Wednesday, November 26, 2008

So Very Thankful

I figured with tomorrow being Thanksgiving and all, it would be appropriate for me to recognize some of the things I am Thankful for.

*I am thankful to have been blessed with such a close, strong, loving family and group of friends. My family has never failed to be here for one another and to always do anything and everything we can for each other. Not many families are blessed with such a close knit family as mine and I am eternally thankful to have them.

*I am thankful for my husband. We haven't always had the best of times but we get through it and we learn from it. We have both put our whole selves into our marriage and making it work. I feel we have come a long way and there is absolutely no doubt just how deeply we feel for one another. He is my rock, my heart, my best friend and I am forever thankful to be walking through this life hand in hand with him.

*I am thankful for my daughter, Ava. I can't imagine my life without her and I never want to. She has wrapped her chubby little fingers around my heart for eternity. And I am perfectly OK with that. :)

*I am thankful for Tyler and Elise. I have a bond with each of them that only continues to grow stronger. They both mean everything in the world to me and all I ever want is for them both to be happy.

*I am -eternally- thankful for my parents. No words can describe just how thankful I truly am for them.


*I am also thankful for how much the Lord has blessed me. In more ways than I will ever know. I am thankful for having a roof over our heads, food, water and all the necessities and even all the extras that we have been spoiled with. Many things are often taken for granted but I try, not only on Thanksgiving, to stop and really think about just how blessed we are. I know I don't do it as often as I should.




A few days behind.

I just wanted to post really quick about our weekend. This weekend was me and Michael's first weekend without having Tyler or Elise. As I have said before, we have been on opposite weekends with them lately, so we've had one of them every weekend. Well, although we thought we were going to get Tyler this weekend, that was not the case.

So we took advantage of a weekend by ourselves and enjoyed some one on one time with Ava. Saturday we went to Academy and picked up a trampoline for the kids' Christmas present and then went to Outback for lunch. I got some stuff done around the house as I mentioned in a previous post and we cuddled up on the couch Saturday night and watched some of the 1st season of NCIS.

On Sunday, we went to Jennifer and Ryan's new place and visited. I LOVED it!!!!

I enjoyed spending some time with Michael and Ava. This weekend was the first weekend in a long time that didn't have something planned. It was nice to just do as we pleased. Michael and I were talking on Saturday night and I told him that I was actually kind of bored! LOL. We didn't have a teenager to run around and pick up after and we didn't have a 4 year old to take care of either. I kind of felt lost. It's weird to look back and wonder what in the hell I did with my time before them. LOL

I'm glad to be getting Elise on Friday though. I do miss our little princess. I wish we could have Tyler too but I doubt it. I'll be glad when this court stuff is over with.


I actually got most of the things done that I had hoped to get done yesterday. I brought some more stuff to the resale shop, I went through some clothes and took them to Plato's closet. (I also got Michael a green button down shirt to wear for Thanksgiving) I had a pair of pants that I had bought for Ava from Target that didn't fit he, so I took that back too and exchanged them for another pair. I had to print up some emails that were exchanged between Tyler's teachers and I, and drop them off at the lawyers office, so I got that done yesterday too. I did some laundry and today is my day to finish every thing else around the house. I had to do so much running around yesterday that I was out of the house most of the day.

Michael, Amber, Ava and I may go ahead and leave for CS tonight so I really want to get things done around here and leave a nice tidy house to come home too. :)

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Wanna Stalk Me??

I am slowly but surely learning quite a few new things on blogger. I just added a "Followers" gadget on the side bar. So if you're a frequent reader, go to the left hand side of my blog and click on "Follow Me"!!! DO IT!! :D

Monday, November 24, 2008

I am an idiot.

There have been many times that I receive an email any time someone comments my blog. It shows me who it is from and what the comment is and gives me the option of publishing the comment.



Well, I haven't received any emails about comments in a while and assumed that nobody loved me anymore (kidding:)). I went to the dashboard on my blog a minute ago and saw something saying that I had 13 un-moderated comments!!! WHOA! When did that happen!!?



