September Birthdays

Well September is shaping up to be just like March in our family as far as birthdays are concerned. The weekend before last we celebrated my niece's sons birthday. This weekend we celebrated Syd's real birthday (she had her party over a month early so she could have a pool party), my nephew Caleb's and then my mother in law and my brother in law's birthday. The weekend was off to an early start Friday when I took Subway and cupcakes to Syd's school and had lunch with her. We enjoyed the silly antics of her second grade class as they sang Happy birthday to her. As I was preparing to leave her to finish out the day, I heard her teacher say she could give me one last hug. As I turn around she's balling because she wanted me to take her home. I told her I wanted her to stay and do her math that she was about to start. I left her unhappy but reminded her I was taking her to Libby Lu after school. I had told her I would take her and a few friends but due to our busy weekend and one friend's dance classes, we ended up with just one friend- not that I'm complaining.


We ventured out to Barton Creek mall and braved all the ACL traffic in plenty of time for our 5:00 appointment. Once there Syd and Hannah looked around until it was their turn to be pampered. It started with blue nail polish for Syd and pink for Hannah, then hair and makeup. Once the girls were glammed up they got to pick out 5 items to put in their backpacks and another accesory. The both opted for tiaras even though they had selected the "rockstar" hairdo. After all the selections were made, they got to pick a song to dance to with the staff. They picked some kind of shuffle and then off we went after picking out a few extra birthday gifts to California Pizza Kitchen. So let me just say that Hannah is only a few months younger than Syd but she is quite a bit bigger. She had a walkathon at school and she was very clearly making up for the lost calories. I have never seen a child consume food that quickly and she wanted dessert so we ordered fruit for our kiddos and a yummy brownie for her. Jake was thrilled because while we were at Libby Lu he got some cute new Vans with flames on them and a Star Wars Pez dispenser which he promptly ate all of one pack as soon as we were packed in the car.

Before After

Jake and his cool Vans!

Syd stayed the night at Hannah's on Friday and just as I was leaving drama errupted over what activity they would do. Syd wanted a fashion show and Hannah did not, the end result was a compromise with Hannah's mom helping clean her room and then the girls agreeing to put all the stuff away. Oh yeah I forgot to mention the debate we had over whether Syd could take her new makeup case with her to Hannah's. Happy to report that I won that one.

Saturday morning Syd woke up early to go to Hannah's volleyball game at the YMCA and then she met us at the T-ball field for Jake's first t-ball game. It was a great game, watching three years olds fight for the ball and very few tears. The only issue is that there is a quite aggresive child on Jake's team that was diving for the ball and he landed on Jake and another child at one point and also almost swung the bat and hit another child- when he was not actually up to bat. The child also happens to be almost twice the size of all the other 3 year olds, he looks like he's around 5 and of course the mom says nothing to the child and is oblivious.



After a quick trip to Barnes & Noble so Syd could pick her present from John's dad & Step mom, we ran to my brothers house for barbeque in honor of Caleb's birthday. I stuffed myself on everything from dove to ribs and yummy spinach dip, oh yeah and Scooby Doo cake. After that I picked up John and we headed to Playland skating rink to finish Caleb's celebration. Oh my gosh, I had not been there in oh so many years. It still looked like I remembered it when I last skated in it. Jake tried skating and quickly gave up. Syd skated the entire time but she was permanently affixed to the rail for support. She only fell a few times and I did not skate with her, John was the brave one, and I couldn't help Jake much while I was falling all over the place anyway.

Sunday was another celebration this time at our house where John grilled some burgers for his family and his mom's best friend. It wasn't bad other than the drama we have had with Rooms to Go over our new dining table that was shipped with no hardware to assemble it. It was delivered about a week and a half ago and after trying to get the right hardware, John assembled it with what he had and we ate on it. We just got a call today and they are going to be exchanging it. Oh and by the way, I don't know what I was thinking getting a glass table with young children. We spent quite some time trying to clean all the little finger prints off the table so I went out and bought a bunch of new placemats and it has helped some but not completely. Oh and we may consider leaving the plastic on the new chair for Jake because we also now have tiny little finger prints showing up on the chairs. Maybe we should have stuck with something that was a little more child friendly even though the salesperson promised the cleaner that came with the chairs would clean them. I guess it works but I also made one worse by leaving a large ring where I had been scrubbing... oops, at least I think we're getting new chairs when they exchange. If not I will have to keep scrubbing it. So to sum it all up, I think we're done with birthdays until November.

