Easter 2006 --- Finally!

We had a wonderful Easter this year. For those of you who don't know, it was HOT!!! I believe that it was the hottest Easter on record. We had lots of friends and family over, we cooked out, and hung out on the back patio. Eventually we got out the sprinkler and let the little one's run around in the sprinkle -- while the big kids had the water hose on the trampoline. Payton had a great time hunting Easter eggs; she did such a good job.

Easter Eggs

Last Saturday we dyed Easter eggs. I was really looking forward to it, thinking Payton would love it and have a great time. Well, she thought it was a good idea, but she lost interest after about the first egg. LOL. So, really it was Justin and I dyeing the eggs. Here are some pics...

Cookout at Grandpa & Mimi's

Last Saturday night we went to my dad and step-mom's house for a cookout. My brother and his family were there, and my other brother's two boys were there. So, all the cousins got to have a good time playing together. Troy brought kites (great idea, Troy), so the bigger kids had fun flying (or attempting to fly) them. It was almost too windy!! Anyway, here are some cute pic's from the evening.

These are all of Jacob, Emma & Payton

Some very sad news

I just found out that our spunky neighbor, Modene, has suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. She is currently on life support until her family all gets there to see her. I am so sad right now. She was such a sweet lady. Yes, she lived a long, fulfilling life, but it's still so hard. I'm so glad that Payton and Jeff just went and visited her the other day. She always loved to see both of them. She thought of Jeff as a grandson, and just loved P. I just pray that she didn't suffer. Anyway, please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers.


~~UPDATE~~ Modene passed away on Saturday, April 15. She has gone to be with her Savior.

Guess she knows what she wants.

Payton, who is all of 2 years and 1.5 months, just said to me "I want you have a baby sister". HAHA! Hmm, I'll get right on that.

Talk about a slap in the face

Last night I was being a very good girl and working out. We were almost at the end of the class, and the instructor had us doing over-head tricep presses with those big thick rubber-bands, do you know what I am talking about? Anyway, we had just barely started doing them, and *SNAP*, mine pops right apart and slaps me across the face. OMG, it hurt sooooo bad. Also, I had just tanned before the class, so my face was a little tender already. It literally brought tears to my eyes. So, here's a picture of what it left on my face. Watch out Lady of America, I just might call Jim Adler.

Only 25 more days..

Until we go to the beach! Yay! PV, here we come. Hmm, 2 lbs. a week, that's not enough... How much do you think I can lose before then? Really? And Mom, I'm not going to lose any if you keep bringing me that yummy homemade mac 'n cheese...

Shout Out

to my mom for pulling weeds in my yard yesterday. She dug a bunch of those bad boy's up. And keep in mind that our front yard is about the size of 10 normal people's front yards -- so that's a lot of work! I helped though, I followed her around with the trash bag, :-)
Why does yard work have to be so hard? Why can't my grass just be green? I see that other peoples' grass is green, but mine isn't yet. Come on!

Oh, So Sad

Every year we have a little bird that makes a nest on the keystone above our front door, and she lays her eggs there. It's such a mess because they do their business right there on our door...good thing not many of our guests use the front door! Anyway, she came back this year and made her new nest. Well, I went outside yesterday and noticed the nest had fallen down. Jeff asked me later if I saw any broken eggs, but when I had just glanced, I didn't see any. So I looked out there again last night, and there were four tiny dead birds. It was so sad. They are so freakin' tiny, like the size of a quarter, with just a little fuzz and little beaks. It broke my heart, and I wondered if the Mama bird was sad too.

AR*gh#@!

Can I just say that I freakin' hate outsourcing - outside the country that is? Sheesh!!!

Four weeks and counting

Until this fat butt of mine is going to be on the beach in a swimsuit. Yes, scary thought, I know. I have really been working on improving that though. Today is day number 3, yes 3, of me eating healthy and going to the gym. I must say that it is QUITE difficult. Both aspects. The classes that I have been doing at Lady of America are awesome, but so hard! These instructors really work you out. I thought I was going to pass out last night, and this morning. But hey, it's good for me, right? I think the hardest part for me is going to be avoiding the Mexican food. That's like a staple in my diet. Yikes! Wish me luck!

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

We went to the Dallas Arboretum yesterday with my Mom, and my great friend Traci and her two kiddo's. Man, was it hot! It's not supposed to be 93 degrees on April 2nd, is it? We still had a good time though. We had a picnic on their beautiful green lawn, then walked around looking at all the flowers. Miss Thang didn't really care to cooperate with me, so I did the best I could. Enjoy!

OK, Blogger is being a PITA, so I can't get the rest of my pictures posted. Maybe later...