So, Stacie and Cloggsy (I SO just learned how to link! GO ME!!) thank you for your comments and I apologize for being a complete dumb ass. Now I know how to check my comments, so there shouldn't be a repeat of this tiny little mishap. ;)

Keep the comments coming, I was feeling a little blue when I thought I wasn't receiving any. :)

Michael--you know you can comment right?? You should try it some time. Say hello. Let a girl know your stoppin by. ;) Love youuu.

OCD much??

For the past couple of weeks I have quite possibly been experiencing a little OCD. I am so tired of everything being so disorganized and cluttered around here that I have decided to do something about it. The last time I went this crazy with it was when I was pregnant and "nesting".

It may have something to do with Raina! LOL Every time I go to her house she has all kinds of new decor. Everything matches and looks absolutely amazing! That's one thing I hate about our home, is that nothing matches. There's no "theme" and stuff is just kinda scattered about. Of course it takes money to do interior decorating.. money we don't have! So I thought I could at least do what I can for now and organize, eliminate things that aren't needed, and slowly, over time, get something new here and there. I'm one of those people who likes to get everything at once. I wish I could just go out and buy all kinds of things to redecorate the house, but that my friends, is not possible. So.. I'll just have to suck it up and work slowly.

The things I hate about buying one thing at a time is:

1. I'm one of those people who needs everything in front of me to get an idea of what I want. So when I buy one thing at a time and then try to buy something else, it doesn't always turn out looking like I hoped it would. (I guess if that happens, I'll just have to make a lot of trips for returns!)

2. The house is really going to look ridiculous for a while until I get it all the way I want it. But seeing as it doesn't match at all now, I guess it wont really make much of a difference.

Our pantry has, for some odd reason or another, become or junk closet as well. Don't know where to put something?? Just throw it in the pantry! Now who the hell does that?? (Obviously, we do) SO, last week I pulled everything out and reorganized.

Last week I was cleaning the kitchen and went to get the 409 out from under the sink and decided that it needed to be organized as well. So I pulled the 123598759 freaking vases, cleaners and cleaning supplies out and neatly organized it all. This is the reason I never get everything done that I actually planned on getting done. Because I go to do one thing, and always find some way to distract myself into doing something other than what I was originally doing. Ugh. Hey, at least I am getting SOMETHING done!

This weekend, was the cabinets. We kind of had all of our tupperware just thrown in there. Lids and bowls all over the place and it was beginning to aggravate the hell out of me. So I pulled it all out and matched all the lids to their proper tupperware bowls and stacked them all neatly in the cabinets.

In the corner of our room, we have accumulated a nice huge pile of bills and more junk. So I also went through all of that and filed everything away in the filing cabinet like it should be.

I FINALLY went through all of Ava's clothes and stored away the summer clothes and the clothes she no longer fits in. It was getting a bit ridiculous.

Today, I decided to organize the attic. That's right, the attic. Who organizes their attic?? I guess I do. I went through boxes, threw away some stuff and combined some stuff to make a little more room in there. I finally have all the boxes of Christmas decorations together (we have like 6!) so we don't have to dig around to find all of them and I also put all the misc stuff together. We actually have quite a bit more room in there now and as I said before, it'll be a little easier to find what we need, when we need it.

I took down all of the fall decorations today (still have to put them up in the attic though) and am hoping to get the Christmas decorations out this weekend. We are getting a REAL Christmas tree this year and I am pretty darn excited about that! I hate fake tree's. It's not Christmas without the smell of a Christmas tree :) I'm a little nervous to see how the girls are with that. I'm sure it's gonna be tough keeping them out of the front room and away from the pretty little ornaments hanging on the Christmas tree that they are going to want to pull off with their chubby little hands! Lord help me. LOL

This evening I changed the door knob on Ava's door. Her room leads into our bathroom which leads into our room. There is no door separating her room from our bedroom. So the kids can walk through her room to get to ours. There is a lock on our bedroom door but not one on Ava's which doesn't make much since. So anyways, I wanted to be able to lock Ava's door so our lovely teenage boy doesn't get the urge to sneak in our closet and look at the Christmas presents. He's sneaky like that.. or so he thinks. :)

I also took some of Ava's toys out of the play room that she no longer uses. I guess I need to get all that up in the attic too. I have some things to take to the resale shop, which I plan on doing tomorrow. I also plan on going through my clothes and taking some of them up to Plato's closet. I don't wear half of them, but yet I keep getting more clothes so it's getting a bit crowded in there now. So I really need to get rid of some. Plus, maybe then Mike will believe me a little more when I tell him that I NEED clothes ;) Right now, he isn't buying it.

