The littlest things....

So today was just as normal as any other day. Around lunch time, I decided that eating would be a good idea, so I headed off to Chic-fil-a (yes the same one that I met my wonderful Brian at!). I ordered my famous #5 with a coke and I ordered a #1 for Ann (my co-worker). I pulled up to the window and the lady told me that 'my friend ahead of me already paid for my lunch'. I explained to her that it must have been a mistake because I didn't know the lady that was ahead of me, but she insisted that she already took care of it.

Random act of kindness. I have done this before a couple of times, but have never been the recipient of one, and I have to say that it is amazing how a small thing like having my lunch paid for by an absolute stranger made my day. So, my reasoning for this blog post is to encourage everyone that the next time your in line at your local fast-food resturant and have an extra $5, go ahead and make someone's day! I promise, they will appreciate it and it'll give you that little warm bubbly feeling inside too!

And, just in case...thank you to the lady in the red land rover who paid for my lunch! It was truly appreciated!

Acts 20:35 ....the Lord Jesus himself said: `It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

"O-O-O-O-klahoma"

Well, it has been a while since I have last posted so I figured I was due one! We are all still running around like crazy trying to make the most of this summer! Can’t believe it, but school starts back up at the end of this month.....where did the time go?

Last weekend, me, Jaiden and Anthony all went on a mini-cation with my Dad, Doug, Cassie and Ella and Ryan, Lindsay and Kai. We started the trip off by going to a baby shower for Cassie and Lindsay at Karen and Greg’s house in Lindale. After that we all went back to Doug’s house to spend the night. On Sunday, we all got up and went to church and afterwards headed off to Beavers Bend National Park in Broken Bow, Oklahoma! We all stayed in a log cabin in the woods and it was beautiful...hot, but beautiful! It is good to spend time with my dad and my brothers and their families, because for whatever reason we just don’t do it as much as I would like. On Sunday after dinner was over, everyone surprised me with a birthday cake which was awesome! It was my 21st birthday and I have the pictures to prove it....just pay no attention to the other 8 candles lined up around the number 21...those are just decorations! ; ) On Monday, we took the kids to a museum and then everyone went swimming while I took little Brother back to the house for a nap (which by the way he didn’t take nor did he take one longer than ten minutes the entire trip!) Although the temperature outside was somewhere near 110, the lake is spring fed which made it around 65. Jaiden said that she almost lost her breath when she jumped in to the water. Glad it wasn’t me, because I am not a fan of cold water!! After they got back from the lake, me, Jaiden and Anthony all headed a little further north to see my Grandma and Granddaddy! It was a nice visit and Anthony LOVED the buggy ride from the house to the barn and back. Monday night after everyone got back from their mile hike that I decided not to attend because I couldn’t even stomach carrying Anthony for that long; we had a nice dinner and then played some games before we all eventually passed out from shear exhaustion.

Brian stayed home for this trip and all I can say is thank the Lord for Jaiden! She helped me out so much keeping up with Anthony! She is a superstar! Keeping up with little Brother is a task and he wore us both out. Of course Jaiden rushed off to her Grandma’s house as soon as she made it home, but who can blame her! At Grandma’s house she gets to relax in the peace and quiet and between Brother and Emmy peace and quiet doesn’t happen a lot! I believe that she has spent a total of 4 days at home this summer. The girl either (a) can’t stand to be with us or (b) has such an intense social calendar, that I might want to start monitoring it a little closer! ; )

We are now in panic mode wondering what we are going to do with the kiddos when our “supersitter” (Grammy) has to go back home for the school year. We have been pricing daycares and wow....soooo expensive! Unfortunately, in this case, you don’t really want to just jump on the cheapest price, because then you begin wondering “why are they cheaper?” So, the search is on for the best daycare around us with an affordable price. We’ll figure something out, I am sure, we always do!

Brian is still enjoying the postal center and has made some pretty impressive improvements and additions to the shop. We’re not sure yet if it’s making us a ton of money, but it takes care of itself and most of our bills and hey, Brian is happy with it, so what more can you ask for...

I am working full time again and although I love my job, I can’t say that I missed working full time! I was really enjoying the getting up when I woke up (rather when the baby woke up), playing with the baby and then heading off to work around 10 or 11, but times have changed, so here I am.

