A Couple of Weeks in Pictures

So this week I decided to do my update mainly in pictures. We have had a lot going on, but despite being busy we have had a lot of fun. The only thing that has kind of thrown us off is Trey getting sick this weekend. Starting Friday afternoon he started running a fever. Other than the fever he had no other symptoms. Well, Saturday morning he woke up and sounded horrible. He had a definite crackle in his chest and it sounded like he could barely breath. Anyway, finally Sunday morning we couldn't take it anymore and we took him to the emergency room. After a couple of hours there, the doctor's diagnosis was a double ear infection, bronchitis, and a sore throat. They treated him with a breathing treatment and a couple of shots. Sunday afternoon he took a 4 1/2 hour nap and seemed to be starting to feel better. He still isn't one hundred percent, but a couple of days of antibiotics will hopefully do the trick. Other than that here are the highlights of the last couple of weeks!

Trey going down the slide at the park. He loves his newfound mobility at the park. He is not afraid to check everything out.
Kendal swinging at the park. We love fall days. Last week we had lunch at the park two afternoons.

Can you believe we can still swim? It is definitely starting to get chilly, but when the sun is out it is bearable. It won't be long until we will cover up the pool for the winter. Spring will not be here soon enough!
The girls performed Saturday at our Ward Talent Show. They wore ballet costumes and performed a jazz routine. They were a hit!

The girls are gearing up for Halloween. Kendal picked out these funny teeth at the dollar store and couldn't wait to get home and try them out.
We sure are glad we have good dentists in the family!
Crazy teeth!
The girls had a great time doing my hair one afternoon. I think they used just about every clip they could find in my hair.
Kendal with some friends at the park!

Fun in the tub. The kids love getting in the big jacuzzi tub on Sunday mornings. We let them turn on the jets and put in bubble bath. They love it! Trey is intrigued by the bubbles. He isn't exactly sure what they are all about.
Posing in the tub.
Sunday morning pictures!
This is what you get when we try to take a family photo by ourselves. It just doesn't quite work, even with Jeff's long arms.
Trey makes the cutest expressions. This is him in awe of a book. He favorite word these day is "hot". Every time I give him food he will look at it and ask if it is Hot? It is so cute. He also will attempt to blow on his own food if he thinks it might be hot. I love this age!

Well that is our weeks in pictures. I have continued to train for the 1/2 marathon. On Saturday I ran 7 miles. That is my all time high. Everyday I really do feel like it is getting a little bit easier. I will never be a great long distance runner, but I am looking forward to accomplishing my goal of finishing the 1/2 marathon. Incorporated in my training schedule, I have planned a couple of 5k and 10k races. I am looking forward to those and I am trying to include family and friends as much as possible. Jeff may try to run a couple of races with me. I am also inviting the Griffeth family to join me on Thanksgiving for the Gobble Trot in Marietta. Hopefully, I can talk a few of them into joining me!

Birthday Party Fun!

Have I mentioned the my kids love a good party? Bayley especially loves everything about a party...the cake, the atmosphere, the presents, the friends, etc. So this past weekend was just about the perfect weekend for Bayley. Friday night we drove up to Elijay, Georgia for my brother Spencer's 29th birthday party. It was a perfect evening filled with great food, great company and great news! The last present Spencer opened was the suprise announcement that Spencer and Leigh are expecting a baby in April! We are so excited for them! After spending the night at Spencer and Leigh's house, we drove home Saturday morning. Bayley had another birthday party to attend for one of her friends from school, so while Kendal and Trey tried to catch up on lost sleep from the night before Bayley and I attended the party. We completed the day with a nice swim together as a family and an early bedtime. Sunday was Stake Conference in Birmingham, so we made the short drive over there and enjoyed a nice meeting. It was a quick weekend but a fun one.

Our weekday nights are quickly filling up. Bayley has decided she wants to join the local swim team, so that will involve practice 2 nights a week. In addition to Kendal and Bayley's dance classes as well as youth nights at church, our nights are officially booked for the rest of the year. It's nice to be busy doing things that you enjoy, but there are many nights that Bayley comes home and complains that the days go by too quickly. I have told her that they never slow down and only seem to go quicker the older you get. I continue to train for the upcoming mini-marathon. I am going to try to run a couple of local 5K and 10K races to kind of gauge where I am at. My big goal is the finish, but I would love to be able to run the whole distance! We'll see. Here are a couple of pictures from the last week, hope you enjoy!

Thornton News Report

Well, I have put off updating the blog long enough. It's not like we haven't had any news as of late, but for one reason or another I have not been as motivated as I should be to update the blog. I will do better.

