girls night...

one thing i have really missed since moving to my new job is getting to spend so much time with my good friends. when i first took this position megan and melissa would come have lunch with me several days a week, but now they both work night weekends. we are all three really happy with the changes in our work schedule but we miss seeing each other! last friday night we decided it was way past time to have a girls night. we started out with the 3 of us plus alison going to get our nails and toenails done. it was nice to get pampered and just hang out with everyone! after that we headed to spindini, a restaurant on south main. alison and i shared the lobster pizza and it was soooo yummy!! we weren't quite ready to head home yet so we went over to the peabody and had tea and looked at the christmas decorations. it was a wonderful night of catching up and just hanging out with great friends!

please pray for megan...her grandmother passed away on tuesday morning. meg had hoped that her grandmother would make it to see her and trey get married in march, and then she began to hope that she would make it to christmas...so please just pray for her and her family.



white christmas...

the saturday after thanksgiving mom, katie, allie and i went to see "white christmas" at the orpheum. we started out the day by with lunch at one of my favorite downtown restaurants, the majestic.

it was such a beautiful day so after lunch we walked down main street. we went in some shops and then took the trolley back to the orpheum.

the show was amazing and we all really loved it! it was allie's first time to be at the orpheum so that was cool. it was a really fun day!

thanks...

i read something today that made me sit back and think...

i try to be thankful but this was very much an in-your-face reminder...it made me think a lot about the things i'm thankful for.
Psalm 69:30 i will praise the name of God with a song, and i will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
I Chronicles 16:8 oh, give thanks to the Lord! call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples!
Psalm 97:12 rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

friends that i love like family
i have been blessed with some of the very best friends a girl could ask for!

a few of my peeps

family that i like enough to count as my friends

my little piece of heaven
God gave me exactly the house i needed when i found my house. plus i have the perfect little roommate in libs : )

the awesome privilege and responsibility of being a nurse

healthy bones and a caring doctor

parents who still take care of me

freedom to worship, speak, and live as i choose.

and of course...

seven precious little sweethearts
kylie reed, allie grace, kenzie nicole, taylor anne, jenna klaire, kolbie kay, jett daniel...with our new little girl on the way!



slumber parties...

i've been letting each of my nieces take a turn coming over to spend the night with me. kylie came over a few months ago and we went to see "dolphin tale". a couple of weeks ago was allie's night. i asked her if she wanted to go see a movie, but she wasn't really feeling it. she just wanted to go hang out at my house. we decided that she would help me put up my christmas decorations. i usually put up a large tree, but this year i decided to put up a smaller tree. allie and i headed to walmart to buy a little tree. she really wanted me to get a white, pink, or blue one...but i convinced her that green was the way to go. she wanted to go to tops to eat and then we went home.

helping me put the tree up

allie was such a big help in putting up my christmas decorations! she kept asking me what her next project was. she made all of that work a lot easier : )

putting the finishing touch on the tree

last night was kenzie's night to come over. we went to chili's for dinner. she informed me that the chicken pasta there is the "bom-diggity", so we had to get that. she was right, it was pretty good. when we left there we went and watched "happy feet 2", and it was cute.

                                                  me and kenzie in our matching plaid coats

                                                                                
kenzie brought her elf chesney with her and let me tell you, that elf got into all of my jewelry while we were sleeping! she even had my rings on her little feet! when we found her i was so shocked but kenzie wasn't surprised...she said chesney is always getting into something or another.

this morning when we got up kenzie made me pretend that she was my pet cat named "wand". she kept getting in liberty's kennel and climbing all over my couches...there's only one word for that kid...quirky.

next weekend is taylor's turn so that should be quite the adventure! i'm looking forward to it and katie said she is too. taylor that is : )



thanksgiving fun...

i had such a great thanksgiving this year. this was the first time in a really long time that i have had both thursday and friday off and it was so nice to just be able to relax and spend time with my family. it was also great to have julie, daniel, jenna and jett in town.

i went over to mom and dad's on wednesday night and stayed until sunday. we had thanksgiving with memaw, lewis, aunt connie and john thomas on thursday. then on friday night we celebrated julie, katie and jeremy's birthdays. we had a great time visiting with aunt connie and john but we missed thom. hopefully we will get to see him at christmas.

thanksgiving family fun



piano lessons....

i know i am WAY overdue on updating this blog. i've been crazy busy. one of the things that i've been doing with my time is giving kylie piano lessons! i never in a million years thought i would do that, but i am. stacy asked me one night if i would be interested in teaching kylie and i told her to let me think about it. obviously i have never taught anyone before so i wasn't sure if i would be able to do it or not. it's like teaching someone a brand new language. i called stacy back the next afternoon and left her a message and told her that if kylie was interested we would try it out for awhile. kylie called me that night and was SO excited! she said she couldn't wait to start! mom got out some of my old piano books and we were ready to go.

me and kylie at her first lesson

kylie has been doing so good at the piano! she has really picked it up quickly, and she has an ear for music. she tries to play by ear so i have to make her read her music and then she does a great job. she's learning how to count out her notes and how to put her hands in the correct position. this week she is learning to recognize the different notes on the keyboard. she loves to play her songs for anyone who will listen...i know that's a shock!! : ) it has been so much fun for me to get to share my love of the piano with kylie and to get to see her learn to love it too...before to long i will have taught her all i can and stacy and drew will have to find her a new teacher!

what a week...