Next weekend we are all heading down to Corpus Christie for Brian’s family reunion. I am sure that we will have some great stories from that trip as well, so I will post them when we get back!

Thanks for taking to time to read about our craziness! Later!!

Oh and by the way....for all who have continually made fun of me for not being able to find my way around...anywhere, my superstar husband bought me a GPS for my birthday, so I will no longer have to circle houses for countless hours trying to find you!!!! Yeah! He rocks! ; )

The Great Duck Debacle!

Well, we returned from Las Vegas back in one piece and not too broke. Luckily, neither one of us are big gamblers so not much was left in the slot machines! Unfortunately though, while we were gone, Momma duck had some type of post-partum freak out and left her eggs (or at least what was left of the eggs) to hard boil in the sun. We keep waiting hoping that maybe she will come to her senses and come back, but things aren’t looking to good for the duck population! There are still five eggs in the nest. We are hoping (and telling the kids) that she moved the other four, but I am not even sure that is possible. We can hope though, right!?!?!?

Funny thing is that we complained the entire time that the duck was there because she was destroying our pool. Now we are kinda sad because she’s gone. Typical, huh!

Anyways, like I said, we got back from Vegas in one piece and so did our luggage!!! Yeah for us! The wedding was beautiful and we met some of the most wonderful people that we hope to continue being friends with. I can’t say that our wedding adventures have been to sweet on our pocketbooks, but we have been really lucky both times to meet some wonderful people! I didn’t take to many pictures, but will add the ones that I did take to my picasa album within the next couple of days.

Also, while we were gone, Anthony decided to get his second tooth....we were in Florida when he got his first tooth and now in Vegas with the second. I figure if we just keep going out of town, he should have a full set of choppers soon! He is crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything! We lost count of the goose eggs that he has had a couple of weeks ago! He takes after his daddy and has no fear! He often forgets that he can’t walk and just let’s go of things which almost always ends up with the same conclusion....him falling! Brian hasn’t quite gotten used to him falling yet and still makes the gasping sound as we watch him take a nose dive into the floor, which usually just worsens the situation. I keep telling him that it will get easier, but it’s cute to watch (not the baby hurting himself, of course, but Brian’s reaction!)

Other than that, all is pretty normal...or as normal as it can get around our casa! Hope everyone has a safe and fun Fourth of July!

Oh my!

Most people would have looked at the last week of our lives as an absolute disaster, but not I! No, for me I saw the wonderful opportunity for a marvelous blog post so here we go....

Friday (May 30th) was the day that Brian and I left for sunny Florida, one of our favorite vacationing spots in the world, to attend John and Whitney's wedding!! We intentionally took the early flight in so that we would have time to do our own thing before the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. We got in around 11:00 and that is where the fun began. We’re standing at the luggage carousel watching everyone grab their bags and scurry away and then and nothing...no more bags. So a nice gentleman told us that we would have to make our way over to the baggage claim desk, a place that I have never had to visit before and hopefully will never have to do again. Fortunately for us, our bag just didn’t make it on the flight that we were on, but was already aboard the next flight and on its way to us. The nice people at baggage claim explained to us that as soon as the bag arrived at the airport they would have it delivered to our hotel. So we headed off without our bags and decided to take the "scenic" route to our hotel in Jupiter Beach. Before we went to the hotel, we decided to have a bite to eat and check out the town of Jupiter (where we were staying and the location of the wedding....also home to Burt Reynolds). We ate at a place that sat right on the water called the Crab Shack or something like that. I had shrimp scampi and Brian had snapper. Mine was not good at all! In fact, I blame that plate of shrimp scampi for my stomach issues (food poisoning) for the rest of the weekend and a week after we got home! We go to the hotel after this horrible run in with shrimp to find that our bags haven't made it there yet. I was not happy! I called customer service and explained to them that we had a rehearsal dinner to go to in just a few hours and that we weren't about to show up in our tee shirts, shorts and flip-flops! After no help what-so-ever from the customer service lady, we walk in to the rehearsal dinner in our tee shirts, shorts and flip flops. We were so embarrassed but thankfully John and Whitney have an amazing set of friends and family who were all more than understanding of why we looked like two vagrants who just wandered in from off the street and we ended up having a really nice time.

