christmas eve

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!!

christmas at the yancey's

Christmas 2009

(made by madison in pre-k)

Santa's Magic Key

"Our stockings hang upon a wall,
we have no fireplace at all
you see the problem is quite clear
Santa, how will you get in here

We heard a legend. Is it true?
Of magic only you can do
we leave out any plain old key
and mark it "Santa" so you can see

Your magic makes the key fit right
so you can get inside that night
thank you Santa, here's our key
the milk and cookies are on me"


christmas at the yancey's

I really enjoy decorating my house for christmas, but this year we celebrated emma's first birthday and i didn't get into the holiday spirit until this week (the week of christmas) sad i know. i just haven't been in the mood this season. holiday's just aren't the same. it's amazing how much i miss my childhood traditions... maw maw and paw paw's christmas eve and then christmas day at my parent's house... full of good food and lots of laughter with my aunt and uncle and cousins. and i realized today that it's been 10 years since the last time i celebrated christmas with my mom. every year is difficult and just when i think this year will be better it's just not. i lost my grandfather in february and last week i was afraid i was going to lose my grandmother. so this year isn't any easier. plus i miss that she's missing all these wonderful christmas' with my kids. that one gets me all choked up! so i am wondering this year if i will ever get my joy back... joy and excitement that christmas use to be. so now that i've had my cry for the night.. i thought i share christmas at the yancey's

christmas was my mom's favorite time of year and we always had two christmas trees, one that was traditional (real) in the livingroom and we had a santa tree in the den, which was my mom's favorite. and, when she passed away i inherited the tree and every year i enjoying putting it up in my livingroom and remembering all the times with my mom. and although christmas isn't the same for me as it use to.. i thought i'd share some of her beautiful santa ornaments.

more pictures to come.. so stay tuned :)

six chicks on the go

so i'm sharing this picture from michelle's blog because she has had this on the back of her van since august and it's october and i still don't have mine. plus i'm hoping to convience vic that my van needs one too.. hehe

the schobert family blog

halloween

i took these pictures mainly because it was such a beautiful fall day and it was warm outside. emma is actually going to be a butterfly for halloween and who knows what madison will be. she changes her mind everyday. this angel outfit is what she picked this day. but i think they are both beautiful and i will post there actual halloween pictures later.

10 years

vic and i started dating october 18, 1999

10 years later we are still going strong

the picture on the left is from january or feburary of 2000 when greensboro saw a nice little snow storm and the picture on the right is of us celebrating our 10 years together at a Pathers vs Redskins game. of course we were pulling for the opposite team, but a little family rivalry never hurt. made for a great game even thought the redskins lost.

One Person, One Moment, One Reality

so i wrote this sometime in 2004 during an english class i was taking and i came across it tonight. i wanted to share it because although it made me cry it was refreshing to see just how far i had come in my greaving. somedays are just as difficult, but i do strive to live everyday like it could be my last or my families last. i tell my husband and my children just how much i love them. because you just never know when it could be one person, one moment, one reality that could change your life. now it's about enjoying the small things that bring me joy! and though there are a lot of difficult day i am happy and i love my family and my life.

One Person, One Moment, One Reality

Jennifer Lynn Yancey

An hour and a half after I arrived at work on Monday, October 2, 2000, I received a phone call from someone at Wesley Long Community Hospital to tell me that my mother had been taken to the emergency room. The caller couldn’t reveal what had happened, but only that I needed to get to the hospital immediately. At that moment I knew that my mother had experienced a heart attack. It had always been the one thing that I feared the most, but I would never have imagined just how much the loss of her life would change my life.

At the time I was an assistant manager for a woman’s clothing store, and I felt as though I couldn’t leave the store unattended. The decision to stay would haunt me for many years to come. I made phone calls to anyone I thought could help. During this, what seemed to be an enormous amount of time, my mother’s sister arrived looking very worried and she literally pulled me out of the store and drove me to the hospital.

As we entered the emergency room we were directed to a private room where my family, and some of my mother’s co-workers, as well as our church minister were all waiting. As I entered the look on their faces scared me. It seemed as though no one knew what to say. I was unaware of the situation in that my mother was in and it seemed like only seconds after I arrived that the reality discovered. I had no time to take my seat when a woman entered the room and said “She didn’t make it.” All I remember was loosing all the strength in my body and collapsing. I couldn’t believe it, four hours earlier I was having lunch with her and talking about plans to go out after I got off work, but I was robbed. Robbed of a mother and a friend in only a matter of seconds. My aunt and my father came to my side where they helped me up, but I was in shock and had no control over my body. I had no time to prepare for such a statement, it was those words, spoken as if they had no meaning, that changed my life forever.