The weekends already over?

OMG! I am so exhausted and dreading going back to work! Pretty sad when you need an extra day to recover from a girls Scrapping retreat. If I go to bed at 2 am or later I normally don't wake up before 8 am especially on a weekend! The weekend was awesome since it was my 1st retreat. The massage made me sore but it was worth it to relax and have a little ME time.... I even came back with some energy to clean the kitchen and bathroom before we ran out to look for a dining room table and bed for us, then it was off to Gattiland to meet my brothers, their kiddos, 2 of my cousins and their kiddos that are in town due to IKE, then to my brothers house to give the kiddos more time to play. We don't get together nearly enough so it was good... So yes, I should be in bed but I'm not ready for the weekend to end.

For some reason this weekend I did a lot of thinking, don't know how I managed it between all the scrapping I did. Yes, I'm still a novice and only did 11 or 12 pages in comparison to the scrappin factory aka Courtney & Shaunna but what the heck, I relaxed, had lots of laughs and met some wonderful women. Let me start by saying the cabin http://lakeshorelodgewhitney.com/ we stayed in was very reminiscent of the log cabin John and I have dreamed about for retirement. And what a cool idea to cater to weekend scrapping retreats. We did the quick math in the car on the way home and the couple must be doing very well just having guests over the weekend.

Over the course of the weekend I thought about the following things:
1) The scrapping lodge led me to think about what I would do if as I asked Lori on the way home, "Money was not an issue". Which led to my recurring thought that I need to find a job that I really love... Working at D*** is great for the pocket book as long as I have a job but with all the speculation and such about jobs going away it has a lot of people concerned, and rightly so... I have really been thinking about going back to school to become a nurse because not only is there a huge need right now, but when was the last time that nurses were laid off, and besides that it has been my dream to work in the healthcare industry (I started UT Pre-Med).
2) After the picture of our group was posted on the wall with all the other scrappers that had come before us.... I looked at myself and said OMG I need to get back to my healthier living habits This was a class I took this spring/ summer, and I lost about 15 lbs during that time. I have found at least 7 or 8 of them as of the last weigh in and that was pre-scrapping retreat weekend aka cakeball heaven http://www.cakebybridges.com/index.php/cakeballs . Yum, I know I consumed a chocolate one, a yellow one, a peanut butter one, a pineapple one and a red velvet one all in one 3 day weekend. Boy was I busy, not to mention the make your own sundae bar and all the other food. So needless to say, I didn't like the picture at all and am vowing to ditch those unwanted lbs... So you ladies need to hold me to that.

I know this has been a very long blog for such a tired lady so I am retiring for the night and hopefully I will remember all the other things I thought about.... Oh yeah one other one is coming to me so I might as well talk or write about it, whatever!