After the dinner (and after about three or four glasses of wine for me), we make our way back to the hotel to make sure that our luggage has arrived (it's 10:00 p.m. at this point) and guess what....still no luggage!! I decide to call the American Airlines customer service desk to give them a piece of my mind (remember I have had about three or four glasses of wine)! The conversation ended up with me yelling at the MOST annoying lady in the world who felt it neccessary to tell me over and over again that me not having my kuggage was not her problem because "she's in Dallas, what do I expect her to do"! Arrrgggghhh!!! I was more than mad...I was in tears!! Brian took over and found out that it wasn't the airline who was delaying our luggage, but the courier company that was hired to deliver the luggage to us. So, he got the number to the courier company and they explained that the person delivering the luggage had been involved in some sort of accident in Miami and would not be able to deliver the bag tonight, but that it had been put on the special delivery list and would be to us by 8:00 in the morning.

Unfortunately, we already had plans that involved us leaving around 7:00 a.m. to catch a fishing charter the next morning so it looked as if we would be fishing in the same clothes that we flew in with yesterday...Saturday morning comes and we were late for our fishing charter...I was getting sicker by the minute from the food the day before and to make it even worse we were still in the same clothes! We called the guy running the charter who told us that he had another boat going out in about an hour, but the port was about 45 minutes away. So we high tailed it up there and were the absolute last people to arrive, but we got there! Finally, something was going to go right for us! Nothing makes life better than an awesome fishing adventure in the middle of the ocean, that is, unless you got food poisoning the day before! I was sicker than a dog and when I was able to drag myself outside of the bathroom (one that EVERYONE was sharing because the guys bathroom was broken) I just kept catching the same stupid little sea bass ("just a 1/2" shy of a keeper") over and over again! In between my trips to the bathroom and sleeping in the cabin, I was periodically calling the hotel to check on our luggage arrival. 10:00 still no luggage....12:30 nothing.....2:30 still nada....4:30 Sorry! So here is our problem, we are still in the same clothes that we have now been in for two days and have now fished in and we have a wedding to attend to at 7:00. 7:15 our bags show up. Gee golly thanks. We missed the wedding, the wedding that we flew down here to see and neither American Airlines or the stupid courier company seemed to give a hoot! We did get to go to the reception which was BEAUTIFUL and lots of fun though so we didn't miss everything! You would think that this was enough of a weekend to wear anyone out, but not us...we got up on Sunday and drove around and looked at all of the beautiful houses and then headed off to the airport. Sadly, the food poisoning coupled with some motion sickness from the boat was still hanging over me pretty badly so when we got to the airport to find out that our flight had been delayed I was just ready to go home! I mean, what else could go wrong here? And then my phone rang. It was Jaiden explaining to me Sadie (our dog) had eaten something and when they investigated what it was they found that a duck...yes a duck had decided that out of all of the yards in Carrollton, ours would be the perfect spot to lay 6 eggs. Now there were only 5 eggs but eggs that the kids (our neice Emberlea was there also) knew would soon become baby ducks so improper disposal of the eggs was now out of the question. After Jaiden ran down all of the details of our newest "yard mate" I just smiled and handed Brian the phone...

A couple of days after we got home, I called animal control to find out how to get rid of our newest tenants when she told me...."Ducks are protected by the State of Texas and no one is allowed to move them, so enjoy 'em". I just hung up the phone and died laughing...it was the icing on the cake. Did anyone have any idea in the world that ducks were protected?!?!

So here we are. I finally got over my food illness a week later. The duck is still in the backyard swimming in our pool and nesting her now 9 eggs that should hatch by the end of this month. Her boyfriend also comes over and swims in the pool which is beautiful to watch, but has unfortunately just made a lot more work for Brian when it comes to keeping the pool clean. Sadie hasn't eaten any more eggs and strangly just watches the ducks as they swim around in the pool at night.

Now we are trying to get ready for our next wedding adventure at the end of this month in Las Vegas....We just can't wait! ; )

Strep, immobile and toothless!

So, Jaiden got strep throat on Tuesday. Not fun at all! And once again, she diagnosed herself with a MUCH worse disease than the one that she actually had. She told Grandmommy that she had just gotten back from the doctor and that the doctor said that she had a stroke...Luckily this time it stayed on a much smaller scale and I was able to contain it before a poster was made for her school wall! She is feeling much better now though, was begging to go swimming yesterday and made it back to school today! Thankfully for Brian and I it didn't last too long!

