Prayer for My Grandpa Carnes

April 24, 2009 By nick 1 Comment
grandpa-and-sons

Granpa, Center; Dad (Tim Carnes), rear center; Harley Carnes (Uncle), right; Kevin Carnes (Uncle), left

If you would take a moment out of your day to stop and pray for my Grandpa, Jack Carnes. He has Alzheimer’s Disease and was walking down a set of steep stairs to his basement last night and fell. I am not sure how far up he was, but in the fall he broke his neck. He is currently in ICU in Covington, GA Atlanta, GA. My dad sent me a text this morning telling me that they are deciding when to operate. His neck was broken in the same spot where actor Christopher Reeves’ neck was broke. Fortunately, his neck did not fracture all the way through and as long as it can be maintained and the spinal cord is not cut, he should not face any paralysis from this. However, my grandpa is over 80 years old and has Alzheimers, so this is not going to be an easy surgery or recovery for him or for my Grandma. Fortunately, my uncle Kevin, lives with them and is able to assist her.

My Grandpa is a great and godly man. He is however hard headed, that’s probably why he was walking down the steps when he shouldn’t have been. If he makes a full recovery from this accident, it will not stop him. If he were a car he would have one gear, Drive. I guess that’s what’s kept him going all of these years!

Thank you very much for your prayers for him!

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Easter Family Photos

April 21, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

family-bwOur Family…

(Click on image once to open, click on new image to enlarge)

Easter 2009

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Meet My Mom

April 14, 2009 By nick 1 Comment

This is another great video that I found thanks to my sister, Jamela. Watch it and get a sneek peek at my mom. She’s a great lady who loves her kids dearly and has one purpose, to make sure we are well taken care of…and to make sure we drive safe :-) Well Blog world, here’s my mom!

I love you mom!

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Gavin the Actor

April 1, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Last night was Gavin’s first school play. He was selected to do a speaking part as a pig. Of course I am biased, but I think he did the best on his part. It was just two lines, but he spoke loud enough where everyone could hear him in the microphone and clearly. One boy played a Chicken, his jobs was to walk around the stage until it came to his part. He was hilarious!He had the crowd laughing. I attempted to get everything on video, but my memory card messed up, so I’ve posted some pictures instead. The top picture shows Gavin being the Kindergartener that he is…He’s the one acting as if he is being choked (Click on the image a couple times to enlarge it). Yeah, he got his teacher’s attention with that one.

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Family Adventures at 4 a.m.

February 23, 2009 By nick 4 Comments

tristan-sunglasses

Usually you wake up from a nightmare. Last night, I woke up and walked right into one.

I heard some scuffling in the hallway at 4 a.m. and that usually means that Tristan is awake and trying to covertly sneak into our bedroom to get into our bed. Last night, I think God woke me up, because He’s cool like that. Most of the time, Tristan wakes up because his covers have fallen off and he is cold. I can simply take him back to his room (usually from our bed), cover him up and he is fine until his covers fall off again. Last night was a different story.

I walked into the hallway and saw Tristan standing there with a puppy dog look on his face as if something was wrong. The hallway light was off, but the bathroom light was on, giving me just enough glimpse of his face. I said, “Hey buddy, what’s wrong?” Immediately, as I walked towards him I was hit with the worst poop smell I had ever smelled, so I knew he was awake because he pooped in his diaper. So, I asked the question I already knew the answer to, “Did you poopy your diaper?” As he replied with a ‘yes‘ nod, I stepped in something wet. I quickly turned on the light to see a trail of liquid poop all over the hallway floor, and I had stepped all in it!

Nicki is probably tougher than I am. She would have probably let me sleep and taken on the poop monster and his mess alone, but I could see that God was using this moment in our lives to help us build team work. It didn’t take me long to jump into the tub to wash off my feet and get Tristan situated on a towel before I called my teammate in life to give me a hand. I would have hated for us to miss out on this team building exercise straight from God himself! We quickly discovered Tristan’s adventure for us started in his bed with what appeared to be a nuclear explosion, leaked all across his carpet, and then downloaded into the hallway floor and trailed behind him as he made his way towards our room. I quickly became thankful that God #1 woke me up before Tristan made it to our room and climbed into our bed and #2 that we have hardwood floors in our hallway. Nicki and I were able to crawl back into bed around 4:45 a.m. this morning after a bath for Tristan, laundry for the sheets, covers, and towels; and a lovely adventure of cleaning up poop laden carpet and flooring. Why do these things happen when its about an hour to an hour and a half before its time to wake up? Why not midnight? When we have several more hours to sleep? I guess I’ll never understand the timing of the early morning family adventures!

