanks for being such a great granddad!


Audrey & Reed in the shop with Pop. They were supposed to be "helping"!

Showing off their new houses

Valentine's Day Cookies

One night before Valentine's Day, (remember, I'm still trying to catch up here...) we decorated cookies with the kids. I bought this cupcake icing that comes in a can and squeezes out like cheez whiz. It was great for decorating cookies and Reed!

Reed's icing mustache (Can you believe he let me do this to him and and that he kept it on long enough to take a picture?)

She has her mama's eyes

Her mama's bad eyesight, that is. Her doctor told us at her last check up that her left eye had some problems with the vision test so we took her to an opthamologist and he confirmed that she needed glasses. Fortunately, Audrey was totally looking forward to wearing them. The lady who gave us her glasses taught us a rhyme that Audrey has not let me forget, "If they're not on your face, they should be in your case!" She has taken that saying to heart and has done a really great job keeping up with them. (thank goodness!)

Wordless Wednesday

While Audrey's at school...

Big bro and little sis like to go on "trips". Reed helped Lauren prepare for this one. They love each other SO much!

* You'll note that Lauren is dressed and Reed is still in his PJs. Reed loves the life of leisure and would very much prefer to stay in his pajamas all day. He is definitely a kid after his mama's own heart!

New Front Doors

Recently, we've had lots going on with our house, too. We've had to get our septic system repaired, repairs on our alarm system, and we're working on getting a new roof in the next couple of weeks.

We also had our front door replaced in January. Man, there is nothing like a big gaping hole in the front of your house in the middle of 20 degree weather! We decided to have the one door flanked by open sidelights replaced with two doors and no sidelights. The sidelights had to be pulled out because there was some significant water damage at the bottom of one of the windows. I hated them anyway, because you could literally stand outside the front door and see straight into our bedroom. Plus, I want to be able to be in my home and not have people know I'm here if I don't want them too.

I think they turned out beautifully. See for yourself...

Hello neighbors!!!

The doors in and unfinished.

The beautiful doors from the inside. Yeah, privacy!!!!

Outside view.

Audrey's people

Audrey is a constant stream of creativity. One day it's words, one day it's drawing and another it's sculpture. Here are some of her people she's come up with lately.


This fun little girl is made of Wikki Sticks, a really cool toy that Santa brought the kids in their stockings. She has had a blast with them!

I went upstairs one afternoon and was met by this sweet little girl at the top of the stairs. Audrey was in one of her princess dresses and she made a friend with the clothes she had on at school. Too funny!

Transitions

So now I'm officially back to catch up on all that has been going on with us since the middle of January. I guess the biggest news is that Jay now has a new job!

Back at the end of January, Jay's company informed him that they needed to eliminate his position because of the economy. What originally started out as a scary experience has turned out to be a huge blessing. (isn't that the way life normally works?) While Jay was doing everything he could for that company, I know that it was not exactly what he wanted to be doing... he was stressed, overworked, and not totally loving the work he was being asked to do. Still, it's nervewrecking to everyone involved to not have a job to get up and go to every morning and even scarier still to not know when another job might come along.

Over the past month, he has been the busiest unemployed person I've ever known, doing everything possible to track down a new opportunity. He's also had some time to do things he hasn't gotten to do much of before, like taking the kids to school and gymnastics and doing some honey-do items for his wife. It's been nice to have him around more and I know he feels the same way. Anyway, God has definitely used this experience to show us how he constantly provides for us. Two weeks ago, Jay got sort of a random opportunity to meet with some guys who have a start up technology company and who were looking for a CPA to build their accounting department from scratch(something Jay loves!!!) It was an immediate fit. So much so, that he came home from that initial meeting with this huge grin plastered all over his face. So, he starts his new job next week. Praise God for his wonderful provision!!!! We know that it was all because of HIM!

Thanks to all of you out there who were praying for Jay and for our family. We appreciate it so much! Please continue to pray for Jay as he transitions into his new schedule and for me and the kids as we adjust to it too.

Oh, and Jay, thank you for being the wonderful, determined, go-getter that you are...We love you so much and I've never been prouder of you!

Now that I got that out of the way...

I'm coming back!

I'm back! I've totally fallen off the blogging wagon the past month and a half and I have several things that I need to post so please humor me as I catch up. Stay tuned...

I've been tagged!

Well, I've been in blog world long enough now that someone has tagged me. Thanks Tiffany! So I'm supposed to go the 4th picture in the 4th folder in my pictures folder and tell a little about it. So here it is...

This is Reed at 18 months old in April of 2006 I guess after having breakfast or something. The funny thing about this picture is Lauren just turned 18 months yesterday so it was kind of fun to compare her to Reed at that age. Reed definitely had more hair on his head. Lauren's hair is just starting to grow. And, while Lauren and Reed don't really look alike, she gives us this exact same expression sometimes, so I see a lot of her in this picture.

Also, this picture was taken at our old house about 4 months before we moved so it made me think about our sweet little first home and how great it was for us while we lived there. I try not to drive by it anymore because it looks a little depressing. The people who own it now live in Miami and use it as a vacation home so it just looks vacant. It was definitely full of life while we were there! Good times!