I will start with Trey, our walking man. He is officially a walker. He is so cute! The first couple of weeks he would walk with his hand in the air to help with his balance, but as of this week he can now walk with his hands to his side. He loves the mobility that walking gives him. We have even put shoes on him a couple of time and he has done very well. Since I have rarely put socks or shoes on him this summer, he kind of looks at me funny when I put them on. Usually his big sister Kendal will help him out when we are at home and quickly takes of his shoes and socks for him...if you know Kendal you will really appreciate this because she never leaves her shoes on in the house or the car. His vocabulary continues to expand..he can now say Mama (his favorite word), Dada, ball, and night-night. It won't be long before we have another little chatter box running around.

Kendal has mastered her colors! We are so proud of her. This week we are beginning her letters. It should be an adventure. She has started her dance classes and loves it! She asks just about everyday if it is Thursday, the day of her dance class. Bayley has her dance classes on Tuesday and the first time that Bayley had her class, Kendal was sure that the teacher would let her in to dance to. She snuck away and came out all dressed up in her dance outfit ready to go. It was so cute, but pretty darn sad for her when she realized she really wasn't going to be able to dance on Tuesdays. Since that first class, she now appreciates that they each have their own classes a little more. She continues to be a big helper around the house and a toddler full of surprises. She is definitely our little fireball.

Bayley has enjoyed her first month of school. Her teacher lets her help out in the room, which Bayley really enjoys. It is hard for her to make friends at school because she is such a well-behaved child she rarely will talk unless asked to. She has made a couple of friends and I sure that number will grow as the school year progresses. She is enjoying her dance class and is looking forward to performing with her little sister in our upcoming Ward Talent Show, this upcoming September 22nd. The girls are going to do Bayley's dance team routine from last year, that Kendal pretty much had down pat after watching Bayley practice. It should be a lot of fun to see them on stage together.

Jeff is doing well at work. He tries to fit in golf every chance he gets. He does a wonderful job of including his kids in his love for golf. He will take the girls out with him to play a couple of holes. They love it! This last Saturday he and Bayley put together a lemonade stand out on the golf course to raise money for the American Heart Association. On one of the websites I frequent, there was a post with a link to the SunKist website where they were giving kids a lemonade stand if they would use it to raise money for a good cause. Jeff and Bayley decided to choose the American Heart Association as the cause and ended up collecting $87 in just under 2 hours. The girls had a great time and it will be fun sending in a check to a great cause.

As for me I continue to train for the half-marathon. I think I am doing pretty well, but you never know until you have run one if you have prepared enough. In the last 2 weeks I have received two new callings at church. I am now the Faith In God Girls activity leader and the Second Counselor in the Relief Society. I am once again in charge of Home, Family and Personal Enrichment, a calling I held in the Martin Ward for over 2 years. It will be a challenge, but both callings can be a lot of fun as well. Oh well, I enjoyed my 2 months as fourth Sunday Relief Society teacher.

Finally, I am excited to announce the arrival of two new Griffeth cousins, Nate and Olivia. We are so excited they are here and that both the babies and the mommies are doing great!

Bayley's Sixth Birthday Party!!!

Our Party Girl

Bayley's First Day of School with her teacher Mrs. Reid
Bayley Decorating Her Own Birthday Cake
Bayley right after her first tooth was pulled
Spencer tossing Bayley into the pool
The completed cake





Anyone who knows Bayley knows how much the girl loves a party. We start planning her parties about 6 months in advance. The girl loves to entertain. Well, this weekend was Bayley's party for her 6th Birthday. We invited a couple of families from church and she invited 3 kids from school. She has had a tough time making new friends at school and we really haven't run into very many girls her age. Anyway, the people we invited from church showed up as well as her Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth and Spencer and Leigh. It was a crowd!


Bayley loves to decorate cakes and bake. So it only made sense that we would make her birthday cake ourselves...especially since we ordered the Betty Crocker cake decorating set off the Internet last month and had still not put it to use. Originally she had wanted a three-tiered cake. After looking up on the Internet how to make a three-tiered cake and seeing the difficulty involved, I talked her into doing a princess cake. Fortunately for me, she jumped on board and the cake turned out beautifully. I did the bottom and she decorated the top by herself. As she was decorating, she complemented herself on what a great job she had done. It did turn out pretty darn cute if you ask me.


We decided to make this years party a swim party since we have a pool. We also let the kids demolish a pinata, had a water balloon fight and ate hot dogs, watermelon, and chips. Everything turned out great, but boy am I glad that it is over. It is exhausting, especially when there are such high expectations by the birthday girl. Overall, I have to say she was pleased.


I am so proud of Bayley and feel truly blessed to have her in my life. She has such a sweet spirit and really is a VERY good girl. I love the blue-eyed, blond-haired girl that Heavenly Father gave me and that I dreamed about having when I was younger. She really is a great big sister to Kendal and Trey...I know that they adore her. I love you, Bayley and hope you have a wonderful sixth Birthday!