I'm actually kind of liking this. This whole OCD stuff. I've gone through my phases. When I had my own apartment it always stayed clean and organized and I was pretty OCD about everything being in a certain place. But then again, that was just me, myself and I living there and no baby keeping my busy!

Ava is now pulling all of the magazines off of the end table as I speak. Lovely. Gotta run!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

It's that time of year again...

The holidays.

I love, love, love the holidays. Nice warm fires, bundling up, hot chocolate, Thanksgiving and Christmas with the families...etc.

Last night I got started on some Christmas shopping at Target. I got Elise quite a few things and a couple of things for Ava as well. I haven't even started on Tyler yet. He's SO hard to buy for.

I'm happy to have been able to start Christmas shopping. I hate waiting until the last minute and personally, if it were up to me.. I would have been finished Christmas shopping by now! LOL

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Birthday Boy Evan Turns 8 Today!

Ava, Amber, David, Chloe and I all loaded up in my car around 4:15ish today and headed to daycare to pick Elise up. We all went over to my moms house for Evan's birthday party. There was quite a group there to celebrate. We had cake and ice cream and Evan got lots of cool gifts.

We took Elise home and then dropped Chloe off after.

Christina, Zolan and Silas all came over and my brother cooked dinner. It was yummy!

David, Amber and I are relaxing on the couch watching some Gossip Girl now.

I am keeping Chloe until about 7:30 tomorrow. I am making dinner and David, Amber and I are heading over to Jennifer's after Chloe gets picked up. Jennifer and Ryan moved into their new apartment Saturday, so we are going to see their place.

Did I mention last night that I noticed Ava was missing an ear ring??

Well, she was. I noticed it while we were out getting Evan's bike. I found the back on the floor in the living room but no earring. So I am assuming the earring fell out while we were at the store or something. So I had to pick up a new pair of earrings for her and thankfully I caught her piercing before it closed up.

College Station- Visit with the Family.

After I picked Amber up from work on Sunday night, her, Ava and I headed to College Station to pick my brother up. He is staying with us until Friday afternoon. I picked him up from my sisters house, so naturally we stayed and visited for a little bit. Then we headed over to visit the rest of the family. My Grandma & Mark, Nanny & Paw-Paw, Aunt Becky & Uncle Herschel and my cousins. I was only able to get a couple of pictures. Seeing all my family really makes me realize just how much I miss them! And it reminds me that my mom will soon be there too. (If she ever sells her house)

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I am going to do without her.

I talk to my mom on the phone AT LEAST once a day, some times 3 or 4 times. I visit her, my step-dad and the kids about 3 or 4 times a week. Some days the thought of her no longer being right down the street from us is overwhelmingly depressing. I try not to think about it, but some day I'm gonna have to come to terms with it. I'm not ready for that day yet. I don't know if I'll ever be.

Ava and her Great-Great Nanny

Ava
Ava and her Uncle Day-Day


Me, Ava and her Great-Great Paw-Paw

Ava, her Great-Grandma and I

Ava and her Great-Grandpa Mark

Monday, November 17, 2008

Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the roses.

Right now, we are on opposite weekends with the kids. We had Tyler last weekend and Elise this weekend. I can't decide which I like better. I love having them together cause we can all do things together as a family. Plus, the weekends are the only opportunities that Tyler and Elise have to see each other.

BUT,

when we have them on opposite weekends, it's a little easier to do things that each of them enjoy. There is such a big age difference in Tyler (13) and Elise (4) that sometimes it's hard to do things they both enjoy.

Last weekend while Ava and I went to my little brother Jared's soccer game, Michael and Tyler went to shoot skeet. They ended up getting there right as they were taking the last people so they weren't able to, but they tried! I am sure they will get going a little earlier this weekend. Hopefully I can join them. I just don't think it's a place to take Ava so we'll see how I feel about leaving her again next weekend (my dad kept her for a couple hours this weekend). I think it's good for Michael and Tyler to spend some time together and Tyler was actually pretty excited about it! (he doesn't get excited about much that doesn't have to do with his XBox 360!)