So now I tag... Heather H., Heather K., Kyla, & Pamela

Can't wait to see your pics!

Catching up after the holidays - Part II

Good morning! So glad to see some sunshine today! I swear it practically rained the entire month of December and now January too. While I usually enjoy the winter, I'm starting to long for warmer weather.

Anyway, back to our holidays... After Christmas and our visit with my parents and sister we basically just vegged and played our new Wii. It definitely is as much fun as everyone says it is. I'm afraid we're not very good at it yet. Although, I do have to say the first time Jay and I played bowling and golf...I beat him! It will probably be the one and only time I will beat him at anything so I'm relishing my initial victories.

We did absolutely nothing on New Year's Eve and it was glorious. In fact, I slept most of the day. My body needed to crash for a little while so I was very thankful that Jay humored me and kept the kids entertained so I could be a total bum.

We went to see the Grinch Ice exhibit at Opryland on Saturday. The kids really enjoyed it but they quickly got cold so it was a short visit. We bundled little Lauren up and Jay and I took turns holding her in our coats. She was wide-eyed and taking in everything. She probably could have stayed in there longer than the rest of us. She was pretty toasty except for her little nose!

So that's about it. It was a fantastic Christmas and a restful New Year for the McKnights. We spent time with friends and family, ate some delicious food (thanks for that fried turkey, babe), rested, but most of all we remembered what this season is all about....our Saviour, Friend, & Lord, Jesus Christ and the wonderful gift that He is to us all. Thank You, God for another wonderful Christmas!!!

Catching up after the holidays

Well, I'm back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year! We certainly did, even with a little minor hiccup to our Christmas plans. Please excuse the long post... I've just got a lot to catch up on!

As I predicted, I did spend the days leading up to Christmas frantically working on our bonus room and wrapping gifts. And, we were able to get more done to the room upstairs than I believed possible. I still have a few things I need to sew and we are well on our way to having a really fun room.

*

Part of our "bonus room" gift to each other was a Wii. Now, we were thinking way ahead and ordered our Wii on Amazon back in the middle of November so we wouldn't have to be scouring the stores for one. Jay, of course, wanted to open it right away but I continually convinced him that we needed to at least wait until the week of Christmas so it would really feel like a Christmas present. We both had these grand ideas that my family and us and the kids would play it all weekend long and how much fun that would be. My sister even got Jay and I matching Wii PJs because we had talked it up so much. So Jay was able to hold out and waited until Christmas Eve. At 10 pm on Christmas Eve, Jay hauls out the box and starts to hook everything up. Can you believe it......IT DIDN'T WORK!!! What??? Never in a million years did we think it wouldn't work! What a major bummer. Jay even tried to call Nintendo but they were closed and wouldn't be open until the 26th. So we had a Wii-less Christmas.

I'm proud of my hubby though, because as soon as he saw the kids come down our stairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left for them, he cheered right up. Sure, there was the occasional sad comment so we would feel a little sorry for him, but we all had a wonderful Christmas in spite of the little bump in our plans. Jay was able to get in touch with Nintendo on Friday and they had a replacement to us by Monday at lunch. So kudos to Nintendo for being cool about replacing it with no problems. After the whole computer crashing incident then the defective Wii, 2008 was not our year for electronics.

My family came in on Christmas Eve and we had a wonderful time with them. Thanks for coming to Tennessee Pop, Gigi, and Kay Kay. We loved having you here.

We were able to fit some gingerbread house and train making in on Christmas Eve. Here are the proud kids with their creations.

Sweet kids in their Christmas PJs.

Santa brought Audrey a Kitt Kittredge doll (Because she looks like Audrey) with a closet of clothes and a beauty parlor chair.

Reed got a cool fire house with fire truck, ambulance, police cars, and rescue helicopters. You can see Lauren in the background there trying to climb up her new slide!

Mama got Daddy and Reed some Hulk fists to fight with. Here is Reed trying them out with Pop. Reed likes them a lot but Lauren loves them. She'll put them both on and come up to you, beat them on your lap while she growls at you. Super hilarious!

Pop, Gigi, Kay Kay and Audrey playing a dominoes game Audrey got for Christmas. She's pretty good at it!

OK, so this has gotten kind of long and I'm getting sleepy so I'm going to continue this tomorrow.

Happy "late" New Year Everyone!

She's skipping right to sentences

OK, OK, OK sis...I get the picture. If I harass you about reading the blog, that means I actually need to post something for you to read. So this one's for you KK.

Things have been bananas around here lately. Christmas is definitely one of my favorite times of year, but man, it can get crazy. And in typical fashion I am probably trying to accomplish too much in too little time. On top of gift shopping, parties, decorating, and all of the other typical busyness, Jay and I have decided our gift to each other this year is to get our bonus room finished. That means a big TV for Jay and fun new decor for me. Of course, that also means Jay orders a TV and hooks it up and is finished while I agonize over what I'm going to do with colors and fabrics and then when I finally do, I'm going to paint and sew it all myself so that means many hours of work. And OF COURSE I really want to get it done before Christmas because my family will be here and I want everyone to enjoy it over the holiday. Realistically, it will probably get halfway done and I just have to be OK with that. I can only do what I can do, right?

