It's Raining...It's Pouring!!!!

Oh glorious, rainy day!!!! i LOVE it!!! you know...these are my most favorite days...i only wish wes were off today :( what is it about rainy days that i love? for one...they just make you feel all cozy inside! i LOVE getting up in the morning when it's still dark outside...so the beauty of a gloomy day is that it is dark ALL day! now, i wouldn't want it to be gloomy every day...but you have to admit...it is a nice change every now and then...and april showers bring may flowers! (even though it's not quite april yet) maybe we'll do a craft today? or just be lazy...enjoy the gloom!!!

music, sweet music!

I have ALWAYS been a lover of music! as long as i can remember, as a matter of fact...i can remember being around two or three (i am telling the truth!) and listening to a wind up doll that played a lullaby...i can remember lying in bed and humming along with it...and i was just a baby:) and little did anyone know that that wind up doll may plant a seed of music in my heart...then, after my mom and dad divorced when i was around four, brandon and i received one of those small wind up radios that played "somewhere over the rainbow"...i can remember watching the little boy and girl flying over the rainbow...i am not sure what those little radios are called...i actually still have it...and when i listen to it now, i am suddenly a four year old again...and i can remember every detail of what life was like then...we lived with our grandparents at that age, so there was plenty of bluegrass-gospel blasting in the background! it was always on an AM station...and then we made several trips to festivals and flea markets...where music and smells abound! i can still remember what those places sounded and smelled like! my grandpa had a little red truck that we took to the flea market...he always had a tape in of the greens or the isaacs...i guess i never realized it until i was grownn, but my grandparents were pretty big music buffs...i now appreciate their music and the memories that it brings...when i was in kindergarten my dad bought me a SWEET tape player/boom box...it was very modest...but i LOVED it...i loved listening to the radio, but i had a few tapes as well...i can still remember being in kindergarten, singing "i wanna dance with somebody", with my friend Leah...And i probably bugged brandon to death...i would sing "new flowers" by tiffany and ask him if i sounded like her! i wonder if we were good? i guess i could always find my teacher, Mrs. Roark, and ask her...my tapes consisted of tiffany, wham make it big, george michael, guns n roses, debbie gibson...go figure, right! my dad bought me the tapes...and i loved them all! now that i listen to the lyrics of some of their songs, they are not appropriate ~AT ALL~ for a child of such a young age! but my dad loved music, and i am thankful that he allowed us to enjoy it! (he also took us to see die hard when we were VERY young HAHA!) i also loved riding in the car with my dad...he always beat on his steering wheel and sang in a kind of high pitched, raspy voice HAHA!...i wonder if he still does that? the radio was usually on KZ106 or 96 rock...which, back then, were mainly classic rock/rock stations...stevie winwood, the scorpions and don henley always remind me of daddy...riding with the windows down...of course, there was also "the cohutta classics"...that was our elementary school chorus! if it wasn't for "the cohutta classics", i would have never heard grea hits such as : "what's in the box", " ya' brush your teeth", and "peanut, peanut butter"...so i am eternally grateful....and then one time, while riding to "show biz pizza" now known as "chucky cheeses", i remember hearing "look away" by chicago...and thinking what a good song it was! HA! i was probably a seasoned third grader at this point...i am not kidding...i remember it like it was yesterday...they had one of those station wagons where the very back seat faced backwards...hmmm...let me see...in middle school, there was chorus...this is where i learned about harmony and all of that grand stuff...which i already knew a little bit about from the few "judds" tapes that i had...and grandma and grandpa's bluegrass...we had a little trio group that sang at after school functions...the only song i can remember that we sang was "show me the way" by Styx...every time i hear that song, i think of singing that as a sixth grader to the board of education! that was pretty cool...a middle schooler, singing a Styx song...and then i discovered some of my dad's old tapes from when he lived at my grandma's house...lots of them were led zeppelin, which ended up being one of my favorites...the three that i can remember were zoso, coda and in throught the out door...i loved zoso the best and didn't love the other two! i found out later that those were later albums...so turns out, i liked their older material! when i graduated to a cd player, i think i was in seventh grade! i still have it to this day and have never purchased another! it still works fine...it's a one disc cd player and two deck tape player! the tape players don't work, though...i guess brandon and i did too much dj-ing on it! (i would kill to find those tapes! HAHA!) so once i had my own cd player, i was in serious music business...my dad always hooked it up in the music dept...we always received AT LEAST five cds for christmas...one of my favorites was a led zeppelin box set...wow! what middle schooler gets a zeppelin box set! i loved z93 (a classic rock station) and 99x (alternative) i liked the grunge movement too...i LOVED pearl jam and would have married eddie vedder if he would have tracked me down and proposed...in high school i was fortunate enough to see robert plant and jimmy page in concert...it was for their unledded tour...it was AWESOME! daddy and lisa (his wife) took us...they also took us to see U2, which was a really good one! high school consisted of classic rock and a few good new bands...but i wasn't much into the new stuff...my best friend, tiffany, and i were too cool for school in the music dept! haha! we put radios in our backpacks and would walk down the halls of northwest, blaring led zeppelin!(that is the truth!) haha! that's one of those things that is kind of embarrassing as an adult! but i wouldn't change a thing! in high school, i got to sing at carnegie hall with a choir of kids from all over...it was a great experience...it exposed me to more classical music...it also gave me a love for musicals! as an adult, i am more into bluegrass and folky music...i LOVE alison krauss, ray lamontagne and patty griffin...they are my favorites...i don't go to many concerts these days...with kids, it's not really something we do...the kids have opened a new door to some of the most amazing kids music you have ever heard...elizabeth mitchelle, dan zanes and jack johnson, just to name a few...i did get to see robert plant and alison krauss! it was wonderful...they complemented each other beautifully...i love their openess to new music...both of them are very experimental...i saw norah jones a few years back, but she was very full of herself...i like people that are more humble...but maybe that is hard when you are famous...i also saw celtic woman, which was very relaxing...i am one of those nerds that actually enjoys PBS...sorry...but i LOVE it! of course, i also love good worship music...it is very hard to find christian artists that you love...once you have listened to such beautiful music that is in the world...i like hillsong, rick pino, jason upton...and a few others...i am waiting to find that group that makes me want to weep...that has the same passion for God as those who are in the world...singing about worldly things...God definitely deserves the best...maybe i'll just help create that some day! who knows? i think i love music for a reason? why would someone have such a love for something when they can't even play an instrument?! i have a gibson epiphone acousitc...and it sounds beautiful...i just have to get good at transistioning from chord to chord...which is hard when you have monkies climbing on you ALL day...ellie has been all over me this entire post...so if any of this doesn't make sense (like all of it) then please forgive me...so, what did i leave out...OH YEAH! the whole motivator behind this post is a new thing that janet(my mother in law) told me about yesterday...it is called pandora radio...i had never heard about it...but you type in a favorite artist and it plays others that you would like...if you don't like a selection, you hit "thumbs down"...then they wont play anything like that again...it is AWESOME! i have been listening to it all morning! so go check it out! what are your music memories? leave me a comment and tell me about them! have a beautiful day!!!!