Join the Conversation: What’s one of your favorite early morning family adventures?

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The Hunt for the City’s Best Pizza

February 11, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

hailey-pizza-crust

I was supposed to be updating my blog frequently with our family’s “Hunt for the City’s Best Pizza.” However, I have found myself extremely busy and we forgot the camera on several of our visits, so here goes 4 reviews in one post, with hopes I’ll do better in the future! For those who do not know what I am talking about, every Monday night, our family hunts for the city’s best pizza. Nicki and I wanted to do something fun with the kids to help make some lasting memories, so we are trying every pizza available to us in the city, whether its at a restaurant or in the freezer section of the grocery store (we are not trying all of the freezer pizzas or we’d be eating pizza til the day we die). Gavin’s been learning charts at school, so he made a chart and each Monday the pizza that we eat, gets a rating of up to 5 stars by the whole family, one star being the worst and five stars being the best. So far, its been a lot of fun!

Mellow Mushroom: Mellow Mushroom was our first visit several weeks back. We tried two different kinds of pizza, the Carnavor (all meat) and a Veggie Pizza. We gave Mellow Mushroom 5 Stars, and it has currently been tough to beat, as it remains our favorite so far.

Stevi B’s: It was rough going from Mellow Mushroom to Stevi B’s, but we drew it as our second trip. Needless to say, Stevi B’s got a rating of 2 Stars and is currently in last place. Apparently our Stevi B’s is under new management, which means not as good service and not as good pizza.

Pizza Joint: Pizza Joint is a local owned, well, pizza joint. Their rating got pushed down by Gavin and Tristan. We allow Tristan to rate, and being two, he just randomly throws out a number…our main objective is to have fun with the kids and make some memories, not to worry about their ratings. Nicki and I gave Pizza Joint 4 stars, but the final rating ended up 3 Stars. The great thing about Pizza Joint is they do individual slices, so we all got to try our favorite toppings…and they are cheap!

Hungry Howie’s: We’ve never tried Hungry Howie’s until this past Monday night. It was surprisingly good. You have a choice of various flavored crusts and they had decent deals with their cupons. We once again tried a couple of different pizzas, and Hungry Howies received a 3 Star rating.

I’ll be out of town next week, so we will not get to do our family night, but I’ll post our next review in the coming weeks!

tristan-hungry-howies

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Happy Birthday Gavin!!!

January 9, 2009 By nick 4 Comments

gavin-incredible

My little “oldest” son Gavin turns 6 years old today! I must say that I am extremely thankful to God for giving Gavin 6 healthy years of life, for protecting him in ways we’ve known (through a horrible car accident 3 years ago) and in ways that we will never know. I am thankful that the Lord has given Gavin abilities that some children do not have as well as gifts and passions such as art, soccer, and doing anything creative that comes to his mind.

I love my boy. I love how he thinks he is strong enough to beat me up, how he helps his younger brother Tristan, how he hugs me in the morning, before he goes to school, before he goes to bed, and just because. I love that his way of showing me love sometimes is a drawing or doing something out of his passions and gifts. I love to watch him get excited about something and watch his words get scrambled trying to explain what he’s excited about. I love his faith and purity in believing that Iron Man would answer his invite to his birthday party. I love to hear him pray at meals and before bed, especially when he prays for the “sick, the hungry, and the poor” – I think you could understand that I could go on and on all day about all the ways I love Gavin, so I’ll stop here, however…

I have to admit that as I think about Gavin turning 6, it is a little saddening to me as well. I use to hate hearing adults say, “It seems like it was yesterday…” But, the fact is, that is reality, especially once you become a parent. Time flies by, years literally seem like days, and as I reflect back on 6 years with Gavin, I realize that the next 6 years will be here in what seems like a few days. If I had my way, I would not let him grow up anymore. Even though children are challenging to raise, I don’t want to lose what I have with my son where he is now. I will no longer have a 5 year old Gavin, and reality stinks sometimes!