Kendal started "home" school last week. We worked all week on her colors. In some ways she is ahead of where Bayley was at her age, but in some she is way behind...which is of course, my fault. But we are determined to catch her up this year. She is such a smart girl and we are going to have her begging to go to school next year (even though she will still have another year at home before she starts kindergarten). Kendal also started dance classes this week. She is so excited and so darn cute! I can't wait to see her perform!

Kendal doing the "Cheerleader" in the Pool

Trey is getting braver everyday when it comes to walking. Fortunately, he still is crawling most of the time, but he could start RUNNING any day. I will be in trouble! I don't think I have posted this yet, but Trey has an infatuation with hair. He loves playing with long hair. If you give him a brush and some hair he will be content for quite a while. I've heard that there are a lot of other boys that are the same way, but I don't think that makes Jeff feel any better about his son's infatuation with hair. Speaking of hair, it won't be long before Trey is going to need his first trim!

Our big man Hanging Out


My big news is that I am going to start training for a 1/2 marathon. My basketball teammate at Morehead State, Jan, challenged me to participate with her and a couple other of my old teammates in a 1/2 marathon December 1st in Memphis. I've already been running just about everyday, so I am going to give it a shot. I've never been a huge runner, but it is something that I can do with kids...I love my double jogging stroller. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Grandma Nancy and Papaw Rick, First Day of School, Lost Tooth, 1st Birthday!

So getting our hardwood floors refinished this last week has put me a bit behind. We had a great weekend with Grandma Nancy and Papaw Rick who made a quick trip down from Indiana. The kids love having visitors and enjoyed seeing their grandparents. We swam, took rides on the golf cart, swam some more, played and showed them around a little bit. After a quick weekend, they had to head home Sunday morning. Sunday evening we began preparing for the hardwood floors to be refinished. Jeff recruited some guys from church to help him move our furniture off the floors. It only took them about 20 minutes, so it was nice to have help. We crammed everything into the bedrooms and out on the back porch. On a scaled down version, it almost feels like we are moving again. The kids and I headed to Atlanta Monday morning to escape the fumes. We spent three days at Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth's where we did some shopping, some swimming and lots of playing. Jeff managed to tolerate the fumes and slept in our basement for the first 3 days. Thursday morning was Bayley's first day of school, so we woke up at 6 am Georgia Time, which is 5 am Alabama time and made the quick trip home so that we could drop Bayley off at school. She is excited to be starting first grade and we hope that she has a wonderful year. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Reid and seems to be a great teacher. Thursday night we all braved the fumes and spent the night in the basement. Despite the heat wave, we have had to keep a couple of windows open to allow for ventilation. Needless to say it wasn't the best sleeping conditions, but we survived the night. Thursday night before bed, Jeff asked to see Bayley's loose tooth. After convincing her that it was time to get it out, he pulled it. There were some tears...she was more scared than hurt, but she was very excited. The tooth fairy came over night and left her $2...Bayley said that the tooth fairy must have left her so much because she had such a clean tooth! Friday was Trey's 1st Birthday! He took about 11 steps in a row yesterday, so we can say that he started walking on his first birthday. He is still trying to get brave, but he will be running around before we know it. After Bayley got home from school, we went swimming for a while then had dinner on the back porch. We sang to Trey and afterwards put a cupcake with a candle in front of him. He wouldn't even take a bite...it was like he thought something was up. We never give him a whole cupcake and he really wasn't too pleased to have a whole one in front of him. He threw the cake and frosting everywhere, then began to cry. After a busy day, he ended his birthday early by heading to bed. We had a very eventful week...but a fun one nonetheless. I will be excited to get our stuff moved back in this evening, and hopefully get things put back together. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Life after Potter!

All right, I know that a reading a book is not that good of an excuse for not posting, but I really was trying to finish before I heard details about the book that would ruin the ending for me. Suprisingly, I accomplished this and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to anyone that has had any interest in the Harry Potter series at all. Now on with the update!

Stone Mountain

As Pfizer was providing us with free all day passes to Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, we decided to head out after lunch to the park. Well, it was a good idea in theory, but ended up to be somewhat of a disappointment. Besides being a very hot day, the park was extremely crowded (we overheard a couple of the employees saying that it was busier than July 4th, which is one of their busiest days of the year). We would wait in line for an attraction, get hot and decide to ditch the line and find something else. We did that about 3 times before seeing nothing and finally giving up. Early in the evening, Pfizer provided dinner and games. That part of the experience was much more enjoyable. The girls had a lot of fun participating in the hula-hoop contest, the dance contest, relay races, and tug-o-war. We all left with temporary tatoos and before finding our seats for the laser show, we decided to take a ride on the skylift. As it had started to cool down a bit, we actually managed the 30 minute wait in line and made it to the top. The kids enjoyed the ride and the view from the top was pretty cool. After heading back down the mountain, we claimed our seats for the laser show and hung out enjoying the opportunity to sit in the cooling weather. We set up a little tent for the girls which kept them more than occupied and once it began to get dark we pulled out the glow-in-the dark bracelets and necklaces. The girls loved the laser show...Trey finally gave up and fell asleep just as the show was starting. We had a great time and I am sure as long as we live this close to the park, it won't be our last trip there.

