Snow Day!

A week or so ago, Josh and Addison enjoyed a snow day together while I ventured to work :(. I would love to stay at home with my family on snow days, but I always pray that we will get at least one on a weekend. At least Josh took some great pictures for me to enjoy, hope that you enjoy them as well.

Does anyone Else's child love to eat snow??

We're Ready Santa!

The stockings are hung.....

The cookies are prepared.....

New pj's are on.......

The cookies & eggnog are ready for Santa!



We're ready for you Santa!

Christmas with the Goodman's

Over the river and through the woods, to Aunt Jennifer's house we go! Last weekend we traveled waaayyyy down in Georgia to have Christmas with Josh's side of the family. While we were there we also witnessed my nephew, Will's baptism. It was a joyous occasion, thanks Aunt Jennifer for your hospitality. We had a great time!

As you can see from the picture, Addison made herself at home at Aunt Jennifer's, insisting to wear her leotard and tutu the entire time!

The View From Here

Our Christmas lights, 2010!

Our Weekend At Great Wolf Lodge!

My mother - in - law went over board with our Christmas gift this year. Back in August, she informed me that our Christmas gift this year was going to be a weekend vacation, just the 3 of us. She told me to pick a weekend in December and she would take care of the rest. She wouldn't ever tell us where we were going, but after Halloween, she finally informed us that she had booked a weekend for us at Great Wolf Lodge!

I have been longing to go to Great Wolf Lodge ever since it had opened, I had called several times last winter, but because of all of the snow last winter, we could never get it together! So, when she surprised us with such a great vacation, I was more than excited!

This may be a picture overload, but there were so many wonderful things about Great Wolf Lodge, I wanted you to see them all, although it seems that blogger has managed to screw up the sequence of the pictures!

Great Wolf Lodge is famous for their indoor water-park, that is 84 degrees year round. There is also a lot for parents and children to do together in the water park. Addison really enjoyed the children's area, pictured above, but hubs and I also took turns watching Addison and enjoying some of the faster adult slides. It was great because none of the lines were ever very long, the longest that we waited for a slide is 10 minutes!

This is one of the pool's at Great Wolf, we found a friendly snake swimming in the water! Also in this pool is a basketball court!

Ahhh....the great clock tower show! This was so much fun, each night at 8 PM the clock tower in the main lobby turns into a magical show, complete with singing and dancing. After the show Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer came out to read a bed time story to all of the children! Afterwards, we went by Dunkin Doughnuts in the hotel to enjoy some yummy doughnuts before bed!


We also visited with someone special before the clock tower show!



Let It snow! It snowed in the lobby during the clock tower show!

Another view of the water park!

As you can see, we had a wonderful weekend away! Memaw, if you are reading thank you, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful weekend!


As for me, I'm ready to go back to The Lodge!

Follow Me!

Yay for twitter! I have decided to join everyone else and join twitter, you can look over to your left and see my tweets, or choose to follow me!

2010 Christmas Tree

This is our beautiful Christmas tree for the year 2010. It is a little shorter than what I thought that it would be, but it will do! Addison had to put the star on before she put any more ornaments on! Haha!

Addison loves our tree, she often times goes around and looks at all of the different ornaments and talks about them. Her favorite is her ballerina ornament that I bought for her when we were on vacation.

One of my favorite parts about Christmas is my Christmas tree skirt. I have often joked with my husband that if our house catches on fire, that I am going to run down stairs and grab our Christmas tree skirt (after Addison is safe, of course). Our Christmas tree skirt is special because all of our guests at our wedding signed our Christmas tree skirt with fabric pens, instead of signing a guest book. So many of them wrote such sweet messages to us, reminding us to keep Christ in the center of our marriage. Other messages strike my heart like one from my cousin Amy who passed away with cancer this year. Her message states " We love you, remember to keep Christ in the center of your marriage." And I always love reading those messages from my high school friends like Lauren and Heather, it always makes me reminds me about the fun that we had growing up together.

One of the things that Addison and I do at night is lay down under the tree before any gifts are placed beneath it and look up at the lights on the tree, sometimes Ellye comes to join us, and hubs tells us that we are crazy!

Just making memories!

Until next time!

Keisha :)

In Search of the Perfect Christmas Tree

You may remember from last year, we ventured several hours to pick out our Christmas tree. After our pleasant experience last year, we decided to do a repeat trip again this year. Last year we went to pick out our Christmas tree on the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year, we made the mistake of traveling to get it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

When we pulled up to the tree farm, we were greeted with a long line of cars, waiting to enter the Christmas tree farm. We waited for an hour, just to park our car. When we finally parked, we went over to get into line to get on a tractor to pull us up the mountain to pick our our perfect Christmas tree, but we enjoyed a quick visit with Santa Claus while we waited.