So while I am joyful for the life my child has been blessed with and who he is as a person…I am a little disappointed that I no longer have him at 5. Happy Birthday Gavin!!!

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2009

January 1, 2009 By nick 5 Comments

2009

Happy New Year! I am thankful that I have been blessed to live life for another day and hopefully for another year. I am thankful for a healthy and happy family.

I resoluted not to  do New Year Resolutions a couple of years ago and that is the only resolution I’ve ever fulfilled, so in keeping with my new found tradition, I will not be making any New Year Resolutions, however I can say that 2009 is going to bring some big things, definitely some changes in the life of my family, and though I cannot share it all now, I am excited about some stuff that is going to be happening later this year…I’ll be talking about it soon, until then, here are a few 2009 goals that I’ve set…I really haven’t thought much about this, but these were on my mind yesterday:

  1. I want to know my Jesus more
  2. I want to know my family more
  3. I want to be more of a blessing to people in need
  4. I want to create more memories with and for my kids
  5. I want to keep my 49 pounds off that I lost between late 2007 and 2008
  6. I want to grow as a leader

Join the Conversation: What are some of your resolutions or goals for 2009?

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Happy Birthday to Me!!!

December 16, 2008 By nick 2 Comments

happy-birthday

Today I have been blessed with 28 healthy, wonderful, sometimes trying years of life. I am sure there are days I would keep and then there are days and decisions I would like to trade in, but my biggest regret is that these 10,220 days have gone by so fast! The older I get the more I realize that life is not about me, its about (as my friend Shane has phrased it) “Loving Jesus, loving others, and pursuing both!” Bottom line, its about Jesus and about people. Today, in recognition of the day I was given life, I am going to donate blood at a local blood drive to give three other people life, I thought that would be fitting for the day…

I know you all were going to Fed-Ex or UPS me a gift once you realized it was my birthday (insert sarcasm here), but instead of sending me gifts, I am asking that you honor me on my birthday by helping my friend Neely bring her daughter home, by buying a bag of coffee or an “Adoption Rock’s T-Shirt.” All profits go to pay for her child’s adoption. While you are there, pick up a couple of extras for late Christmas gifts :) For information on purchasing the coffee CLICK HERE for information on purchasing a t-shirt CLICK HERE. Thank you for honoring me on my birthday by helping someone else!

Once you’ve purchased a bag of coffee or a t-shirt, I would love for you to leave a comment to let everyone know which one you bought so those who didn’t will feel guilty :)

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Am I a Bad Parent?

December 4, 2008 By nick 20 Comments

gavin-bw

Ok, I want you to be honest here today! I want you to answer the question, am I a bad parent? Of course it is impossible for you to tell if I am a bad parent based on this one situation, but you can answer, was this a bad parenting decision…or a good one?

The Situation: Gavin loves the Christmas tree. If the lights are off, he plugs it up, he is the watcher of the ornaments, as Tristan, his 2 year old brother likes to take them off the tree. So, we made Gavin “responsible for the Christmas tree.” His duties involved 2 simple things #1 Unplug the lights when he goes to school (there is no need for them to be on during the day when he is not there) and #2 Turn off the lights when he goes to bed (they can’t stay on all night).

What Happened: Last night Gavin went to bed and did not turn off the lights on the Christmas Tree. I was busy working on some stuff and did not notice until he had been asleep for about 30 minutes. Nicki told me to let him sleep, I wanted to wake him up, after all it is his responsibility. I woke him up…it took me about 5 minutes, but he got up, walked in the living room and unplugged the tree. He didn’t remember even having to do it this morning.

My Reasons: I believe that children learn a lot of valuable lessons at an early age (Like in this Post) and because of what  Proverbs 22:6 say’s. Gavin is becoming more and more aware of people who are in need, because we are teaching him and he prays for them everyday. I had a very traditional upbringing that taught things like, “Do it right the first time.” “Be a man of your word, if you say you are going to do something, do it, no matter the time or the cost.” Etc…So, since turning the lights off is Gavin’s “responsibility” which he accepted, I decided to wake him up to do his job. Sure, I could have simply unplugged the lights, but what would lesson would Gavin learn from that? That dad will always finish the job if he forgets or just doesn’t want to do it?

Join the Conversation: Am I a bad parent for waking Gavin up to unplug the Christmas tree? What would you have done differently if you think I am to teach responsibility to your child?

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