Our first house

and so begins a new chapter in our lives. we closed on our first house yesterday! we are filled with excitement, thankfulness and are completely humbled at what God is doing in our lives. you see we started praying for what God what us to do about 2 1/2 years ago. Marley had just been born, we were renting my grandparents house. a house that had never been treated for termites or anything else. and was completely infested with post beetles and termites. our floor was literally falling in at the back two bedrooms and bathroom. there was and is no hope to repair, we were told it would need to be completely gutted and pretty much rebuilt from scratch. which ended our dream of finishing any remodeling and eventually buying the house and the land, that my family had farmed and lived off of. I knew in my heart there was more, I get caught up in the sentimental things like my families land and house. Yet one day we will all be gone, and it will all be dust. So I decided to have an open mind and began to pray.  Pray that as I searched day in and day out on the computer for houses in our price range that God would place something right in front of us. Time after time it would not be the right one. I'm thankful we had a good real estate agent, I often told Chris " I bet he thinks we are never going to buy a house" in early spring of 2012 we were shown a home. liked the location, the neighborhood, it had a big yard, enough bedrooms, more bathrooms, a basement and a pool. the house was a foreclosure, needed minimum amount of work to move in, and was an awesome price. i told Chris i liked it but lets see what else is out there. That was a bad idea, within a month or so i wanted to see it again and it was under contract. The final sale took a long time, so long that i would drive by and call our agent, tell him that the sign was still in the yard and could he check, yet every time was still under contract and finally was settled. On November 2nd our agent called to tell us the home had been relisted, the new sellers were flipping the house. We agreed to see the home again, and said that we would pray over the weekend and make a decision on Monday morning. the catch was that one other family had seen the home the night before, and three more were viewing it the same day as us. On Monday we made an offer at 8:30 by 10:00 the seller had accepted and we were under contract. Yesterday we were handed the keys!

thankful for

I hope that everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Here are a few things we are thankful for this month .........

Daddy being able to take off work and come to school parties!

having such creative kids

Children that get along sometimes, lol.

what are some things you are thankful for?

and no I have not forgot..... more updates on the new house soon.

Happy November

Nathan and Nick's school had their fall festival on the 2nd. The kids had a great time playing games and helping the school raise money for new equipment.

Our wonderful real estate agent also called on the 2nd to tell us that a home we had viewed back in the spring and then sold was now up for sale again. WHAT!!! We agreed to go see it the next day and see what repairs had been done and if we would make an offer. We showed up at 10:30am to view the home- now remember we have been patiently viewing and praying for God to show us where he wants our home to be for 2 years now. Well guess what no repairs had been made and the owner would take an as is offer! BUT the home had been shown to another family the day before and was going to be shown another 2 times that same day! OK God is this it- we prayed all weekend and on Monday at 8:30 we met our real estate agent made an as is offer, the owner counter offered and we accepted it! We should close on or before December 19, 2012!!!!!!! Can you believe it, The McConnell's finally have their very first home. Our new home will hold all of us with room to GROW!! More to come on the new home soon!
Other exciting happenings from November. The 3rd grade put on the cutest music show! They sang Stone Soup, it was awesome! Nathan did a great job, hopefully I can get the video on here soon. Until then here are a couple of pictures!

 With the weather getting colder my husband has been requesting a great deal of cobblers. I will have to stop soon or we are all gonna go up a pants size :)

Happy Halloween

This is the super cute pumpkin I decorated at MOPS! Very easy to make! All you need is some ribbon and tacks. Measure strips of ribbon, and attach them at the stem and under the bottom of the pumpkin. Voila, super cute stylish pumpkin. When your done you can remove the tacks and ribbon, place in a container or bag and reuse next year!

Marley had a Halloween party at her school, she wore a really cute cat dress with stockings, orange shoes and an orange bow. And wouldn't let me take any pictures! She sat in my lap during the entire class party. The only picture I have is of the gifts she gave her teachers. Cute idea from Pintrest.

Nick also had a Halloween party the same day as Marley's which was on Halloween day. I made cupcakes and cute fruit sticks for his class.

Ah the only picture of Marley in her cute Halloween outfit ^ By the time Nick's party was over, I was partied out and had a  terrible headache! After school we rushed to the house to finish making their costumes. Nothing like waiting until the last minute right :) I'm fully aware that I totally deserved that headache! Costumes were done just in time and they looked great!

We had a Robot, an Indian and.......... a sweet little butterfly that once again did not want her picture taken, I'm not sure daddy did either. Just kidding Chris actually was smiling in the first picture but Marley turned her head and after the 2nd she was done!

I'm Back!

I have been so terrible at keeping up our blog! As a family of 6 I'm sure you can imagine how busy we stay. We are continuing our hunt for a new house and are still in search for a church home, it has been both physically and emotionally draining. Pray for our family as we seek God and  find a new place to serve and live.
So hang tight this is going to be a long post, I'm going to back track and catch you up on the McConnell's busy day to day lives!
First let me say that this post will mostly be a photo dump! I just unloaded 350 pictures from my camera, yes I just said 350 all taken during a time slot 1-2 months. Don't worry I wont dump all 350 on you. I skimmed through and picked a few of my favorites. Lets start with football- the season has finally come to an end for this family, well except for college football. It was a sad end, for Alex's last year of middle school f-ball. They won 0 games :( But that didn't stop us from having a good time.

Alex is the Blue #5 ^



Marley wore red, white and blue to almost every game to support big brother! She obviously enjoyed watching the cheerleaders more than the football game.

