One Of Those Days

Ever have one of those days? You know the kind I'm talking about. The kind where nothing goes as planned and you feel like you are pulled in a thousand different directions. Not a terrible day, but you know....just one of those days. Well, I'm sure you can tell where I'm going with this...I had one of those days today. It had to do with me and Emily. It just seemed like I couldn't do anything to please her, and to be honest, she didn't do a lot to please me either. I describe her as my determined, sometimes sassy child. I love her to the ends of the earth, but I can tell you, she has her own way of doing things. She gets so frustrated trying to make me understand what she is saying, that sometimes I can't even see the sweet child that she can be.
As rough as the day started, it got better real fast this afternoon. We went to our neighbors house and her nephews were over playing. The oldest is around Emily's age and boy, they can just have the best time. The adults were talking, but I was watching Emily and Brian play. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I could see that slowly Brian was about to cry. He just looked at Emily and she just looked at him(me still not knowing what was wrong). I saw a big tear roll down his face, and then I saw Emily ever so sweetly wipe it away. Whatever was wrong, she wanted to comfort him. As a mother, I was so very proud of her.
She is one of the loves of my life, and I'm so glad she's mine.

Happy Birthday!!!!

I want to send out a very special birthday wish to my big brother Jeff. He turns 39 today!! (I hope he doesn't mind me telling his age).

He is the very best brother any girl could have. He has such a caring heart and would give anyone in need the shirt off his back. When we moved, he worked like a one armed paper hanger to get the our stuff out of the old house and into the new. When we brought Gracie home from the hospital, he woke up at 6 a.m. and cut our grass. He didn't like the way it looked so he cut it two more times just to get it right. But that's just Jeff, ever the helper. It reminds me of when I was in the 5th grade and was having trouble with my locker. There is nothing more traumatizing than not being able to get your locker open (boy, life sure was tough..haha). Jeff was a Junior, who by all standards, should have been "too cool" to come help a lowly 5th grader with her locker. But he did!!! That's just Jeff, ever the helper.

I also have some funny stories about Jeff. When a I got older, he would borrow T-Shirts from me and then cut the sleeves out of them so he wouldn't have to give them back. Or the time he caught the kitchen cabinets on fire with the toaster. That was pretty funny.

I just hope he has the best day and knows that his family loves him!!!

Mellow Monday

Not a lot to report on the home front today. It was strange.....we didn't have anywhere to go. But one thing happened....I had made up my mind that today was the day. The day that I would wake up and begin the rest of my life!!! Sounds like a pretty dramatic way to say- I want to lose some weight. Weight is something that has haunted me for most of my life. My weight has been up and down like an elevator. My mother, ever the cheerleader, finally just broke it to me straight..."It doesn't get any easier to lose weight the older you get, so you better do it now". Mother, you are right again! I have tried to think back to right after I gave birth to Emily, how many times I said, "I'll start Monday". Too many Mondays to count I can assure you!!! I have thought about blogging about this before, but failure has loomed like a fog on a cool fall night. Having lived almost 33 years now, I have failed at a few things before....not that I'm proud of that, but it's just a fact of life. If you really break down the life you have lived, I'm sure you could point out something you have not been so successful at.

I must come up with another word besides "failed"....it sounds so harsh!!

Anyway, when I thought about doing this, I came up with the idea of taking a picture of the scales every Monday and posting it. Then I realized how much I weighed....so that's out of the question!!!!! I will tell you, I am wanting to start with 15 lbs. Every Monday I will give an update on my progress. You may not even be interested in my weight loss. Fine by me...don't read about it. This is just way cheaper than Weight Watchers. I will eventually give my actual weight number, but give me time. Well, wish me luck!!!!

Gracie had pulled up on everything she can today and walking around whatever it is. As you can see she is pretty proud of herself!


First thing today, temptation was staring me in face. My neighbor Eddie, called and said he was going to Birmingham and was going to bring us back some Milo's hamburgers. We've been talking about the commercials and he said they were wonderful burgers, but this discussion took place before the big decision to cut back was made. I decided to go ahead and eat the burger, but I cut it in half. Boy that was hard....I wanted it all!!
Because Eddie is always feeding us, I wanted to do something nice for him. I made a cake....but I didn't have any!!! While I was cooking it, I let Emily lick the bowl. She had more fun feeding Gracie though. Gracie seemed to like that idea!!!



Later all!! Have a good night!!

I woke up with this on my mind today....


This photo is of Seaside, Florida. I have never personally stayed in Seaside, but I have been through for a visit when I was vacationing in Destin. I would think Seaside would be a photographer's paradise!!!! It's Mayberry meets the Ocean. There is nothing like watching a sunset from Bud and Alley's restaurant and walking on the sugar sand beaches with an ocean breeze in your hair. I would love to rent a house here for the week and take advantage of all the local color.
We are going to try to take a beach trip later on in the summer and I can't wait!!! I really think I'm a beach bum at heart!!!! I will think about this all day!!!

Weekend Recap

Friday morning we all had a hard time waking up. I guess we had too much fun at the zoo on Thursday!!! Our car still wasn't running right, so Chris got up and started working on it. He put a new fuel filter on it and that still didn't work. He took it to someone we know that could tell him what the problem was and they told him it was the fuel pump. Chris was not to happy about that because they are very expensive to have someone else fix and a lot of trouble for him to do by himself. He decided to go ahead and do it himself(with the help of our wonderful neighbor, Jonathan, and his dad, Earl). They worked hard and got finished around 5 pm. Now it's running beautifully and he saved us around $450!!!!! I'm very proud of him!!!

Since we have been so busy all week, our laundry was about to take us over. Now that Gracie is all over the place, it is hard to keep her occupied so that I can get my housework done. My sis-in-law, Maggie, brought me video to use called Baby Faith. I put it in so the girls could watch it while I tried to get a few things done.