Anyway, this post is really about my sweet little baby Lauren. Lauren has decided to completely skip saying the simple first words like "mama" and "dada" and has gone straight to complete sentences.

Friday night Jay was making some hot chocolate for Audrey and Reed. Lauren walked up to him and said something that sounded a little like "Ah on suh" while holding her hands in the air toward the mugs. After she said the same sounds several times in a row, Jay said "I think she's saying 'I want some'". I told him he was crazy. I mean, she's said ma-ma and da-da before but only when we've prompted her. There was no way she was now asking for hot chocolate with words on her own!

Later I was giving the kids marshmallows for their drinks and Lauren caught sight of the bag from across the room, came straight up to me and said "Ah on suh! Ah on suh!" Jay was not crazy. She was DEFINITELY saying "I want some!" Since Friday she has also picked up the phrase "Eh meh" (Yes mam) which I am very proud of! So she won't say any of our names but she knows how to request the food that she wants and be polite in the process. What more could a mother want?

Here's a pic of little LL helping me decorate the tree. Precious!

And here's the finished product. We love big trees at the McKnight household!

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Mom Song

A friend of mine just sent me this link and I thought it was hysterical! Man, I feel like that everyday....Enjoy!

(go to the bottom of my blog and pause the music on the playlist so you won't be listening to both things at once)

Thanksgiving in DeRidder

I realize this is a little out of order, but I wanted to share our Thanksgiving pictures with everyone. We traveled Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning to spend Thanksgiving with Granny and Papa in good old DeRidder, Louisiana. (We spent the night at a sketchy hotel in Vicksburg, MS) We also got to spend some time with Uncle Ryan, Aunt Katie, Maddie and Anna. Unfortunately, we did not get to see Uncle Adam because they were working him to death at Target. (You know, it being the busiest shopping day of the year and all.) Anyway, we had a wonderful time visiting with everyone and preparing our Thanksgiving meal. The food was great (as always...except for that oyster dressing...sorry Granny...I just can't do oysters!) but the fellowship was even better. The kids always love spending time with Granny and Papa and don't mind spending 12 hours in the car to do it! (By the way, neither do we!)

Granny and Papa wanted to take a picture of us all together for their Christmas card. So, my wanna be photographer husband brought our camera, a tripod and his trusty remote and we gave it a shot. Here are the best of the pictures out of about a hundred shots. And you know what, the kids did great...if only we could get Papa to keep looking at the camera!!

Papa and Granny with Maddie, Anna, Reed, Lauren & Audrey

Uncle Ryan, Anna, Aunt Katie & Maddie

The whole clan (Except for Adam.. we missed you!)

James Reed McKnight... his Jr. and the Third (or "fird" as Reed says...)

Christmas Tree Decorating

Earlier this week, it was time to pick out and decorate our beautiful Christmas tree. We have an artificial one but Jay insists that we get a real tree if we are going to be home for Christmas day. So, after a long day of travel on Saturday, we got out in the bitter cold on Sunday and bought our 13 foot tree from the Boy Scouts. One of my favorite things during the Christmas season is going to pick out a tree as a family. I also really love getting all of the ornaments out every year. They truly hold many memories for me. For example, I know you are all tired of hearing about Disney but this year we added some Mickey Mouse ears to our tree to commemorate our trip. In the years to come, whenever I see that ornament it will always remind me of our wonderful vacation. Every other ornament on the tree holds some special meaning just like that one and it is so fun to take a trip down memory lane, especially at this time of year.

Anyway, this is the first year that I let the kids take their own ornaments and hang them on the tree themselves. What craziness!!! Audrey, in all of her enthusiasm could hardly get any of hers on the tree because the anticipation of the next box opening was just too much for her to handle. Reed basically just wanted to play with his Thomas & Percy ornaments that my mom gave him a few years ago. And Lauren, well let's just say, was in the middle of it all!

I took a picture of what the kids did. This is a close up shot so you could see everything, but just imagine, the rest of the tree is empty! It looked really funny for a while until Mama came in and shuffled things around...just a bit... and then added all the breakable ornaments up high. I'll post a picture of our tree when we are totally done. I just have a few finishing touches to make.

Audrey brought home a little writing assignment the other day. She said that they were supposed to answer the question "What would you do if you were a reindeer?" This is what she wrote. (She had no help to spell the words...they want them to try to sound things out for themselves.) The translation is below...

Audrey said "I would fly all day and night today to Santa."

Just thought it was cute and wanted to share.

Daddy's trying it out

One of my most memorable Disney events was the breakfast safari I went on with Reed. This picture was the best...

I tried to discuss the difference in a rhino and a RINO with him, but he wasn't interested in Dad's political ramblings at the time.

Joanna poured herself into the planning of the trip and I'm thrilled that we got our pictures back (partially because she might turn down the "let's go back" heat). We had a wonderful time thanks to her efforts.

Let's see if this works...

- Jay