                                                    Alex is white #5^

Chris and I took Marley and met up with his parents, for Marley to visit Babyland General for the 1st time. If your not familiar with babyland- it's the home of the Cabbage patch kids and is a must see for all ages. I had not visited since my childhood and still had a great time.


Marley looking at all of the cabbage patch dolls that are up for adoption.

Watching and waiting for a brand new cabbage to be delivered.

Of course she wouldn't sit in the chair and didn't even want a new baby. She picked out a stuffed monkey and cat. And her Nana bought her a cabbage patch fairy anyway.

Every other Friday after MOPS  I swing by my cousins bakery- Sweet B's and grab some yummy treats for the kids to have after school. If your in the area and have not visited her bakery and bistro. Stop by, I promise you will not be disappointed! It's on the square in downtown Clarkesville.

Marley and I finally got to enjoy watching Daddy's band play at the annual Habersham Jam!

We enjoyed some blanket time in the park, warm fall sunshine, and great music!

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There was a lot of time spent enjoying the last really warm days at the park and in our backyard. I obviously have a handful of monkey's on my hands! :)

Here is the last little piece of exciting,  eventful moments of the fall. Does everyone remember way back in late May early June when my husband told the boys that they could keep 2 stray kittens if they could catch them (Without asking me by the way). And they did!! And then 1 of our dogs played a little too rough with the gray one and it died. Anyway to get to the point. We have been very pleased with Thomas (the cat) he is all around a great cat! Thomas brings gifts to doorstep- examples: 3 field mice, 2 moles, and 3 snakes. I'm sure your getting the picture that he really loves us right? Thomas was defiantly earning his keep that is until late one night I noticed a small place on the upper right side and he began to act very lethargic. Days passed and Thomas began to grow a large yucky ( I wont go into detail) mass on his side. I wouldn't let him come in the house or let the kids touch him. On October the 18th while the kids were at school I decided to make a trip to the vet and try to save this CAT that my husband TOLD the kids they could keep! After a quick consultation it was established that Thomas had been snake bitten and would need immediate surgery. OK I quickly said and rushed out of the office to pick up the kids at school. Called Chris and I told him what I had done. Here is how the conversation played out.
Chris: How much????
Me: Uh I didn't ask, I just wanted to save Thomas for the kids.
Chris: Well you had better hang up right now and call right back and ask! Because we could have gotten another cat out in front of the local Wal-mart for FREE!!
Me: But it wouldn't be the same! It wouldn't be Thomas!
Chris: I don't care call now! And call me back with the amount!

So I did call, and they were right in the middle of surgery. The lady on the phone says it should be between $100-$150. Not so bad right? Wrong, Chris was well to say MAD is really an understatement! I showed up the next day to pick up Thomas and boy were they wrong it was $250! Along with strict instructions for Thomas to stay inside and contained for 2 straight weeks. And that meant purchasing a litter box and all the crap to go with it. Oh and have I mentioned that Thomas was wearing the cone of shame when I picked him up. (all to keep him from tearing the stitches out)

Here is a picture of a small snake that Chris caught outside our garage (non poisonous). This will give you an idea of what the 3 small snakes Thomas caught and killed looked like.

The 4th time Thomas wasn't so lucky, the vet said the snake that bit him was poisonous. We will never know what kind- so Chris took it upon his self to purchase an insane amount of moth balls and scatter them all over yard. Supposedly moth balls keep snakes away, oh and side note they make your yard stink like moth balls. No sign of snakes though :)

Be back soon with more craziness from our McConnell Mob!

Wrapping up SUMMER & rushing into FALL

As a stay at home mother and wife I will tell you that every day is different from the next. I try very hard to keep a schedule but when summer comes that usually goes out the window! I can't seem to wrap my head around summer coming to an end. School was just ending yesterday right?!? I feel like we totally wasted our summer break, and then I look back on all of our summer memories.

There were not 1, 2, or 3 - but 4 out of our 6 birthdays that fall during summer!

                          Our anniversary, and one of my closest friends wedding.

                         There was hiking, swinging, and cupcakes in the yard.

                                              
                                 A lot of splashing at the pool, river and ocean!

                       Naps in Mommy and Daddy's bed, and tons of movie time.

Visit to the museum, aquarium, and fun at the zoo with friends!

We enjoyed play time on the bunk beds with daddy's old halloween mask, a nerf gun, and a noodle spoon.

Sometimes our pets got a little too much love, and sometimes they had stories read to them.

We got a little dirty playing outside in the dirt, and pulled each other around in the wagon.

                                                     
                                                           Water sprinklers were a blast!

 And then came the first day of school
for 3 out of 4 of my children
August 16th, 2012

         But the fun didn't end there. Nick had his first flag football game this past Saturday.


That is Nick in the orange about to get a flag!

Hey guys are you watching me or not?



Too tired to finish watching the game

And then on Monday August 20th my sweet girl started her first day of pre-k in the 2yr. old class. She is going half days on Monday's and Wednesday's at a private church based pre-school. But her going to pre-k was a huge deal for me, even if it is only half days! She has been at home with me everyday since her birth. The first day I had to sneak out of her class so that she would not cry.  She went most of the day without her paci and blanket- which that in it's self is a huge deal if you know my child! She did fall and bump her head on the playground, but all around had a wonderful first day. 

Treat for her teachers on the first day.

 Today was her second day, and I almost cried. She wouldn't even tell me bye when I dropped her at her class. She marched right in with her cute little backpack and started playing with her new friends.  Mom is sad for now :(