I forgot to say it yesterday....but HAPPY SPRING!!!

Today we celebrated my mom's 48th birthday with a simple little cake....the real fun began when we got all of the adults outside to play ball! (with kid equipment) actually, i don't know if you would even call it equipment...what i meant to say was................the hard foamy bat and ball type thingies...i don't know how else to describle them...but it sure was fun! and boy do i feel young and vibrant!


have a nice day :)

The first Annual Talley Scavenger HuntAhhh...sweet treasure...

Just a couple of gals enjoying the water! Thanks Miss Kayla Jo!
KAYLA JO!

My two favorite boys:)

This past weekend was full of fun...We celebrated the ever-so-lovely Kayla Jo's birthday...The kids got treated to a day at the Creative Discovery Museum... Then we brought our little buddy, Ethyn Graham, home with us for a sleepover and scavenger hunt...It was So much fun! The past three days and two nights, Rachel Hicks and her two babies have been at the Talley Plantation, keeping us company...Wes and her husband, Josh, went to Kentucky for a job...They are due back around nine tonight! Woohoo! I have really missed my honey...and I do believe that absense makes the heart grow fonder...

My funny girl

My Ellie is a clown, to say the least! She has this way of always making me smile, crack up, and just, flat out, laugh out loud at the most inappropriate times! For example, if she is getting scolded for something, she makes this face....and she knows that it will make us smile! She is alot like her daddy...happy go lucky...silly...and always trying to get a laugh out of anyone that will listen...so last night, i put her and addie to bed...(they share the same bedroom, which is a bedtime nightmare!) well, it finally gets quiet in their room...i'm thinking, AWESOME! they are asleep...so i am in the living room, watching tv...then i hear a strange noise coming from the end of the hall...i thought that it might be the tv in our bedroom, but still wanted to check to make sure...so i walk to the end of the hall, and i see this strange, red light coming from ellie's baby bed...i squinted my eyes and peeked around the corner to find my pookie playing the keyboard while laying in bed! i wish i had it on video...or at least a picture...i laughed out loud, it was so funny! she must have climbed out of her bed, grabbed the keyboard, threw it in her bed, then climbed back over...i mean, she could have just sat in the floor, but she decided to get comfy while she jammed out...just try to picture this...ellie is laying on her belly, in her bed, playing the keyboard in pitch-black darkness! HAHAHA! and poor addie snoozed right through it...the funny thing about it is that the noise that i heard was one of those cheesy preset songs...you know the ones that sound like napolean dynamite music...then she was adding her own little element to it by playing lead...and so again, pookie has mixed signals on what is appropriate behavior and what is not...she knows that when the lights are out, it's bedtime...but after last night, i am guessing that she may try it again, only it wont be as funny...good day...

It's almost spring...can you believe it?!

So apparently, I am posting every time the seasons change :) i have been very busy with my family...the kids have been sick...we survived the holidays...not much to write home about...as i am trying to write this, ellie is wallowing all over me, eli keeps asking me "how do ya spell" random words, and addie is just whiney! so i make it through about two words at a time and then have to come back and try to remember where i was! i follow a blog called mommycoddle, and every time that i read it, i just long to stay on top of this! it really is my heart...and i am always so inspired...her life is so precious, yet normal...it's funny how we can get sucked into someone elses's life so easily! and i find myself saying, "oh my gosh! i totally know what she is talking about!" so, here is a third attemp to get my little blog going...just to get some random thoughts out of my head...and maybe some pictures of the kids and things that we make...third times a charm?

Campfire time!

to the left, those are REALLY stars :)

We've been lucky enough to build a few fires since the air has gotten cooler...this morning eli begged wes to build one(at 6:30 am!) before he went to work! looks like he has the fever!

we all had fun:)