The Giving Tree Project

Here's a little video documenting this year's "Giving Tree Project," a Springhill Christmas tradition. This year we collected, prepared, and delivered (a lot of ) food and gifts to 52 needy families in our community. Each pair of boxes we delivered also had information about our church and the God we serve. Thanks to all of our church family who worked so hard to make this year's project possible.

On a side note, this year for Christmas, Jennifer, Jennifer's brother Jeff, her sister-in-law Paige, and I all decided to donate the money we'd ordinarily spend on gifts for one another to the charity of our choice. This year, we chose to go over and above our normal donation to the GTP by that amount in honor of Jeff and Paige. Thanks, guys, for being apart of what God's doing here in Paris. We love you!

Santa came to Story Hour!!!

Unfortunately, shortly after Santa came in the room Mrs. Donna announced that there were cookies to decorate. As you can see from the pictures we did not visit with Santa. We headed straight to the cookie decorating station. Mrs. Donna also told us that there were two cookies, one for the child and one for the mother. Jack heard Mrs. Donna say there were two cookies, one for the child and the other for the child...as evidenced in the below pictures. Thankfully, Mrs. Katie shared her cookie with me or I would have been left out of the Christmas cookie party!!

We did it!!

Fred, Christy (my running partner) and I headed to Memphis this weekend to run the St. Jude Half Marathon. We do not have many pictures from the race, but luckily Fred's sister caught up with us shortly after mile 7. We were smiling at the beginning and still smiling at the end!! Plans are already being made for next year! It was very emotional as we passed people holding pictures of their children and shouting thank you. One sign we passed read, "Keep running, Brandon needs a cure." Another one said, "Keep smiling, Jake always did", and it had a picture of their little boy on the sign.

Perhaps my favorite sign of the day...
I would like to encourage anyone who wants to run next year to join us. (I ran my first mile just five years ago...no excuses!!) Also, if you would like to give to St. Jude you can visit their website by clicking here.

Thanks to everyone for their encouraging words, cards and phone calls. We couldn't have done it without you!!

We would like to send out a thank you to Aiden, Lee, Zach and Pawpaw

Clayton spent an afternoon at his friend Aiden's house. He came home with this lovely skill. Over Thanksgiving Lee, Zach and Pawpaw really helped him perfect it! They have even named this skill, but I'll spare you. All I can say is hurry home Zeke we have a LOT to teach you!!

Our trip to Asheville, D.C. and Gatlinburg

We left church and headed east about a week ago. We had no destination this particular evening. Our goal was to drive as far as we could. We made it to Crossville. The next morning we left the hotel and headed to our first destination--The Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. Unfortunately, our camera card started acting up and we don't have any pictures from the Biltmore. I can just sum it up for you...it was a really big house. We stayed the night at Ridgecrest just outside of Asheville (for $34 a night b/c Fred is a pastor!!). Once we got settled in the hotel we headed back into Asheville for dinner at Tupelo Honey Cafe. We discovered this on foodnetwork.com with Rachael Ray. It was delicious!! I highly recommend downloading the recipe for sweet potato pancakes! After a wonderful nights rest we headed to D.C. We had a LONG drive in for an appointment at the capital. After a few tense moments we made it to our tour...an hour late. We headed into Georgetown later for dinner at an Ethopian restaurant--interesting experience. Saturday the Shackelford storm hit the city like nothing it had seen before. Here are a few pictures from the day...

We got a little turned around at one point and it seemed like every time we turned a corner we came to a new Department of Agriculture building. We took a picture of it for that reason and for our good friend Alex Bomar.

We had lunch in Chinatown.

Arlington National Cemetery

At the end of our day we headed back to the train station. It had rained on and off all day and this is what we saw when we got off the train...

We had a really full day: Arlington National Cemetery, National Archives, White House tour, Chinatown, Union Station, National Gallery of Art and the Air and Space Museum.

Sunday we woke up early for a run. Since we are both training for a 1/2 marathon we had to fit our runs in. Fred mapped out a run for us past all the major monuments and through Capital Mall. I don't have any pictures from this part of our trip, but if I did it would just be a picture of the back of Fred since that's all I saw!! After our run we headed to Capital Hill Baptist Church for worship. It was so nice to just go to church and sit by Fred. We then had lunch and headed to Gatlinburg, Tennessee where we finished our trip. A lovely cabin in the woods awaited us and we thoroughly enjoyed it! We shopped, layed around, read, ate, relaxed and didn't tour anyones home!! All and all it was a really good trip. We are so grateful for the opportunity to do something like this...thanks to all our family and friends for making it possible!!

Jack DOES NOT need any clothes!!

Yes, this is Clayton sitting by a pile of Jack's clothes. Jack was napping, thus the reason he is not sitting by the clothes...Today was around 40 degrees so I thought it might be time to get out a few warmer things for the boys. I had put a few long sleeved things and pants in both of their closets, but we needed more...ridiculous!! Can you believe this pile of clothes?? Granted, most of the clothes are things Clayton has outgrown (last season) or things people just give us. Thankfully I did not just go out and buy this many clothes. Children should not have this much "stuff", but we'll save that blog post for another day! I've said all this to say...JACK DOES NOT NEED ANY NEW CLOTHES!!!!

Fall Break

We're back to blogging!! I left my camera in Memphis when we ran the race and I just got it back. Thus, the blogging has gotten a little behind. Here we go...
We headed to Memphis with our youth for a little mini-mission trip. We had such a good time. They got to go to LeBonheur and pass out treat bags. Then we had lunch at Dyer's in downtown Memphis. It was delicious!! After that the boys and I headed to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks and head to the roof. They really enjoyed it. Then we met up with the youth again to do a little work at Brinkley Heights. It is a school in Memphis. We helped pass out flyers in the neighborhood to help tell about the Trunk or Treat they were doing. Clayton was really excited. Here are a few pictures...After a busy day in Memphis we decided to have a little fun at Incredible Pizza. Clayton said, "It's called Incredible Pizza because it is INCREDIBLE!!" Mawmaw, Pawpaw, Lee and Tori met us here. It was a fun time full of pizza, games, go carts and mini golf!