The nurse asked me if I wanted to go see her, my gut reaction said “yes,” but in my heart I was scared. None of this seemed real, it felt like I was in a dream. I was scared of how she would look, but there was no movie or television show that could have prepared me for what I was about to see. It was very surreal, I thought she was breathing but I knew it couldn’t be I just could stop thinking that it was only that afternoon we were having lunch and a few hours later I was saying goodbye. I knew my life would be different, but I could never have imagined just how much it would change. I was being selfish, all I could think about was want I was losing. I was losing the future moments that she and I were stripped of; she wasn’t going to be there to see me get married, or when my husband and I bought our first home or to see us have our first child, and she wasn’t going to be there to see them grow up, to see me grow up. I felt as though God was punishing me for something that I had done. I asked God “why?, why did you take her from me, you didn’t need her I do.” I was mad, mad with myself, God, my Dad, but most of all I was mad at her. I was mad because she didn’t take better care of herself. She always worried about everyone else’s problems when she should have been worrying about herself. I was also mad because she never told anyone that she had just began to take medication for heart disease. Why couldn’t she have told me that? I know she didn’t want me or anyone else to worry but she should have told someone. Then I became mad at myself for being so selfish, when she was alive I took and took and I was still trying to take when she was dead. I then started thinking that it was time for her to go, she had done all she could do. I needed to become an adult and learn how to survive without her, wow that was difficult to say. A part of me became angry at the fact that she left me here to deal with my father. How could she not take better care of herself, did she not care about me? I was determined not to take my mother role. I was also angry that I had to become an adult, because for the first time in my life I had to take full responsibility for everything I did. My mom wasn’t going to be there when I fell flat on my face, she wasn’t going to help me out financially when I was in a bind. To this day she in so many ways she is still taking care of me

At the time I lived in an apartment and the first night didn’t seem that difficult because my friends came to be bodies of comfort if I needed anything. My boyfriend (my husband now) stayed with me so I wouldn’t be alone. It wasn’t until a week later that reality hit. The funeral was over and I was back at work. Reality, the moment you realize that your life will never be the same again. My family divided the day my mother died, it soon became my mother’s side and my father’s side. My mother had been the current “caretaker” of my father who was retired and simply didn’t want to live anymore, only exist. When I say caretaker I don’t mean he couldn’t do anything for himself, he only chose to make my mother earn the money, fix the meals and take care of the home. She was also the one that would tell him what was going on in my life because he and I had never had a serious conversation about anything in my whole life. Suddenly I was forced to communicate with a man that didn’t care about his life or the life of others. I hated it and I hated him. I didn’t want the job my mother had, nor did I think that she would have wanted me to take care of him. He was, and still is, a difficult man, the type of father that only came around when it was time to punish me. I remember the day when things weren’t always that way, but over the years I started to despise my father and the way he treated my mother. I made the decision not to take care of my father because he is an adult who can take care of himself.

Even though my mom is gone, she left me with so many wonderful things. I inherited some of her life insurance which helped me pay for a wedding, buy a home, and, four years later, is continuing to help so that I don’t have to work while I complete my college education. The one change that I never expected was in the way my mother helped me to go to college. Her employer offered to pay for tuition and books for me to receive my undergraduate degree. He did this because he knew that this was something that my mother was trying to do for me, and it was his way of giving back to her for all her hard work. I am now the first person on my father’s side of the family that has ever going to college.

Today life still isn’t the same as when she was alive, it is only different, not better not worse. Sometime I still struggle with the fact that she won’t be here to experience the moments that I would want her to see, but she is always in my heart and I will always remember all the things she taught me and all the wonderful times we had. Who knew that one person and one moment would change my reality. Four years later I am a wife, a friend, a student, a daughter, a niece and a cousin and of these I find great pleasure. Being a wife and a student are difficult because they demand so much of my time. In high school I was not a good student, in fact I wasn’t accepted into college when I graduated. It wasn’t until my mother died and the opportunity was given to me that I decided that I needed to prove something to myself and to all of the school counselors who said I wasn’t cut out for college. Losing someone I loved made me realize just how important people in my life are. My husband and I were engaged a month after my mother died, I didn’t want to waste anymore of my time doing things that didn’t mean that much to me. The death of my mother allowed us to put our relationship into perspective. She was so stressed about her job, her home and her life that it forced me to realize that life is too short to be unhappy. It was a combination of stress and other things that make her heart sick, and I believe that it was God’s way of saying she had had enough and he didn’t want her to suffer anymore. This combination made me make a drastic decision in my life. I quite my job, started college and began planning a wedding, I made the decision that I want to do things in my life that would make me happy.

