Sweet Sweet Aunt Judy!!!

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I had a fantastic holiday, I got way too much and I got to skype with my sweet husband for 2 hours and 38 sec. (Yes I counted every second lol and it was by far the best gift I got). I got to have 5 different Christmases this year and each one of them was truly something special, but this post is not about those Christmases. This post is about one special lady who gave me a truly incredible gift tonight.
I know the majority of you don't know who Aunt Judy is, but I would like to tell you about her anyway. Aunt Judy is Tyson's (my brother-in-law) aunt and one of the most creative and remarkable women I have had the pleasure of knowing. I have seen all of the incredible things she has made for my beautiful nephew and niece, little did I know that I would be as lucky as them and receive a special hand made gift from her. Not only can she make pretty much anything with her hands, she can also cook like nobody's business and travels all over the world and tells the most amazing stories from her journeys. If you are ever traveling to a new place, this is the lady to talk to. She can tell you all of the best restaurants, hotels, and shows to visit while there :)
Ok, I got off track a little bit lol. I got a gift tonight from Aunt Judy and it is a hand made quilt she wanted me to have to keep me warm while Eric is away <----- insert tears here (Yes I bawled when I got it). She has been working on it for an entire year and finished it last night. She said, "You can pretend these are Eric's arms holding you and keeping you warm until he returns home". It is truly the most incredible, heart felt, and beautiful gift I have ever received. To think, a women like this cares so much about me and what I am going through. I have never been so touched in my life. The only negative thing about it is, Eric's gonna be mad when I continue to sleep with it every night and there is no room on the bed for him HAHA ;) I just wanted to thank you again Aunt Judy, it means the world to me and I can't even begin to express how breathtaking it is that you did something like this for me. You really tugged at my heart strings tonight and it is something I will NEVER forget. I swear, I could just go on and on about how special Aunt Judy is to me and my family, but now I'll let her work do the explaining ;) Here are a few pictures I took, but no picture in the world could ever do it justice, it is just too divine...

Isn't it one of the most Gorgeous things you have ever seen??? :)

She said the snowman can be Eric and to pretend its his arms keeping me warm :')

Remember, this was entirely hand made and took her a year to make!!!

Like I said, no picture can do it justice, but you can still see how truly beautiful it is :)

Click on the pictures to view them better, the detail is just amazing!


Thank you so so Much Aunt Judy, I can't wait to use it tonight and I can't wait for Eric to see it, I know he will appreciate it as much as I do. You are so incredibly talented and wonderful, and I know I will never be able to find another woman like you. Love you!
Love,
Kyra

COOKIE MANIA!!!!

Alright, so I had this idea for a care package to send Eric for Christmas. He doesn't want anything for Christmas because he doesn't "need" anything taking up more space in his tiny room, plus he doesn't want to have to pack up more stuff for when he comes home. What is a wife to do? I can't just not send him anything for Christmas, right? So I came up with a pretty unique idea, and it was a total surprise to him. Instead of writing down all the details, I thought I would just copy the email I sent to Eric explaining his Christmas gift. I told him to be expecting some care packages for Christmas (I didn't tell him how many), but he was not allowed to open them until he had talked to me. I told him that I would send him a message explaining everything, and after he read it, he was allowed to open them.
Here is the message I sent :)



Okay. So you might think I am a little crazy and you are probably right. I had no idea what to do for you for Christmas this year, so I asked for a little help. I thought that cookies are probably one of the best things about the holidays and I figured you would like a few. I decided it would be a fun idea to do a "Cookie Mania" care package for you so everyone that helps and supports us can show their appreciation and love. This is how it went down lol.

I sent out an email to all of the lovely ladies in our families to ask them if they would like to bake some cookies to send to you and your friends. Then I thought, why stop there? So, I asked your mom to send my email to all of the women that work in the schools to see if they would like to chip in as well. But then I went even more crazy, I thought why not get as many women in this town as possible to pitch in too. As you know, we come from a small town and everyone always asks me how you're doing and if I ever need anything to just ask, so I did. I simply told them that if they would like to make some cookies to send to you and your friends for Christmas that I would make sure that they all got packed up right and ship them on Dec. 5th. I even asked Stacy Conner to make an announcement at church, and you have no idea how many people loved the idea, it was so sweet to see how many people support you and all that you are doing over there for us.
Anyway, I told them to have the cookies at your parents' house by Dec. 4th and we would ship them out the next day so they would get there in time for Christmas. Little did I know how successful this idea would be.