loving what i do is what has gotten me through this past week. we have 3 total sixteen (TOTXVI) research nurses. that is the leukemia protocol we work on. it is me, kim, and gheri. gheri is pregnant and due at the end of january. she went to the doctor on thursday of last week and found out that she has already started dilating and has now been put on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy. i feel so bad for her! her little girl addisyn is only 16 months old and gheri doesn't even get to go home...she has to stay in the hospital until she has baby gavin.
on monday of this week kim and i met with our boss linda and decided how we are going to divide up gheri's patients. she has 59 active patients that she is responsible for, so we split those up and kim took 27 of them and i took 32. kim and i each already had between 50 and 55 of our own patients so now we are both taking care of about 80 patients indefinitely.
on tuesday kim called in with bronchitis and was out the rest of the week. so...i was responsible for about 160 patients all week by myself. and i just moved into this position at the end of march. needless to say, i was pretty frazzled by the time friday evening rolled around.
the good thing through the whole week was that i really love all of my patients and their families. i'm getting to meet lots of new kids now too since i've picked up gheri's patients. i can't imagine working in a field that i wasn't passionate about. i absolutely love my job and i know that i'm blessed to get to work at st. jude and take care of these precious kids.

...of course, some days i still wish i was here...

finishing out our nyc trip...

our first two days in nyc were by far our busiest. on sunday we slept in a little and then headed to the tkts line to try to get discounted tickets for that nights performance of "Mama Mia". when we got there the line was incredibly long...we would have been waiting all day. so, we headed to the theatre to see if we would have any luck there instead. while we were still in times square debating what to do we saw this guy wandering around so i had to get my picture made with him...

as meagan was taking the picture he was telling me,

"most people give me like a dollar for this"

haha..."so your hugs aren't really free?" i asked!

we ended up getting a fairly good deal on our tickets to the show that night. there was an usher hanging around in the lobby (the matinee was getting ready to start) and he told us to find him at intermission and he would see if he could move us to better seats!

when we left the theatre we headed to 59th and lexington and did some retail therapy before heading back to get ready for the show. the play was really good...and we did find our usher and he got us into some great seats for the 2nd half of the show!! they were awesome!

the next morning we didn't set an alarm clock...bad idea. luckily meagan just happened to wake up. she woke up at 11:40 and check-out was at noon...not good. none of us had packed anything the night before, so that will explain some of the pics you are about to see. we did get out the door by 12, and the hotel held our luggage for us because our plane didn't leave until 6 that evening. we headed straight for central park. i love central park! it's so amazing that new york has that big beautiful piece of land in the middle of such a huge city.

how did meagan end up looking like so good???

when we left central park we went to fao schwartz...we were all about the toy stores on this trip!

the piano from "big"

a lego johnny depp!

we had one last stop to make before heading to the airport. we ate at the shake shack for the second time of our short trip. they have amazing burgers, fries, and shakes!

and that, my friends, was our trip to the big apple! can't wait to do it again : )



saturday in nyc...

no, i didn't go back to new york again : ) and yes, i know this post is way late...when we got to new york on friday i was of course taking lots of pictures. we were on top of the empire state building and all of a sudden...my camera battery died!! what a nightmare on the first day of my trip!! and of course...i had forgotten to bring my charger with me. so, i had no camera for the rest of the trip. fortunately, melissa took lots of pics and she downloaded them for me and i've got them all now : ) so, here's a rundown of what we did for the rest of the weekend.
we decided to spend saturday in downtown manhattan and then go to brooklyn that night for some scrumptious grimaldi's pizza. we started out by taking the staten island ferry so that we could get a good view of the statue of liberty.

                              when we got back we saw some of the famous downtown sights. 

where george washington was inaugurated

the new york stock exchange

the bull of the stock market (and from hitch!)

trinity church

this is a replica of tree roots that were in the cemetery beside trinity church.

on 9-11 these tree roots protected all of the old graves and tombstones in the cemetery.

the 9-11 memorial. "may we never forget"

next we headed over to south street seaport. there are lots of little shops and places to eat over there. it also has a great view of the hudson river. we were almost there and we heard someone say..."would you like to have a hug today, ladies?" we looked up and this is what we saw...

let me tell you...i FREAKED out!!!

i turned around and ran! i got to the corner and was standing by a pole and looked up...

i immediately started running across the street...almost getting run over by a taxi!

snakes scare me to death and i couldn't handle being close to these guys.

that night we took the subway over to brooklyn and ate at the delicious grimaldi's. it was well worth the long wait, as usual! we walked back over the brooklyn bridge and had a great view of the manhattan skyline at night. the weather was perfect!! we went to 2 different places for dessert : P megan and melissa ate at ferrera's and then i ate at rice to riches.

after our long day we finally headed back to the hotel and got some much needed rest.





paint a piece with allie...

last year for allie's birthday we went to paint a piece. when it came time for her birthday this year i asked her if she wanted me to get her a present or if she wanted to go back to paint a piece again. she said she wanted to go back to paint again! i left work early and went to pick her up from school and we headed to jerry's for some yummy snowcones.

when we left there we headed out to wolfchase. allie had told katie that she was going to pick the biggest piece of pottery she could find because she wanted to stay a really long time!! when we got in the store she looked around for awhile and then went straight for this guy.



unfortunately i had to tell her "no go!" for one thing, it was $75! and for another...look at the size of that thing!!!
she got right to work picking out her paints for the dog that she picked out.

         me and allie with our finished products. of course she named her dog andy.

we had so much fun!! can't believe my sweet little girl is 6.