Anthony is still not crawling and still has no teeth. I have to say that I was very much for him not crawling for a while, but now it’s just starting to drive me crazy! Although he isn’t able to walk yet, he has found that when you hold him he can lean to wherever it is that he wants to go and, if you oblige, he can pretty much make it around the whole house touching everything that he wants. Shoot, I guess I wouldn’t walk either if I had someone do that for me either! I am almost positive that he could master a Segway if given the chance!

We’re looking forward to seeing the family on Kai’s birthday and then Brian and I are off to Florida! Boy, I can’t wait for that trip!!!

Just wanted to give a little update about what was going on in our world! Hope all is well with everyone!

Almost short of crazy....

So, things have been almost short of crazy around our household for the past couple of weeks. We have all had and passed on some type of flu bug for about the last two weeks which is never fun...especially when there is a whiny eight year old and a helpless 7 month old involved. Other than the occassional bout of sickies, we've all been good.

Brian is currently job searching which has not posed as being the easiest task with the market in it's current state! Also, to add to the complications, Anthony has figured out that his Daddy is currently looking for work and attests everytime Brian gets on the phone with a potential lead. Hopefully, we can bribe Grammy into coming over a couple of days again next week so that Brian can get something done! Brian has such amazing talents and ideas...I seriously doubt that he will be on the market for too long.

I, on the other hand, am once again a working girl...okay wait I'm not actually a "working girl", but I have been working. Four days this week. I can't say that I am enjoying it as much as I was when I was at home with the little guy but it's great that I am fortunate enough to work for a company that really lets me come and go as I please! The extra money has been nice and we are using it to pay for a trip to a wedding in Florida that we will be attending at the end of May (Congrats to John and Whit!). After that one is paid for, then we get to charge up the card for our Vegas wedding trip at the end of June (Congrats to Mike and Ly!). Weddings, weddings, weddings!

Jaiden took her reading TAKS test last month and missed...are you ready for this....two questions! That's it, two questions! She even got commended for her score. It's no secret that J-Bug struggles in school so when we got that news we were ecstatic (and shocked!) to say the least! At the end of this month we face the dreaded Math section of the TAKS and we are not looking forward to that one. We recently had her tested and the school has decided that she has a learning disability. I honestly believe that Jaiden is queen when it comes to working the system and boy did she work it this time. Who knows though, it could be something other than just her sheer laziness, but I am now just going to let the school decide that. Other than school, Jaiden is loving gymnastics! She is picking everything up relatively quickly and flips around the uneven bars like no ones business!

Anthony is now 7 months old! Can you even believe it? Time flies. He is sitting up by himself now and he is absolutely determined to crawl! He gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth and has actually lunged himself forward a couple of times, but we are as of today, still immoblie! Thank you Lord! Not to say that I am not looking forward to the absolute cuteness that is a baby crawling, because I totally am, but this is my second time around...I learned from the first that once they start crawling it is a never ending chase for about the next four years! ; )

I haven't gotten any pictures up in a while, mainly because the computer that I normally use has been on the blitz and I am waiting now to get my laptop repaired, but as soon as all that gets worked out, I will get some pics up.

I hope that everything is going good for everyone! God bless and I will try and post again soon!

The "Surprise" Trip

On Friday Brian took Jaiden and her friend Daniela to Six Flags. We surprised them, or at least we thought we did, Grammy. I have to tell you...Jaiden could possibly win an Academy Award someday! See, what happened was Brian and I (last minute of course) decided that we would secretly plan this trip to Six Flags. So we invite Daniela (J's friend) over after Jaiden got out of gymnastics, then Brian and I told the girls that we had to go somewhere and that we were going to drop them off at Grammy's while we were gone. So, we drove up there and as we near the park the ooohhhs and aaaahhhs were abundant to say the least! I told Brian that he should at least "drive through" the park so that the girls could see it. So, he pulls up and stops the car and tells them to get out. They went crazy! While they went to the park, I took Anthony over to Grammy's and we hung out for a while. While I was hanging out with Grammy, she told me that she had already asked Jaiden about the Six Flags trip that her dad was taking her on the day before...

You now see where the Academy Award comes in to play! So, moral of the story....when you are trying to surprise someone, just don't, it never works out well! ; )