This weekend, my dad kept Ava while Michael and I took Elise and Harley to see Madagascar 2. That was fun, and the girls enjoyed it.

So having them on opposite weekends has worked out well for the last couple of weekends. I'll be glad when we have them both together again, but for now we are just enjoying our one on one time with each of them.

I really enjoyed our family time this weekend. Sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy the special moments you have with your loved ones. I don't think I do that as often as I should.

Pretty Toenails!

Saturday morning I painted Elise and Ava's toenails pink! Elise LOVES to have her toenails painted. Some times I paint a flower on them too but this time she told me, "but I don't want a flower, cause I don't like flowers anymore. They're pretty on paper but I don't want one." LOL


I have wanted to paint Ava's toenails for SO long! Mom said I was about 2 weeks old when she painted mine for the first time. I wanted to wait until Ava didn't put her feet in her mouth so much. I was afraid of the nail polish chipping off in her mouth. I think now was the perfect time. She did so good too! She just sat there curiously watching me. She's such a good girl :)

Saturday, November 15, 2008

I could quite possibly..

..post about a few things right now, but I think I'll save it for tomorrow. Or Monday.

We have the fire going. Harley and Elise are cuddled up on the floor with pillows and blankets. Amber is sitting by the fire. And my love and I are on the couch. All watching The Wizard of Oz.

I think, for now, I'll enjoy this moment. :)
Goodnight.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Contemplative--- Opinions Please?!

I have been debating whether or not I should cut my hair. I LOVE having long hair (the hubby prefers long hair too) and part of me REALLY doesn't want to cut it. But another part of me does.


I don't look my age. Never have. In fact, I usually get about 17... Granted I am young, and it's not so bad that people think I am younger then I am.. or at least I wont think it's so bad when I'm 30! But I HATE that I look like a little teeny bopper. LOL Especially being that my husband has a couple years on me. Ok a few. Ok, maybe a little more than a few but I digress.


So, any ideas?


I have a photo of when I had my hair shorter. I absolutely hated it at first, but after a while I decided that I actually liked it. I think I look a little older with shorter hair in comparison to longer hair. Of course, I still look young (which is totally fine! I don't mind the young part-obviously, I am young-but I don't want to look youngER than I actually am).


Your opinion?


Do I look older/younger with shorter/longer hair??? Should I cut?

As I said before, I LOVE my long hair and I think I have decided to keep growing it out through winter. Possibly by next summer, I'll be ready for a cut.


So, tell me your thoughts! :D



Here's a photo of me with short hair from last year:



And here is a photo of me with long hair. Taken last weekend.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Rub a Dub Dub


Mom always bathed us in the sink when we were babies. So last night, Ava had her bath in the sink too. It was surprisingly easy and much faster. She enjoys her playtime in the big bath tub though. The other day, I put her in my bath tub, not her pink toddler tub. It went well and she enjoyed being able to move around and chase after her toys. Before I know it, she is going to want to bathe herself!




Honoring All Who Served.

Veterans Day- A special day to thank all Veterans for their dedicated and loyal services to our country. We thank you for the sacrifces you have made to keep our country free.



A special Thank You to our neighbor Eric and to a dear family friend (owner of Rainforest Pets) Dale.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Friday, November 7, 2008

Psycho Hairdresser

Just got both of the babies down for a nap. Notice it's about 30 minutes earlier than the schedule, but we're doin good!

While I have the time, I figured that I might as well post about last Friday night. Since I am sure you all are DYING to hear about it!

I'm going to sum it up as best as possible while also giving you a good idea of how ABSOLUTELY crazy these 2 people were.

Let me back up a bit.

My sister Heather (lives in College Station) came into town on Thursday night. Her and my sister Amber were Bridesmaid's in Kristin's wedding. I took them both to the rehearsal Thursday night and picked them up after the rehearsal dinner.