We also had fun with a few lingering snowmen!




Finally, it was our turn to ride the wagon onto the mountainside to search for our perfect Christmas tree. We were all a bit indecisive about our Christmas tree, Addison wanted a BIIIIGGG tree, Dad wanted a fat one, and I was leaning more towards a slimmer one. After 45 minutes of searching, we finally found it! Due to the crowds, there was no one available to cut it down for us (like in years past), so Josh grabbed a teeny hand saw and started sawing himself, luckily it wasn't too bad! He drug it down the mountain and we were off!

We had a great time this year, and this is a tradition that we will keep for years to come!

A Christmas Card?

As I mentioned in my last post, it is almost impossible to get a decent picture of Addison. One thing that I love to do is send out a yearly Christmas card. I love getting adorable Christmas cards of my friends and their children. My friend, Lauren always sends out the cutest cards. I always look forward to getting her card and cards from others. My sister always sends a Christmas card with an informative letter with all that their family did throughout the year, including where they vacationed and what they were involved in.

So, this year I am trying to get a jump on it. In early November I started calling portrait studios and I was a little surprised that many of the studios charge $1 per Christmas card. I sometimes send out more than 100 Christmas cards, so doing a nice picture at a portrait studio would be quite expensive.

My sister in law, Jennifer took a photography class in college and she has also taken pictures at many weddings, so when I asked her to take a nice family photo of us, she jumped on it. We took these pictures at my mother in law's neighborhood, in a grassy area beside the pool. Which picture do you like best?

#1

#2

#3

So, which one? Take your pick!



Until Next Time!

Keisha :)

A Goodman Thanksgiving!

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with Josh's side of the family. It was so fun to see Addison with her older cousins, Anna & Will. We don't get to see them much because they live several hours away, but we cherish each time that we do get to see them! This year, we had ham (cooked by my wonderful hubs), I made my mom's Sweet Potato Casserole (sooo yummy! ) and I didn't screw it up! Yahoo!!

Hubs with his mom & sister

Addison with her cousins, Anna & Will and Memaw! It is so hard to get Addison to take a decent picture, and I don't understand why she won't just look at the camera for a few seconds and smile!! Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get her to take a good picture?

After our Thanksgiving dinner, we drove to my sisters house so that we could do some black Friday shopping! It is a tradition that my mom and sister do each and every year. Hubs was nice enough to keep Addison and my nephew, Cooper so that we could shop all day long! He was a little nervous about keeping both of them all day, but he did a great job and both kiddos had a blast. As for shopping, we had a lot of fun. We were at Target at 4:30 on Friday morning and we shopped until 4:30 in the afternoon. I loved that everything in Gap was half off until noon, I got a lot for Addison and my mom even let me go through the store and pick out my own Christmas gifts for myself! Loved that!

Does anyone else do black Friday shopping? What was your black Friday experience like?

Until Next Time!

Keisha :)

The Turkey Program

On Tuesday of last week, we were invited to lunch and a program at Addison's pre - school.

The children made the center pieces, butter & napkin rings!

We heard some lovely little songs about pilgrims, turkeys and all things Thanksgiving! And then Josh went to work and Addie and I went home to spend some quality time together while Mommy had the day off of work!

But not before Addison said goodbye to one of her favorite teachers, Mrs. Joy!!

Don't you just love Addison's face in this picture? Too cute!

Until Next Time!

Keisha :)

Going Private

Due to some security concerns, my blog will be going private as of November 1, 2010. If you would like to continue to read my blog, please email me at keisha.goodman@rocketmail.com. Thanks!

Fourth Birthday Party!

Today we celebrated Addison's fourth Birthday Party! This year, we decided to utilize our local recreation center for an afternoon of swimming! It was SO worth it! All of the kids had a fantastic time and the parents enjoyed some time of socializing while we watched our little one's wade through the miniature water park!

After the swimming, we enjoyed a delicious lunch of pizza, fruits & veggies and cake of course!
Addison loved each and every gift and it was so much fun to watch her open each one with more excitement than the last!


Enjoy our pictures from our fun day!

Field Trip

Today, Addison went on her very first field trip and Spunky and I went along for the fun! We are so blessed to have jobs that understand that we want to be there for everything!

We traveled to the fruit stand to learn all about apples. When we were there we learned and tasted different varieties of apples, learned how to make apple turnovers and apple pies. We even went into their BIG refrigerator and learned that apples keep best in the cold refrigerator!

It was also nice to meet other parents, teachers and her friends!