Your mom and I spent all day Sunday and most of Monday putting together these care packages. Let me tell you, it is so much harder than we thought it would be lol. As you know, it takes a few weeks for packages to get there, so it was tricky to pack up baked goods. First we had to individually wrap the cookies, then we had to vacuum seal them into little bags, then we had to put them into plastic or tin boxes with bread in them (The bread sucks up all of the air in the box so none of it can get to the cookies and ruin them..DO NOT EAT THE BREAD!!!! lol it will probably be very stale or moldy haha) just know that it is there for a reason, after all of that we finally got to put them into the shipping boxes : )

It truly amazed your parents and me to see how many people in this town support and care for you honey (your dad volunteered to be the taste tester haha). We got over 2,000 cookies. YES 2,000 COOKIES!!!!!! <--- not a typo lol It took us hours and hours to pack them all up. I'm sure you don't know most of the people, but we put names on all of the bags so you would know who they were from. I asked everyone to leave a note with a name tag, but many people didn't. Just know that the ones without names, are all from the church : ) We are truly blessed to have so many people that care about us baby, I was seriously in shock. I had no idea that my idea would be so successful. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope they get there as good as when they left lol. Tell all of your friends to help you out and enjoy them, lol, and that our tiny little town is supporting them as well, and we love them and can't wait for y'all to come back. I'm trying to spread a little home cooked Christmas love <3 Make sure you open the boxes before handing them out so you know who they are from, and because we put all of your family's (Washington's, Purdy's, Bell's) cookies in certain boxes for you. Your dad even pitched in a little something of his own haha. I think thats about it. I love you so much, honey, and I hope you're not overwhelmed with all the boxes lol. Please stay safe for all of us back home. You have so many people that love and care for you. I'm always missing you and I can't wait to see you again. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!!! MORE! HA




This was his response…


Wow Baby, would you please thank them for all of it? It was a great idea. I opened them and already handed some out. I think next time I'm in a village, we are going to give some out to the kids, they always like getting food from us and i know they'll love cookies (they don't eat much out here, and if they do, it doesn't taste very good lol) so you can let them know most of their cookies are going to go to kids out here. I hope they like that idea. Lol it wasn't easy carrying all those boxes the mile back to my room lol but it was worth it. Thank you baby, I know that must have been a lot of work for you guys and it really means a lot to us. Thanks again baby, that was so great of you to do, I love you so much baby.


We talked a little while longer and he just went on and on about how much it meant to everyone over there and how all of his friends are very thankful. It is so amazing to see so many people come together for the man I love and his friends while they are serving our country. Thank you everyone that helped and may God bless each and every one of you :)


Here are a few pictures of our little adventure :)

Here are some of the cookies after they had been put in to the vacuum sealable bags. There are about 1-2 dozen in each bag.

Here is Lynda helping me pack the thousands of cookies lol

Here are some of the boxes we had already packed :)

And here we are at the post office filling out all of the paper work (There was a TON!!!)

Thanks again everybody, We are so blessed and we love y'all.
Kyra

Reesey Lynn

I know its been a while since my last post, but it has been pretty busy around here. We welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the family on November 11th. She is stunning, oh so sweet, and definitely my favorite new obsession. I had 2 fabulous Thanksgivings at the Washington's and at the Purdy's. I ate way too much and had a blast getting to be around so much family. It was a bit of an emotional holiday for me since the man I am most thankful for could not join us, but all in all it was pretty perfect. Now Christmas is just around the corner, and I have already started my Christmas shopping and have tons more to do.
I started subbing at the schools here in town around the 15th and have only had 2 days off so far. I am really enjoying it and it keeps me pretty busy. The kids crack me up, I guess I had forgotten what is was like to be that age. So far I have only done from 2nd to 8th grade and man is it weird. All of the kids think I'm in high school (one mom even thought I was a student at the Jr. High…Gee Thanks) lol, but I am loving it. So far PE is my favorite, but I have really enjoying each day.
I know I will regret telling y'all this, but it is pretty dang funny. I was subbing for PE and I decided it would be a good idea to help out one of the 5th grade teams during a kick ball game. I couldn't have been more wrong!!! When I got up to the plate, I kicked the ball with all of my might (I got a home run BTW) and I felt extreme pain in my leg. Turns out I pulled my hamstring and I couldn't walk without a limp for a few days. This happened almost 2 weeks ago and it still hurts to put pressure on lol. YES, I pulled my hamstring playing kickball with a bunch of 5th graders HA!!! Can you tell I haven't worked out in a while?
Here are a few pictures of the real reason I wanted to blog. This is our beautiful niece, Reese Lynn Purdy (she is named after me)… can you tell how honored I am? I tell everyone that is willing to listen :)

This was the first time I got to hold our little angel <3

Rylan's first time to hold his baby sister

Our gorgeous girl :)

Don't you just love all of her bows? ;)

Before I go, here is some info on Eric. Mark, Lynda, and I got to Skype with him 4 days ago and he filled us in as much as he could. This was the first time he and his parents had actually gotten to talk. He told us that he did get some turkey on Thanksgiving and it wasn't very good lol, but he got some ham too (it was even worse than the turkey), poor Eric. They have been keeping him pretty busy, so he doesn't have much time to talk lately. All he wants for Christmas is a camera, so his mom and I are on top of that. Hopefully we will get some cool pictures that I can post when he gets back. He guarantees me that he is safe and hasn't seen any action yet, so keep your fingers crossed and hope that doesn't change :) I wish I had a better update, but he doesn't send me many details :(
Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We are so blessed and Thankful to have all of you loving and supporting us.
Love,
Kyra