i am soooo slack

well i am behind on my weight loss posts :(

it's been a rough month and the last two weeks i've only worked out 3 times. the girls and i have had the flu. i have had a terrible cough which has finally subsided. so monday i will be back to running and looking forward to it. it's my TIME to unwind and sometimes take out my frustrations. i will post a picture soon, although there hasn't been much change i'm still around 166lbs BUT my clothing is fitting better and i've even gone down a size, so i'm not sure i can ask for me.. i will continue to push myself and one day i know i will get there.

month one

starting....

month two

166lbs

BMI 30 : obese

weight loss : 4lbs

the first month started out really well, i REALLY did work out 5 days a week and for the first three weeks it worked really well, but i wasn't really losing any weight. but, i figured it was normal. then we went to the beach for four days and i didn't work at all, then we came home and i decided to start running on the treadmill and that has been wonderful. it has started out really slow, just walking in the beginning and now i'm running 16 mins and walking 14 for a total of 30 mins.... YEAH

almost a month

i am one week away from a month.

it will be a month ago i started exercising and i will have little to report. i lost a few pounds and gained a few pounds so technically speaking I'm exactly the same weight i started out at. sad!! we went on vacation for a few days so i didn't exercise and we didn't eat that great. my mother always told me i was a strong willed child and i always complete everything i put my mind to, so why is this so difficult? Difficult doesn't even feel like its the right word to describe how i feel! it's awful, most of the time i hate myself....

our little rockstar

madison is all ready for her to start Pre Kindergarten

Page Primary here we come!!

saving my life

this is the scariest thing i've ever done, me being as honest as i can about my weight.

MONTH ONE

170 lbs

BMI 31 : Obese

i can't believe that i am blogging about my weight! as it is something that have been in denial about for a LONG time. when i talk about my weight with my friends they say "you just had a baby" well i had a baby eight months ago and although i am happy to say that i've lost all that weight, i am no where near what my weight NEEDS to be. so i'm sure you're asking why in the world would she would be talking about this, well i have to change my life. NO, I have to SAVE my LIFE for my girls. and for me i feel like blogging about it is my way of holding myself accountable for this life changing event.

How Did I Get Here?

I'm not going to lie... i ate my way here! when my mom died nine years ago i weighted 120 and i was 20 years old, now i'm 29 and i weight 170.. food became my comfort and it feels like i blinked and gained 50 pounds.

My Goal

to get healthy.... it's not even about the weight i just want to be here for my kids as long as i can. of course i could still die from a heart attack, it's genetic, but i can control what i eat and i can exercise. it took me 9 years to get here and i want to be realistic, i KNOW it's not going to come off easily, but i'm going to start slow and work hard. starting with exercising five days a week for 20 mins. and the biggest thing i'm going to change starting today is no more french fries or coke-a-cola! so every month i'm going to post these lovely pictures of myself in hopes that i will show some progress.

So if anyone is reading this please write something to support me because this is going to be not only phyically hard, but i am going to have to deal with my emotional eating and that is going to be where i struggle the most.

'sissy's song' by alan jackson

i think of her everyday and somedays are better than others, but when i hear this song on the radio it makes me feel better knowing exactly where she is and knowing that nothing can hurt her anymore. when she passed away my aunt and i always said that her heaven was on a beach somewhere, with sand between her toes!

Brenda Kay Purvis Cathcart

'Sissy's Song'
by Alan Jackson

Why did she have to go
So young I just don't know why
Things happen half the time
Without reason without rhyme
Lovely, sweet young woman
Daughter, wife and mother
Makes no sense to me
I just have to believe

She flew up to Heaven on the wings of angels
By the clouds and stars and passed where no one sees
And she walks with Jesus and her loved ones waiting
And I know she's smiling saying
Don't worry 'bout me

Loved ones she left behind
Just trying to survive
And understand the why
Feeling so lost inside
Anger shot straight at God
Then asking for His love
Empty with disbelief
Just hoping that maybe

She flew up to Heaven on the wings of angels
By the clouds and stars and passed where no one sees
And she walks with Jesus and her loved ones waiting
And I know she's smiling saying
Don't worry 'bout me

It's hard to say goodbye
Her picture in my mind
Will always be of times I'll cherish
And I won't cry 'cause

She flew up to Heaven on the wings of angels
By the clouds and stars and passed where no one sees
And she walks with jesus and her loved ones waiting
And I know she's smiling saying
Don't worry 'bout me
Don't worry 'bout me
Don`t worry 'bout me

vic + emma

NOPE!!

they look nothing alike, yeah right!

why can't i have just one child to look like me

our little model

our girls

are growing up so fast..

i wish someone would tell them to slow down!!