I have actually been meaning to post this picture of Addison on her very first day of pre - school.

A Little Weekend Away...

This weekend was a really busy, but fun weekend. A few weeks ago, we found out that our niece Anna (Josh's sister's daughter) was cheering a couple of hours away from us, so of course we went down to see her. We left out mid day on Saturday and went to Georgia to see Ms. Anna. She's a great cheerleader and we had a great time! It just amazes me at how much she has grown up! She has turned out to be such a lovely young lady and she truly loves Christ with all of her heart and that is what makes her beautiful inside and out!

Our nephew, Will (Anna's younger brother) has also grown up into a handsome young man. He loves to ride his dirtbike and he does really well in school. I love watching Anna and Will play with Addison. They are so gentle with her, but she loves to wrestle with them.

After the football game, we drove a little ways and stayed in Anderson, SC. We searched out a hotel with an indoor pool for Addison so that she could splash the night away. We finally settled into a Country Inn & Suites & we had a great time playing in the pool and then laying in the bed together eating pop tarts & cheering on our Clemson Tigers until bed time!

The next day we went to downtown Clemson to eat lunch and shop in the stores to stock up on some orange for our wardrobe! We had a great time together, I just love those little weekend getaways!

Vacation...

Last weekend we were blessed by taking a long weekend to Pigeon Forge. We were unable to go to the beach this year because hubs used most of his vacation time when he went to Brazil.

We left on Friday & returned on Monday, we were also blessed in the fact that Memaw came to be with us for one night during our vacation. She was able to go with us to Splash Country on Saturday & she seemed to have enjoyed herself even though it rained for half of the day on Saturday. Our theory was that we were going to get wet anyway, so why did it matter if it was raining or not, at least it wasn't hot or crowded!

On Sunday Addison proclaimed that she didn't want to go to the "water slides", she just wanted to stay at the hotel and swim. Hubs and I agreed that, that was a good idea. We also went and ate at a new restaurant called "Mamas Farmhouse". It was YUUUMMMMYYYYY!!!! Even Addison loved eating there, probably because they allowed her to get a toy out of their toy box after our meal for being a good girl during breakfast.

After breakfast we also visited the Christmas store where I hinted to hubs about the village pieces that I wanted for Christmas. Hehe! Addison visited Santa Claus and told him that she wanted a beep beep (car) and a pink computer for Christmas!

Monday was filled with some shopping at Tanger outlets before going home. I purchased Addison a few items for fall and then we headed home.

It was a great long weekend! And we really enjoyed relaxing and being together as a family!


P.S. I will have to post pics later, blogger is being mean and not letting me!

Date Night!

A couple of weeks ago hubs and I were truly blessed with a date night! This was our first date night since April, so we were really excited to have a quite dinner without our little one!

We first helped Addie pack her suitcase, she packed most of it. We let her pick out her dress for church the next day, she included lots of books & her favorite nightgown. She was off to a fun evening herself, Nana & Papaw were taking her to the Volunteer Fire Department for their annual Fire Department Picnic. Too bad that she's scared of fire trucks!

After that, hubs and I were off...we first went to dinner at Chili's, which was good, but I was HIGHLY disappointed that their famous Chicken Tacos were taken off of the menu. Dinner was good anyway.

We then made our way to the Asheville mall to utilize my gap coupon. I bought myself a few things, including some new Gap jeans (LOVE them) & a cutesy pair of shoes. I rarely buy myself anything, but when you have a 40% off Gap coupon, it's kind of irresistible!

Hubs & I then made our way to the movies, where we went to the 9:55 movie! It was so much fun staying out so late! We watched the movie "Grown Ups" and to be honest with you, I will give it a "C". Hubs would probably disagree and give it an "A". We had such a good time though giggling and singing with the radio on the way home!

Addison's Summer....

With summer drawing in for a close, I wanted to update everyone on Addison's summer. Summer has been a blast for Addison, it was filled with lots of swimming and playing outside. With that, Addison has had quite a few changed in her life this summer.

The first change was that we have switched her child care from her baby sitter to a really nice pre - school located downtown. We were always happy with her baby sitter, but we were getting concerned that she may not be quite ready for kindergarten. This pre school is AMAZING to say the least, Addison is now exposed to so much more and we can tell a HUGE difference in our child since she first started her pre - school. For starters, her vocabulary has expanded & it seems like she associates what she is learning at school at home now. Her second day at school was "blue day", so I dressed her from head to toe in blue. She has known her colors for a very long time, but when she got home she associated what she had learned with other objects in our house that were also blue. She went from room to room and told me everything that was blue in that room.