At first everyone loved it. But they had this puppet that ran across the screen and Gracie lost it. So much for Baby Faith. The rest of the day was just about relaxing. Except for Chris....he was fixing the car.

Saturday morning we got a surprise visit from my cousin Ava Caroline. She came over to play with Emily and Gracie. Em was so excited!!! For the first hour all they did was run up and down the hall.

After all the running, Ava was hungry. I fixed everyone cheese toast. Ava was so funny!!! She sang Old McDonald and If You're Happy and You Know It and we just laughed and laughed!!! I was so glad she got come play.

We had a little arts and crafts time. Ava loved the glue. She wouldn't let me put the cap on it even when she was finished using it.

Gracie loved craft time too!!!

Soon everyone wanted to go outside. This is where it got a little hairy. I wanted to set up the sprinkler for the big girls and let Gracie play in the baby pool, but I couldn't do that because Chris had to cut our water hose to syphon gas out of the car to fix the fuel pump. So everyone tried to cram themselves into the baby pool. After yesterday, I wished I had gotten the bigger pool. The girls had fun, but I was worried that Gracie would fall out of the pool. I decided to put Gracie in the pack-n-play and let the big girls do whatever they wanted. It worked out much better.

Had to take a Popsicle break early on!!

We were in terrible need of a trip to Walmart. I hadn't been of over a week and we were out of lots of stuff. Chris and I decided to stop at Cracker Barrel for supper and it was so good!!! Gracie had her first meal of "table food". She had pinto beans, green beans, biscuits and a little bit of my hashbrown casserole. As you can tell by her face, she loved it!!!



Em, who is a "work in progress" when it comes to eating, did pretty well that night. She had chicken, green beans, and okra.

Today, we celebrated my big brother Jeff's 39th birthday (his birthday is not until the 14th, we just partied today). I can't believe he is 39!!! It seems like yesterday we were both under the same roof fighting over the bathroom and telephone. Emily and Robin (my niece) are always on top of the candles being blown out. They each have to take a turn at blowing them out.



We had a really good weekend and I know Chris hates having to go back to work after being off all week. Its going to be lonesome around here without him.

I hope you all had a great weekend and have a happy Monday!!! I'm ready to watch the Bachelorette!!!! I'm so glad that jerk Wes is gone!!! I hope she pick Reid!!!

The Zoo Crew

Today I got to do something that I have wanted to do for a long time. Go to the zoo!!! Through the years, I have told everyone how mistreated I was growing up because I had never been to the zoo (or watched the Wizard of Oz). Come to find out, I had been telling a story for many years because my mother informed me that she took me when I was little, but I must have been a toddler because I don't remember it.

I wanted to take Emily last year, but with the move and being pregnant, we just couldn't fit it into our schedule. But today was the day!!!

I must warn you before you go any farther, that you may experience picture overload! I went crazy taking pictures today.



This is Colton, our adopted son. Just kidding!! He was our neighbor at our old house. We moved into our old house right after we got married and Colton was around 6 years old. He and Chris became fast friends (I refer to Chris as the "kid whisperer"-all kids love him). Now he is about to turn 14 on Saturday!!!! He has spent the last three nights with us. It has been just like old times and, we are so glad that he could come with us. Hopefully his sister Anna will get to come with us next time.

Chris showing Emily the stork...which is how she and Gracie got here....right?

The girls are pretty fired up about the zoo!! Gracie can't wait to see more animals.

I asked Emily what her favorite animals were at the zoo and she said the flamingos and the really big turtle.

This is in no way, shape, or form a dig at my brother-in-law Jamie...but it made me laugh a little that yall had the same name!!

Gracie and her Daddy

Chris showing Gracie the camels. I don't know how many times I heard people say.."watch out they spit". I hate to sound dumb, but do they?

Gracie always the trooper. She was getting tired but she never complained.

Colton and Em

How sweet is this!!!



As we were about to leave, I had to take a quick poll to see who had fun at the zoo.

Oh well, one out of two ain't bad. I'm sure Gracie had fun too.

The first thing we had to do after leaving the zoo was find something to eat. We decided on Jim & Nicks. It was so good!!! Then we had to make a run to Target since we were close.

Chris and I have this running joke the we are like the Grizwalds form National Lampoons Vacation. Not every time, but most of our trips seem to go the way the Grizwald's trips go. Today on the way home, our car started to quit on us. It would go dead on us while we were going down the road. It did it like 10 times!!! All we could do was laugh! We made it home, but Chris is definitely going to look at it tomorrow.

See...everyone in good spirits!!!



Thank goodness for a TV in the car. We don't use it all the time, but today it came in real handy.

A great time was had by all!!!!

Later Gators!!!!

Almost Forgot

My family was planning a trip to the zoo for today, but I looked at my calender late last night and realized that Gracie and I both had doctor's appointments today and that I had a hair appointment this afternoon. Any lady can tell you the Dr.'s appointments are important, but you CANNOT miss a hair appointment.

Dr. Caldwell gave Gracie his seal of approval!! He said her ears looked great and that we definitely made the right decision to have tubes put in her ears. We also got a new pair of ear plugs. They are pink and MUCH easier to put in than the ones I had bought at Walgreens.

Later on we went to see Toni to get my hair colored. I live for these hair appointments and in the 7 years that I have been going to Toni, I have only missed one appointment(only because I had just had a baby like 5 days before and I was already experiencing temporary parental memory loss). We always have good conversation and she and I started talking about blogs. I found out that she cuts the hair of a blogger I follow. What a small world!!

Other than hair and the dr. not much else went on today. I only took one picture today and this is it.....

Gracie summed it up....We're pooped!!

Later gators!!