Ready For Thanksgiving!

Wow! Has it been a year since we last posted? My goodness how time flies when you're having fun.

Melia is now 3, Brant is 5, and Bryce is 8 and in the 3rd grade! Bryce is doing great in school this year. His grades, reading, and overall skills have improved dramatically this year. He has become a reader. He loves to sit down with a book and follow each and every detail. I am so proud of my boy!

Michaellynn and I are doing great! Michaellynn started teaching part time this year at Rejoice! where I have been teaching for the past five years. She teaches elementary music and does a wonderful job. She just doesn't know how talented she truly is.

We are excited about being able to spend Thanksgiving with our "Hughes" family. We will leave on Thursday morning and travel to VA., to spend some time with my Uncle Rick, Aunt Debbie (better known to her Alabama nieces as "Uncle Deb") my dad and step mom, Uncle Hot and Aunt Lynn, Kelsey and Jared and my sis and Ralph. And oh yeah, don't forget Cooper! We are going to have a blast. We will have to post some pictures after we get back from our vacation.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Bryan Hughes

Christmas Pics.....finally!

We had a wonderful Christmas! And since it is February, I will not go into detail about everything we did in the month of December! Here are some pics to see though! I have more from Christmas that I will try to upload later!

Me and the kids posing for Daddy!

Our family!

It is really difficult to get everyone to look at the camera and smile at the same time!

The kids love doing "silly" pictures!

....and again!

God has truly blessed us with three wonderful children!

Melia, Brant and Bryce piled on top of each other!

They wanted to take some pics of us!

Bryce says that we are the "two love birds"! (And he is so right!)

very strange!

Brant performing at the Rejoice! recital.

Brant performing at the MMO Christmas program.

Melia at the MMO Christmas program.

Brant was a shepherd

Melia singing "Away in a Manger"

Brant and Caleb - his best buddy

Bryce performing in his play at school! They did such a good job!

He is too funny!

Bryce with his teacher, Mrs. Fowler, in the back giving instructions about their bowling trip!

Ana and Bryce before our cantata at church.

Bryce was in the drama during our cantata this year.......he did a great job!

This is how we found the boys sleeping one night! (They sleep so hard that they didn't even notice the light was on for the picture!)

Melia loving her new Bella dancing video!

Ashton and Bryce after their school program.

S.E.W. & Reap Weekend

A couple of weekends ago, we had our annual S.E.W. (spiritual enrichment weekend) & Reap weekend with our teens at church. We sent the kids to Granddaddy and Grandmama's house for the weekend because we knew there would not be a lot of sleep happening! This year we invited Brad (and Kasey) Perry from Peace Church in Wilson to be our guest speaker. He did such an awesome job and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with them! We met Friday night and went to White Oak for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the church and played some group games and had a time of praise and worship. Brad brought a message about service and how we can serve. Around 10:15 pm, we left the church and went to Garner FWB Church where they were having their annual Rapture House. They did a really good job and we really enjoyed our time there. After Rapture House, we came back to the church and played the Wii, Guitar Hero, Spoons, another card game (I can't remember the name of it) and ate some chocolate and popcorn! Finally, around 3:15 am, we decided we should go to sleep so we could get some work done in the morning! Saturday morning we were supposed to go into some of the surrounding neighborhoods and volunteer to rake leaves, clean up yards, etc. but we woke up to A LOT of rain. So plan B began with Bryan going to Dunkin Donuts and we sugared up on coffee and doughnuts for breakfast! We then decided we would do some work for the church since we couldn't go anywhere else. We cleaned out two of the closets in the church, cleaned the storage building, helped Cindy in the preschool building, vacuumed, etc. We got a lot done and the teens worked hard and did a really good job! Finally, around 3:00 pm, everyone went home and Bryan and I crashed at home. (We had planned to go out on a date, but because of the lack of sleep the night before, we had a date at the house and went to bed early!) It was a really good weekend and I am already looking forward to next year! Here are some pics from the weekend:

Playing a game before our service

It was a really crazy game!

Brad teaching us about being a servant!

Kasey was REALLY listening well!

Brad's Words of Wisdom

Brad leading us in a "pretend" hymn!

Nice shirt Colton! (Is is yours?)

Brad and Kasey Perry :-)

Brad and Kasey loving their baby girl!!!

Waiting to go to Rapture House

Playing Guitar Hero

Jared doing a bad impersonation of Moses playing Guitar Hero!

Brad and Bryan showing the boys how a REAL guitar is played!

Kaitlyn was loving Guitar Hero!

I even became addicted!

Jared and Kyle boxing on the Wii!

Playing Spoons!

Still playing Guitar Hero!

Here is a little proof that we actually did some work. (We were so busy working that I didn't get any pictures other than this one. If you could have seen the before, you would know how much we really did get done!)

Brant's 4th Birthday at the Fair

Brant's birthday was October 20th. Bryce was out of school that day, so we decided to all go and celebrate Brant's birthday at the fair! We had a great time and just enjoyed spending the day together as a family!

Ready to check out the fair!

Brant and Bryce with the robot Oscar (Melia was afraid of him!)

This was another robot, which was really tall, and Melia was completely terrified of him!

Bryce, Melia and Brant waiting for the poodle show to begin.

Bryce and Brant riding the tea cups!

Bryce loved it, but I think it made Brant really dizzy!

Me and the boys on the carousel!

Brant wasn't too sure about it!

Melia and Bryan on the carousel.

Brant on the BIG slide! (He really liked this!)

We all rode the ferris wheel together1

Melia and Bryan enjoying the ferris wheel!

Bryce enjoying the BIG slide!

Tired and ready to go home after a great day at the fair!