Shirlene Jones

In the words of my mother...Shirlene came into our lives 37 years ago when Jennifer was just 1 and she worked for our family for 17 years. She was a sweet, kind, and gentle person. She became one of our family in no time at all. She played Monopoly, Go Fish, built towers out of blocks, cars out of lego, pitched baseballs, dressed baby dolls, had tea parties and most importantly taught many lessons about life everyday that she was with us.

She called us her second family. There are not too many of my childhood memories that do not have Shirlene in them. She is part of the person that I am today.

Shirlene passed away last Friday from lung cancer. She will be dearly missed by all of us. Thank you Shirlene for all of the love you gave us and I hope that we meant as much to you as you meant to us.

I'm so glad that you got to meet your "grandchild", Caden before you left this world...I only wish we could have visited more often.

Ryan and Angela (AJ) 's wedding!

Here's the post for Ryan and AJ's wedding!!!

Unfortunately, I was pretty busy chasing Caden, getting ready for the wedding, etc., that I didn't get many pictures of the actual wedding. But here are a few...

AJ patiently waiting for the wedding to start and not looking too nervous either!

Nicholas, the ring bearer in his cute little grey suit...



AJ and Suzanne, the maid of honor (and my roommate in Savannah :))



I'll post a link for everyone to the photographer's blog when she gets the pictures up...since I didn't get very many

Here are a few that my Aunt Kathy took...

The guys heading to the church!



And here is my big shout out to Grace Murphy...our savior before and during the wedding! Grace is one of the groomsman's (Brian) girlfriends and offered to let Caden nap while Scott and I went to the church with the rest of the wedding party. She got him dressed, even put his carseat in her car and brought him to the wedding and then stayed outside with him during the ceremony so he didn't disrupt anything...Thank you, Grace!

Here are some pictures of Grace and Caden loading up to head to the church!





Mom and Ryan...



AJ and her Dad...



Then some pictures from after the wedding!

The Johnson kids...I swear we're all related...

Candy and Cheryl...
AJ and Ryan with Delaine and Pudge Guettler. They came all the way from Fort Pierce to see their "other" son get married. Ryan was at their house during a lot of his high school years...
Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Andrew Johnson...
Aunt Jane and my cousin, Mary Jane...
Ryan with his old teammates from C of C...
Ryan and me...
Scott and Allie :).
Robert, Scott, and Albert...
The Johnson girls minus AJ...

Page (MJ's husband), Mary Jane, and Scott...
The Johnson girls minus Candy...
Fun times were had by all. Congratulations to Ryan and AJ! We are so glad to have AJ as a part of our family and wish them nothing but the best! It was great to see all of our family at the wedding (some we have not seen in years!)and we've had conversations that we cannot let this much time go by again without seeing each other.

We've been busy...

Wow! I cannot believe it has been two months since my last post! Well since then...mommy went to a bachelorette party for Angela (my new sister-in-law) in Savannah. Here's the group at Paula Deen's restaurant...




And here are all of the Johnson girls!




And here's the Johnson girls who hung out late...haha, sorry, Candy...too bad Robert made you get on the road so early :).



Then there were a few weekends at home with some down time...when Daddy went to Uncle Ryan's bachelor party (but mysteriously there are no pictures from the bachelor party...hmmm :))

So, we played with our Elmo hands...and I just love this picture because it looks like he is in training with his workout shirt on and his "boxing gloves"



And we built some forts in the living room...



And hid in the broom closet from mommy...



Then since we couldn't make it over for our cousins/nephews' two year old birthday party, we decided to go the next weekend so we could get a whole weekend of fun in! The three of them were a riot. Imagine...three two year old Harrells...I hope you are closing your eyes and imagining...

Well, the fireplace was the hit of the weekend. Caden likes to jump off anything he can or just jump in place. He likes to jump off our fireplace, but it was so much more fun to have his two cousins to jump with! They just lined up...





And started jumping...



And jumping...



And jumping!



And we played with trucks!



Caden is obsessed with trucks! Big trucks, fire trucks, little trucks, red trucks, you get the picture. Everytime we get in the car, he points out the window to all of the trucks! He love the Disney Cars movie and calls it "trucks". He has trucks on his jammies and I can only entice him to get ready for bed some nights if we put his truck jammies on...And he somehow always talks mommy and daddy into buying him more trucks wherever we go! He even has books about trucks and when we read it, he gets so excited to point out all of the trucks to us and now he likes to tell us the difference between trucks and tractors...

Okay, enough with the trucks...His other obsession is dogs. He loves the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie and the Hotel for Dogs movies and loves all dogs (well he hasn't exactly warmed up to Britain yet, but he loves all other dogs). Since we have smaller dogs, he was so excited to play with Miller and Buckley (Todd and Carly's labs). He said "Big Dog"...Miller was so sweet and just let Caden lay all over him...



Then Wade decided it looked like fun!



Then, how precious is this picture...Brody couldn't resist the fun...



Then we headed to Columbia the next weekend for Uncle Ryan and Aunt AJ's wedding! See next post...

But first a few cute pics...

Caden sleeps with so many stuffed animals! Seriously, I don't know how he has room to sleep...I had to put his "friends" on the glider while I changed his sheet, so he wanted to sit with them...



And college football season has started!! And we are a split household, so here is a pic of Caden in his Gator gear, so the next blog update, he will have to be featured in his Seminole attire...



Last, but not least...We took Caden to the ENT doctor last week and he is retaining fluid in his ears when he is not sick, which could be affecting his hearing and his speech. He is GREATLY improving on his speech and says more and more each day. He especially likes to imitate words that mommy and daddy say like "geez" or "shut", and even says his friends names at school. He likes to hug this little girl, Kennedy and say her name. But...we wanted to make sure we were checking everything out...so, next Friday, he will be getting tubes put in. I will update on the surgery, but I've been assured that it is so routine now, but still don't like my little bubbie having to go under anesthesia! Keep us in your prayers on Friday the 24th!