On Friday I was busy running both the girls to nail appointments, hair appointments and so on. (Some one ran a red light and hit my sister a few months ago. Totalled her car)

So anyways, Heather had decided that she wanted to rent a limo on Friday night and go bar hopping in Houston with some friends as well as my brother and I. (this was the first time all 3 of us had gone out together since Heather turned 21) So we got some friends together and Michael called up an old friend of his and got us a FABULOUS deal on a limo from 8pm-2am. (thanks dear)

The more people we had in the limo, the less each person had to pay (we all split the cost). So, when I picked Amber and Heather up from the hair salon, they started telling me about their hairdresser (who did a horrible job on Heathers hair, by the way!) I believe her name was Kristine or Kristy, some thing like that. We'll stick with Kristine.

Kristine is 28, has 2 kids and a boyfriend from what they told me. She overheard Heather discussing the plans for our night out and said that she would love to join us and would bring a friend along as well.

Cool, no big deal, right?

WRONG!

After trick or treating with the kids and all that good stuff we had the limo driver pick us up from my house at 8:30pm. Kristine in her friend (who she later told us was "just her neighbor". Could have fooled me! They were all over each other. Wonder what her boyfriend would have thought of that..) as well as Heathers friends Jessica and Brandon and Kristin's cousin Robert all met at my house.

Michael was on the phone with Kristine trying to give her directions and he kept telling us how crazy she was! While giving directions to her, out of the blue she decides to tell Mike "They built a new Chick-Fil-Lay by my house and when I drove by, it almost made me come!" WHAT??!
She told Mike that when she got here she had a bottle of Vodka to drink with "her Mikey".

Wow.

So anyways, they show up being loud and obnoxious to say the very least. We all load up and head out to pick up my brother and Jessica's boyfriend.

Every one of us had to bite our tongue the whole way to the first club. It was quite obvious as time went by that Kristine and her neighbor were apparently messed up on some kind of drugs. At the first club they actually tried to give us some unknown pills! REALLY!?

Anyhow, to make a LOOONG story short, they were acting CRAZY! They actually tried to get the limo driver to leave us! At the end of the night, a little before 2 am we all loaded up to head home. Kristine decided to lose control and act psychotic! Screaming and yelling and actually punched my sister in the arm at one point! We asked them to please get out of the limo and get a taxi which we offered to pay for. They were having none of it. We finally ended up calling the cops over and had them both removed from the vehicle and we were on our marry way.

We didn't get home until 3:30 am and then I had to leave and take the other's home because we had already kept the limo driver way past his time and tipped him nicely for it!

I don't know what those 2 were on, but it was ridiculous!! They called and left TEN voicemails on my brothers phone talking all kinds of CRAZY stuff. One message they were even talking to my mom! Another they were singing "8-6-7-5-3-0-9!!!" and then talking about chinese take out and all kinds of random, crazy stuff. WTF?!

WOW.

So... what lesson did we learn folks?

DO NOT invite your hairdresser (or anyone, for that matter) that you don't know, no matter how "cool" they seem.

It could get ugly.

Real ugly.

But all that aside, we still has a GREAT time! We pretty much stayed away from them at both clubs we went too, so they didn't ruin our night until the end.

My mom actually called them the next night and said "This is David's mother. I believe you left a message for me last night from this number"

The girl denied it saying that it must have been some one else and hung up the phone. I'm sure once she sobered up she was pretty embarrassed.

P.s.-Thank you to my wonderful husband for staying home with the baby so I could enjoy a night out with my brother and sister. :)

I feel like I have gone out a little more than I would like lately. Does that make me a bad mom? Do you think I am going out to much? Being a stay-at-home mom is absolutely wonderful, but every once in a while it's nice to get a little time with my friends. Am I being selfish?

I think I'm gonna take a break from going out for a while. Enjoy my time with my husband and our kiddos.



Some of our group: "The Neighbor", "The Psycho Hairdresser", Heather, Jessica and Myself

Us again + Brandon

Jessica, Heather and I

Jessica and Heather
Jessica and Heather dancing
David and I

Heather, Jessica and David


David and Jessica (he wore his Halloween costume-A Catholic Priest.)

Jessica and I

Them taking their Jager Bombs (YUCK) and me with my Vodka.