St. Thomas

Sunday, Jeff and I left for St. Thomas. The kids were fortunate enough to get to stay with their Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth and Aunt Alyssa and Uncle Grant. The kids had a great time and enjoyed being spoiled with attention! I know that I had a harder time being away from them, then they did being away from me! I think about 4 days is my maximum when it comes from being away from my kids. I miss them too much! Jeff and I had a great time on our much needed vacation and did a lot of fun things. I will summarize our activities by day.



Monday
Jeff and I got the day started pretty early despite getting in pretty late the night before. We arrived in St. Thomas to rain and a beat up rental car. Everytime we went over a bump the car would make a horrible scraping noise. We decided to see if we could exchange cars and fortunately were given a better option. Most of the rental cars have damage of some sort and after driving there for a couple of days you can quickly realize why. First, they drive on the left side of the road. Second, the roads are extremely narrow, filled with potholes and the terrain is extremely hilly. I am pleased to report that Jeff and I survived the crazy driving and enjoyed the freedom that having a car afforded us. Monday was our day to explore St. Thomas. We went first to Coki Bay. We were some of the first people on the beach, so we dove in right away to check out the snorkeling. It was awesome...probably the best snorkeling we had on St. Thomas! There were tons of fish and the terrain wasn't that bad. We enjoyed Coki Beach for a couple of hours and left just as it became busy. After Coki Beach we headed to Magens Bay. Supposedly one of the highlights of St. Thomas, we found the bay beatiful and big, but the snorkeling very disappointing. After seeing very few fish, we decided to head out and make the trek to the highest point on St. Thomas...Mountain Top. After an interesting car ride on windy and steep road, we made it to the top of St. Thomas. The view was amazing. Besides the view, we also enjoyed a world famous virgin banana daquiri. It was pretty good and very refreshing on a hot day. After cramming in all of the sightseeing we could in a short amount of time, we headed back to our room to prepare for our dinner sail. We boarded a sail boat with about 20 other people and enjoyed a short ride to a quiet bay looking out at St. Thomas. We had crab legs, mahi-mahi, chicken, rolls, fruit, salads, and dessert while we watched the sunset over St. Thomas. Very nice and relaxing! It was a great end to a great first day of vacation.

Tuesday
Tuesday was deemed our day to go to St. Johns. We took a car ferry over so that we would have transportation when we got there and while we were there we went to four different beaches. Our favorite as far as snorkeling was Caneel Bay, which was a surpise because it was not one of the noted beaches. We also explored Cinnamon, Trunk, and Hawks Nests. It was a very enjoyable day. Towards the end I was getting tired of snorkeling, so I just sat on the beach at the last couple of place we visited. Jeff couldn't seem to get enough snorkeling. After a full day on St. Johns, we took the car ferry back to St. Thomas and enjoyed a gourmet meal at a restaurant called Havana Blue. The portions were small, but the atmosphere was pretty cool!

Wednesday
Wednesday was supposed to be our day to go on a daysail to the British Virgin Islands. We woke up early and headed out to meet at the appointed location. After waiting about 30 minutes and seeing no crew or additional passengers we had the feeling that the sail may have been cancelled without us knowing. After a call to the charter office, we did find out that the charter had been cancelled because too few people had signed up. We were a bit upset because had we have known this we would have booked with a different company. Now faced with a day with nothing planned, we spent most of the day at the hotel hanging out at the beach and the pool. Definitely not what we had planned, but still an enjoyable day nonetheless. It was definitely a lot more relaxing than what we had originally planned.

Thursday
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, we decided to spend our time before our departure doing some last minute shopping. In downtown St. Thomas, they did have quite a few shops, but most of it was the same stuff at all of the places. We spent a couple of hours shopping then headed to the airport. Our return home went all right except that we were delayed leaving Miami a couple of hours because of a problem with the plane and didn't get into Atlanta until 2:00 a.m.

Overall, we had a great time and would definitely go back to St. Thomas. Sorry it has taken me so long to post. We have had a busy week trying to enjoy Bayley's last week before she starts school. Her teacher's name this year is Mrs. Reid and we are so excited that she got the teacher she did. We know that she is going to have a great year. Rick and Nancy are here this weekend. The kids love company! We will be headed to Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth's for a couple of days next week while our hardwood floors are refinished...the movers put a large scratch in them when we moved in and we are finally getting them fixed. I will post more pictures soon!