4th of july

Belmont Fireworks

image from
www.belmontrocks.com

you know it wasn't the biggest, longest or the most exciting fireworks i've ever seen, but that's ok. i had an amazing weekend with my family. friday we took the girls to Salisbury to Dan Nichols Park and had a great time. then Belmont was having there firworks display after 'friday night in the park' concert was over so we headed downtown around 9pm, it may have only last 10 mins but it didn't matter to madison she loved it all the same. i was even surprised that emma wasn't bothered by them. saturday we didn't do much, played in the pool and watched illegal fireworks at the end of our street and sunday was our lazy day. it was nice having vic home for three days.


emma + daddy
enjoying the fireworks


madison + sarah (babydoll)

baby food maker

well it was time to make my weekly baby food. just as i did for madison, emma is enjoying eating fresh fruits and vegetables. no reason to buy baby food when you can make it.

she's such a mommies little helper

since emma was not happy, vic stepped in to assist

maybe emma said "here daddy, make me some peas and carrots." i find this so amusing because vic hates green peas. he had wonderful facial expressions.

peas + carrots

THE MENU
peas + carrots
peas
cauliflower
strawberry + banana
peaches

hopefully this will last more than a week

daisy birthday party

check out more picture
click here

madison's first movie

she had a rough day and so i decided it would be nice to have some time for just the two of us. so i took her to see ice age : dawn of the dinosaurs. we had a great time. talked the whole way to the theater and held hands during the scary parts and she gave me kisses and said thank you bunches.... it was so worth it.

experimenting with photoshop

I really like this one

but this one is my favorite

we love you daddy

happy father's day

2009

Happy Father's Day Paw Paw

Happy Father's Day

We Love You!!

Black and White Party on HWTM

i was so excited yesterday when i saw that HWTM has featured
the six chicks designs dinner party : Dinner Among Friends

i can't wait until michelle and i get to do another one!!

we're thinking home spa day with the girls
doesn't that sound so awesome? but i can't really see
madison giving me a pedicure.. maybe i'll just give her one

happy 6 month birthday miss Emma Rose

Emma Rose Yancey

see how much she's grown over the last six months

Emma's First Year

Business Cards

well i guess it's REAL when you have business cards

so exciting!!!

emma's a big girl

she was suppose to be taking a nap, but
i caught her playing with her toys.

then 5 mins later i looked in the monitor and
this is what i found....

what a silly little girl

guess we'll be lowering the crib tonight!!

Finally....... a good looking resume

under construction

my blog is under construction. i am trying to teach myself the codes so i can completely customize it. so bare with me if it looks a little funny :)

six chicks designs

i know you thought that i had a lot to say in the last post, so i won't make you read too much more. my good friend from college (michelle schobert) and i are starting our own business.

Six Chicks Designs

focusing on interiors, event design and graphics

we are working on a logo so that we can get our blog up and running. check it out, just click on the link above. (but please bare with us) we would love any and all advise as well as business. let us know if we can help you.

am i losing it?

i am over doing it for sure. since i lost my job i have really needed a way to express my creative side. i REALLY miss designing. so much so that now i've created two scrapbooking blogs, one dedicated to my girls and the other dedicated to watching emma grow through her first year. it started as just working on their albums for them but i realized i wanted to share what i was doing my family. since we moved to belmont they no longer get to see them on a regular basis so i felt that this was a great way to share with them what was going on in their lives. plus i did a terrible job documenting madison in her first four years. of course i just didn't have the time. i was a full time student in a very intense design program at UNCG and their just wasn't anytime to scrapbook. then we moved to baltimore maryland for my job, then my father passed away and we moved back..... well you get the point. i've been through a lot in the last 10 years of my life. what i realized after i had my girls is that life is too short.. i miss my mom everyday and everytime the girls do something, anything, i wish i could call mom up and tell her all about it. i know she's watching me and the girls, but it's not the same. i'm rambling.... the point of all that is that i want to photograph, film, scrapbook, write all about my girls because i wish my mom had done that for me. if something was to happen to me i want them to know what they were like when they were little. and just how much i loved them. i'm realizing how fast it goes and i just want to hold on to it for as long as i can. i wish i could have asked my mom all the questions.. was i like that... did you want to pull your hair out when i did the same things madison does. she always said that i would have a daughter just like me.... that's a little scary and i see it everyday in madison. that's probably why i don't seem to have a lot of patience for her sometimes. but being a mother is the best job i could ever ask for. my mothers sister and i were talking this week and she said that she thinks maybe emma would be the daughter that my mother always doomed me to have. (whether you look at that as good or bad). a friend mentioned to me that God has provided for me this far and that he will continue to provide (talking about me getting a job), but i thought about that and thought what if it's God's plan for me to be a stay at home mom? so i told marty that maybe that's what my mother doomed on me :) to stay home with two girls who are just like me. ahhhhhhh i am looking forward to what God has in store for our family and am going to take it one day at a time. i will never have these moments back. that's why i always say: sweat the small things, life's too short. enough of my rambling.

so check out my new blog

Emma's First Year

lovin' the new deck

now all we need is some furniture