Addison is also learning a lot about the bible at school as well, she was able to participate in Vacation Bible School and she also attends chapel once per week. One week was entitled " Bible Story Week" and she learned about a different bible story each day.

In a couple of weeks, she will also have the opportunity to participate in Computer and Spanish classes, along with several field trips throughout the year. Needless to say, we are very excited about this new adventure.

Another big change for Addison was ....

Yes! she got her ears pierced. She has been wanting to do it for months, but she recently mustered up the courage to do so!

One Saturday evening at The Asheville Mall, she said that she wanted to do it, so I took her into The Icing, she walked in and exclaimed "No, not this ear piercing store" so we walked to Claire's, I first let her pick out her earrings and she chose a little pair of small flowers that were different colors. I then put her up in the chair and the lady came over and did it really fast, she did cry, but not until the second ear was pierced. She wanted to take the earrings out at first, but once she saw them in her ears she loved them. Once down from the chair, she ran over and picked out a new Dora The Explorer purse & diary ( I know, why does a 3 year old need a diary?) But, who was I to tell her no after she went through all of that?

She's also doing well when we have to clean them with solution 3 times per day, she's just anxious to wear Mommy's earrings really soon!

More updates to come soon!

British Soccer Camp

This week Addison was enrolled in a British Soccer Camp at our local rec center. The camp was held each morning from 9 - 10 am and she was taught various soccer skills. At the end of camp her coaches said that her dribbling & handling of the ball had improved over the week and that she was a pleasure to have at camp.

Addison seemed to enjoy the camp and she looks forward to playing soccer this coming Spring. She will start dance classes again in August.

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a great fourth of July! The best part of the holiday weekend was that Daddy took off on Friday, so we had a four day weekend together as a family, and it was great!

On Friday we went to Splash Country and had a great day splishing and splashing together. We got there just as the park opened so we had some of the water slides to ourselves for a while, so that was nice. It is so fun to see how brave Addison is getting. I think that she would even go down the big adult slides if we let her, but I love that Splash Country is so family friendly. It is really nice to be able to go down slides with your child and have fun with them.

On Sunday we first celebrated the fourth with an awesome church service! The choir sang some great patriotic songs & a couple sang "Proud to Be An American" they did such a fantastic job, and it brought tears to my eyes. I dressed Addison in the most adorable red, white & blue dress with cute pigtails! She looked really adorable, I wore a navy dress to match her! I love it when our outfits coordinate!

On Sunday evening we were invited over by our friends Aaron & Rachel, where we continued our celebrations with a cookout and some fun games! Rachel had also invited over some of our other friends from Chrysalis. It was so nice to hang out with everyone, and Rachel is always the best hostess! She always goes out of her way to ensure that everyone is happy and comfortable. She had sparklers & sidewalk chalk waiting for Addison and when we had walked down to the fireworks she pulled out lots of glow bracelets & necklaces to keep Addison's busy hands occupied! Thanks Rachel, you're the best!

We enjoyed the fireworks lakeside, it was so nice that Aaron and Rachel live at the lake & we were able to just walk down to the lake to see the fireworks. And we were able to get a bit of a work out in as well when we walked back up to their house & we had to conquer their large hill up their road, but it was nice to work off all of the smores & cupcakes!

Hope that you and your family had a great fourth of July as well!

Memorial Day Weekend Getaway!

This weekend was the most fun & relaxing one that we've had in a long time. Ever since hubby returned from Brazil, I have been patiently waiting for a little getaway with my little family.

On Friday, Addison & I spent the day making special snacks & treats for us to go on our vacation. I just love having special things to eat when we travel, I guess I get it from my mom-- she used to do the same thing when we went on vacation. We made a cheeseball, chocolate chip cookies & home made pimento cheese -- yummy!! I also bought some local strawberries & sliced them up and put some sugar on them for a yummy treat.

Our destination? The usual-- Pigeon Forge, TN, but I didn't care! We arrived on Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the day swimming in our hotels 2 pools. We had so much fun laughing and splashing with Addison. Later that evening we went and ate dinner at a burger joint up the street, hubs loved it, Addie and I didn't like it so much! She & I both ordered hot dogs, and they looked kinda weird, we also split an order of almost burnt soggy french fries.... so we had a snack when we got back to the room. After dinner we went to The Birkenstock store (one of my favorites) & then Addie spotted some kiddie rides across the street so we let her pick 2 rides to ride. When we got back to the hotel Addie decided that she needed a little swim before bed, the pool stayed open until 2 AM, so we let her swim until 9 :30 or so...HA! Glad she can't tell time yet!