We thought Heather was gonna throw up...

Nope, just needed a minute. She's good.

Heather, Me and David
Jessica and I again..

Us

The girls (Plus 2 weird dudes in the back??)



Me, my cousin John and David


Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I am not real happy with Daylight Savings..

Has it totally thrown off your little ones schedules or what?!

Ava usually wakes up around 7:30, has 2 decent naps or 1 really good nap during the day and is in bed between 8:30 and 9:30.

Now..

She is up at 6am.

Not napping well AT ALL.

Ready to go to sleep at 6:30pm.

Wakes up an hour later.

Plays for 2 hours.

Then is asleep for the night.

REALLY!?

I have had her on some what of a schedule for a while now but was attempting a new one.

It was going well for the most part, until now!

Here is the schedule I would hope to have her on again real soon...

7:30am- Wake up, Bottle
8:30am-Breakfast Jar
8:45am-10:30am-Play time
10:45am-Bottle
11:00am-1 or 1:30ish --NAP
2:00pm-Lunch Jars
3:00pm-Bottle
3:30-4:30-Playtime outside/take a walk...etc
5:30-6:30-Mommy and Ava time
6:30-Dinner jars
7:00pm-Bottle
8:00pm-Bath
8:30pm-9:30pm-Story time, rock her, bed

Now, keep in mind that I also have Chloe from about 7:30ish in the morning until 5:30 or so in the evening.

I also take Amber to work at 9:30am and pick her up at 7:30pm.

Otherwise, I'd love for Ava to take an early morning nap and an afternoon nap like she was doing but I find that a little hard to do.

I am *hoping* that we can get back on this schedule (or even some what close would be nice) soon.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

So...

Obama won. Michael isn't happy about that. I don't know much of anything about politics other than what Mike has explained to me or what I have heard being discussed amongst others. Maybe I'll pay a little more attention now. The last couple of weeks, I have actually wished that I had payed a little more attention and actually participated. Maybe it has a little to do with my maturity level and the fact that I just don't seem to care much about things that I am not interested in. I know I should be..

Moving on.

Ava loves her snacks. (finger foods, lil crunchies...etc) She still hadn't figured out how to pick them up and put them in her mouth so I'd have to sit there and feed them to her one by one. Whether it was that she didn't know how, or she was just being lazy and letting Mommy do it for her, I don't know. BUT today was the first day that she actually fed herself her snacks. Half of them ended up on the floor and in her lap, but the other half she ate. She'll get the hang of it eventually.

I have been putting off posting about Friday night. A group of us got a limo and went bar hopping in Houston. We had a good time minus the CRAZY people we invited to join us. (I wouldn't recommend inviting your hairdresser that you just met to go out with you, FYI. It may or may not get ugly. I'm just sayin.)

I'm gonna put that post off again. Maybe I'll get around to it tomorrow. We shall see.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Trick or Treat!

This weekend has been a pretty busy one for sure! Friday Ava and I attended a wedding that both my sisters were bridesmaid's in.
Michael and I attended a parent teacher conference on Friday morning, but that my friends, is a whole 'nother post in its self.

Friday morning and early afternoon was spent running Heather and Amber around trying to help them get ready for the wedding at 4. (Who gets married on Halloween, anyway!?) Ava and I attended but only stayed for the ceremony and made it home with just enough time to get Ava dressed in her costume and snap a few photos of the girls together before having to take Elise home.


Our beautiful girls


I dropped Elise off and Michael picked Tyler up and we headed to my cousin Tammy's house for some pizza before taking all the kids trick or treating. I was happy that Ava got to spend her first Halloween with my mom, step dad, Harley, Evan, Tammy & Greg and Karlee & Kaden as well as Michael, Tyler and myself of course. :)

The kids had a good time, as did we.
Tyler (Halo) and Ava (pink butterfly) ready to Trick Or Treat

Daddy and Ava

Tyler, Michael and Ava

Tyler-Master Chief from Halo

Mommy and Ava going to her first house to trick or treat.

Our Trick Or Treaters

Daddy taking Ava to Trick Or Treat

These people decorated their whole garage!

Ava chillin' in her stroller.