3) This well rested mommy?? that and a long scrapping weekend don't really make sense given the lack of sleep but, this relaxed mommy realized there are 2 or 3 other things I want to work on. I guess I made my own list similar to a Bucketlist of things I want to try to do so I am going to document them for posterity and so I can really go back and track them. So here's the other 3 things and I will have to go into more detail in a later blog because I'm beyond sleepy.
4) Become a better swimmer- so that I can start training for my first triathalon. I have contemplated it over the past few years with several friends and my sister in law but have been too insecure about my swimming skills so here we go it's documented and I told my pregnant sister in law that once she's "Done"... we need to get to some training and do the Danskin. She's done it a few times already and so has my friend Shannon and besides it will help me achieve list item #2.
5) I know this is cheesey or how ever you spell it... but I really do want to strive to be a better mother, wife, sister/ daughter, friend.... After all the interactions this weekend and all the super sweet pics of everyone with their friends and families I realized that we sometimes get so busy worrying about all the day to day stuff that we really don't "count our blessings" nearly enough. So I was teary eyed a few times thinking about all the wonderful people in my life and how I never quite have the time to call them when I mean to or do something for/ with them that I know I should... I vow to take the time to do the little things that mean so much to those I love and quit worrrying about the little things that don't. Maybe all the scrapping I did this weekend has gone to my head or just the pure peace of mind, not having to worry about what everyone was doing at all times, that I really had some time to think about me and my life.
6) Ok, this is the last one I promise. As we were scrapping this weekend I vowed to do something I have been meaning to do for a very long time.... Take a photography class! I'm a scrapper mostly because I want to document my kiddos childhood in a memorable way. So I'm no scrapping diva like most of the gals I spent the weekend with but as I sat there looking through the pics, thinking about how sweet Syd looked with her long hair and pigtails 4 long years ago or how cute and silly Jake was as a baby 3 years ago and the fact that his "baby time" flew by so quickly and how soon it will be before I have teenagers like Shaunna... sorry I know this is a super long sentence.... but none the less I remembered the events or the feelings of love I feel for my kiddos and know that when they look back on these books that I so lovingly created for them, and hopefully I will eventually get caught up on their books and not be 4 to5 years behind that they will know and realize how much I love them... Anyway, back to the photography class. As I was trying to make my pages this weekend I hated most of the pics, and yes I know I can use photoshop them, even though I don't know how, but I think having better pics to scrap and taking more pics will make for better scrapping pages... thus my need to take a photography class.

In closing, I just want to say, this was a fun filled, productive weekend that I must continue to take part in... as long as I'm invited back! So thank you to Shaunna and Courtney for inviting me to that 1st scrapping nite and for continuing to invite me and toShelley B for organizing it : ). Nitey nite to all and may you survive your Monday back at work!

Mel

Long Weekend Fun

Well we went to Snyder, TX this long weekend to visit family. It was lots of fun but very sad at the same time. My grandmother is in her late 80's... sorry I don't recall exactly how old she is but I think it's around 86. Anyway, she is suffering from dementia so it was very sad and difficult to carry on a conversation with her. We dealt with this with John's grandmother but unfortunately it's never easy to deal with. She was confused and could not understand how my mom could have had me 33 years ago without her even knowing about me. My mom was on her way with my brother and she was anxiously awaiting her arrival so sadly she asked me a few times when she would be arriving. I am glad to have had time with her but none the less it doesn't make it easy. My uncle Matt and Aunt Sara care for her along with my cousins and she is at the stage where she spends most of her days sleeping. In fact, I visited with her on Saturday and she ventured out of her room but on Sunday she was too exhausted and slept almost the entire day. So sad to see...

On a happy note, I have 2 very tired monkeys. We stayed with my cousin Myra (Miranda) who just bought a very cute 1920 home with 6 acres right outside of Snyder. Her son Tyler is about 6 months older than Jake and their daughter Nicole is 6 months older than Syd. The kiddos played non-stop all weekend and I'm a little mad at myself for forgetting my camera... Yes, I know bad scrapper that I am. Myra gave us some great pics from our trip last year to Disney and a great pic of me, my mom, Syd when she was about 3 and sadly my dad who passed away almost 4 years ago. Syd saw it on the way home and wanted to frame it.

Tyler and Jake last year (age 2) My grandmother said they look like twins.


We came home early today to spend some time with John's mom and step dad. We ate out at a little Mexican restaurant by the house and the kiddos were exhausted. My usually very energetic and talkative daughter was nowhere in sight while Jake was bouncing out of his seat. Needless to say, we were ready to come home and get ready for bed. Mom and dad are pretty tired too. Not a lot for me to do in Snyder but shop at Walmart or Bealls, which by the way had an awesome sale which resulted in us bringing home 7 new pairs of shoes. John played golf 2 days straight and then played basketball last night after a full day of golf. Too bad we don't have an extra day to recover.

I've adding some pics from our previous trip to Snyder with all the kiddos.

Syd looking at the girls- Nicole, Madeline, big Syd, and Maddie
last year at my cousin's wedding.