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast in our room & then we were off to Dollywood's Splash Country, we've visited the park several times, but it's getting much more fun to take Addison now that she is getting older. She even went down a couple of the kiddie slides by herself, hubs would walk her up & put her on the slide & I would catch her at the bottom. We also bought season passes to the park, so we will be visiting much more this year! On a normal day to Splash Country, we enter the park around opening time -- 10 am or so, we splash for a few hours, go out to our car and make a picnic (they have picnic tables just outside of the entrance) or even eat in the hatch of my car and then go back in for a few more hours. I added up & we saved about $30 by doing this!

Later on that evening we went out and ate at our favorite restaurant, The Chop House and it was soooo good as usual, and of course Addie wanted to swim again after dinner, so being the good parents that we are, we let her.

On Monday, sadly it was time to go home, but not before some outlet shopping. I bought Addison a few items, including soccer cleats for soccer camp coming up at the end of July. They are black with pink cleats on the bottom -- sooo cute & we bought her a pink soccer ball to match! So adorable! I also got started on my Christmas shopping with a lot of winter items on clearance racks!

We had a great weekend away & can't wait to do it again!

Dance Recital

One of the benefits of having a little girl is dance class. Since September, 2009 Addison and I have traveled to Sylva each evening to Triple Threat Performing Arts Academy to Predance class taught by Miss. Nicole. This has been one of our favorite mommy & daughter activities, Dad has school on Tuesday evenings so dance class helps the evening go by faster.

In December, 2009 the class of 10 3 & 4 year olds started to prepare for their recital piece "The Wheels On The Bus". A few weeks later they were measured for their costumes. And the dance recital was starting to come together.

This past week was filled with extra classes & rehearsals, and the recital was today. I volunteered to be the "stage mom", helping the little ones keep their bows tied, hair fixed & entertained the group while we waited for our turn to go on stage. And finally, it was our turn. The lights turned to a bright yellow to match their adorable costumes, and it was time for the girls to go on stage. But their was a problem....my little one was glued to my leg. I picked her up and explained to her that she was going to dance for all of her friends & relatives that came to see her, and also that if she went on stage that there was a brand new slip - n - slide waiting on her in the car. That was all that it took...she bolted in front of Lydia ( a friend from church) and went out and did her wheels on the bus thing... and she did great! And yes, if you did ask me if it all was worth it... I will proudly tell you yes, yes it was! I was so proud of her on stage, dancing around and having so much fun!

The Wheels on the Bus go round & round...

The babies on the bus go wah wah wah...

The mamas on the bus go shhh shhh shhh

The slip n slide!

Brazil...

As many of you know, recently my husband went on his first mission trip to Brazil. He left on April 9 and returned on the 18th. He first arrived in Manaus, Brazil, flew to Santarem, Brazil...got on a boat and traveled for 7 hours into the Amazon rain forest. Once he reached his destination he ministered to two villages in the rainforest. He & his mission team (of 7 other people) did bible school activities with the children in the morning, went and handed out tracks to the "locals" in the afternoon & ended up the day by showing Christian films (one night it was Facing The Giants, in Portuguese) to the adults.

This post can't do justice to the work that God did while he was in Brazil, one night over 30 youth came forward and made decisions for Christ, and I'm sure that there were many more. "Spunky" says that the best part of the trip was working with the children, many afternoons hubs & some of his buddies could be found playing soccer with teenage boys... and there are many more stories.

For Addie & I, the week was difficult with hubs being gone, but we had a blast at the same time! The hardest part was not being able to communicate with "Spunky" the entire week. On Thursday, I did receive a post card, sent from NYC while hubs was on a layover & to be honest with you, it totally made my day! I took half a week off of work & we spent our days hanging out with the other "missionary widows" as we called ourselves, shopping, cleaning & of course paying visits to the Waynesville Rec Center.

I will leave you a few pictures of the great time that hubs had....
The children of Brazil. My favorite picture from his trip, I think that this little girl is just beautiful and this mother just wanted hubs to have a picture of her little girl because he had such an impact on their lives.
This is the local church.

Happy Easter!

Hope that you and your family had a great Easter like we did!

Easter Eggs

Flowers The Bunny

Meet the newest member of the Goodman family...Flowers The Bunny! Originally, the Easter Bunny was supposed to bring the new furry creature, but we then decided to allow Addison to go and pick out her new bunny. I don't know where she came up with the name, but we like it and think that it is cute!





Flowers will be living in her new hand crafted home located behind the swing set. The new home is complete with a loft bed room, and a hanging water bottle. Flowers seems to enjoy her little home that "Spunky" spray painted green.





Flowers, welcome to the family!