Anthony's Haircut

Just in case you missed it....here is Anthony's newest haircut....Daddy took him!

It's been awhile....

Okay, so I realize that I have really slacked off on my "blogging" for the past couple of months, but I have three little words that will completly sum up my absence......

ANTHONY REY BARRERA

Wowzer, this kid can go (and go, and go and go!)!!!! My mom keeps him two days a week and by the time that I get home at 5:30 - 6:00, she is litterally running out of the door! I'm telling you, he is NON-STOP! He started using walking as his main means of transportation just about a month ago and already he is really bored with everything at his eye level. Now he wants you to hold him while he points to things that he can't reach to either (i) destroy, (ii) eat, or (iii) jump off of. Yeah, thats a fun one too...he's also a bit of a daredevil. I am actually considering buying him a little red helmet for Christmas this year. Example...one of his favorite things to do (and has been for a long while) is to climb up the back cushions of the couch and look into the mirror that hangs over the couch. Now he's added his own little twist by jumping off of the top of the couch onto the couch or whoever happens to be the unfortunate soul sitting there at the time. I'm just waiting for the day that he bounces off the couch and plants it into the hardwood. So, with that all said, anyone up for a little babysitting? ; )

Jaiden is doing good in school. She is the worlds worst about forgetting...especially when it comes to school work, so that is something that we have been working on, but other than that she is doing good. We put her into piano lessons a couple of weeks ago and she is really enjoying that. She is really good at it too! She picks everything up really quickly and it all just seems to "click" with her. I am so happy for that because she struggles in so many other areas (school in particular) it's always good when she finds something that she is good at and she likes to do!

Brian and I are wonderful. We are attending an 80's themed costume party tomorrow and I can't wait to get pictures to post! Brian will be wearing a wonderful enselmble consisting of zebra striped spandex and a really horrible mullet/punkrock wig and I will be his "groupie". Just a note...the 80's wasn't a really high time for the fashion industry...in fact, any stylist that made it big in the 80's, should be subject to some type of charge for cruel and unusual punishment!

Brian is still trying to bring his business idea to life and I hope that something comes of it soon or else he is going to have to re-enter the work world and I know that he is definately not looking forward to that (go figure, huh!). I am working pretty much full time now. Most would think that is just terrible, but with the story that I started out with, can you blame me?

Happy Halloween to everyone! I hope that all is well with you all!

Love ~ M

They tried once again...

Once again, my brother and sister-in-law, Doug and Cassie, tried their hardest to overshadow another birthday with one of their own, but this time it didn't happen! Miss Sarah Roberts was born on September 17, 2008 at 12:02 p.m. and weighed in at a hefty 4lbs. and 10 ozs. That's about half the size of our little monster who turns one year old TODAY!!! Haha...missed it by two whole days!

So, welcome to the world Miss Sarah and Happy birthday to my main little man Anthony! I love you both!!

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! ; )