My Little Gymnast

One thing I always did when I was young, and up through high school, really, was take gymnastics. I loved it, even though I didn't turn out to be one Mary Lou Retton, like I had hoped. Eventually it evolved into tumbling only when I got into cheerleading. Well, I always said that when I had a little girl, she was going to start gymnastics as early as they would let her. So, guess what? Mommy and Me gymnastics! Yay! How fun. She has been taking for about a month now, and I must say, she is a natural. She started about a week before she turned 2, and she wasn't the least bit timid -- she just got right out there and did her thing. Here are some pic's.

2006 Resolution Generator

This is pretty funny!! LOL...Click below to get yours.

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Sleep my way to the top. Get your resolution here

Sometime soon

One of these days I'll get around to posting pictures of Christmas. I think I might have gotten a couple of cute ones...NYE was spent in the hospital. I actually made it home before midnight, but I was asleep before then. Oh what excitement!

Does anyone know if any of the stores have any fake Christmas trees left? Probably not...didn't seem to have time to make it to the store for the after-Christmas sales.

On the road...

to recovery. Jeff was discharged from the hospital yesterday, and we got home around 4 pm. Yeah, it is so good to be home. I was so tired of going back and forth to that hospital, and Payton can finally get back to her routine. Thanks so much to my mom for taking care of her for like 4 days in a row....She really enjoyed her Nana time.
OK, so Jeff is doing much better. He is (sometimes) wearing a collar for his neck, but he has no pain there. He has a patch covering the incision on the front of the neck, and will have to wear that for several days until the incision heals. He is not allowed to put any weight on his leg for 8 weeks; so that's hard. The CPM machine was delivered today, and he is supposed to be using it 12 hours a day...yeah! I'm doing good to get him to use it two hours at a time. The battle begins! Anyway, he is feeling better...so we are all a little happier! Thank you Dr. Slabisak and Dr. Berry for taking good care of my Jeffro.

Is he trying to give me a heart attack at 29?

OK, do you guys remember last summer when my hubby had the accident with the lift, and we spent the entire day at Parkland? Well, today he wrecked his dirt bike. I was inside wrapping presents, and Justin runs in the house screaming that Jeff's been hurt. So I run outside and he was lying on the ground not moving. By the time I got to him, he had come to. Apparently when he was jumping, the dirt bike bogged down, and didn't give enough power to make it to the landing of the jump. So what happened was it tossed Jeff off and he went head first over the handlebars. Get this; he WASN'T wearing a helmet! URGH! I swear, he's so dumb. Every time he gets on his bike to go ride, I am on him to put on his helmet. When he's riding on our little track by our house, he doesn't seem to think he needs it, for whatever reason. OK, so I'm out there with him, he's got blood all over his head, his knee is killing him and he's just rolling around moaning. Thank God he was moving and talking. When Justin got to him, he was unconscious. Justin was scared to death! After about 30 minutes of rolling around, sitting up, laying down, etc...I finally got the truck over there, and Justin and I were able to get him in the truck. He can't put any weight on his left leg, so he is next to impossible to move. When we came in, we only made it to the first bedroom, which is Justin's. He lay in there for a couple of hours, and then we had to get the rolling office chair to move him to the living room. I couldn't get him to the bathroom for a shower or bath. I did my best to wipe down his wounds with a wet rag. The ground literally took hunks of his hair out. He looks like he has a bad receding hairline, and then a little farther back, there is a hunk out where he has a bad scrape. Oh, and in his right shin there is like a puncture wound. We think it is from the foot peg...that thing is nasty. I got queasy looking at it...it's literally a hole about the size of a pencil eraser, and it looks like it freakin' goes down to the bone. What do I do about that??? I made Justin squeeze some Benzoil Peroxide on it, but I don't know if that did any good. I don't know how we are going to make it over to my brother's tomorrow night for Christmas Eve...Anyone have any crutches? My Mema called and offered her wheelchair. I think we may have to take her up on it. I'll post pictures later.

*******UPDATE***********
So I am writing you now from the office of the Imaging place (aka Cat Scan). We went to the family dr this morning and he took x-rays. Big boy has two broken bones in his leg. Lovely, right? So, we are here to get a cat scan, then off to the orthopedic's office. Who knows how long that will take, or what they will do. If he gets a cast, I'll definitely have to put some pictures up. Oh, and I do have some of his scraped up head. I'll put those up later when we are back home....

Dallas Arboretum!!!

We went yesterday because I wanted to get some pictures of P in her Christmas dress; plus I wanted to test my new camera. The Arboretum wasn't decked out like I thought it would be. It was actually pretty blah. But, it was a gorgeous day today, and they had green grass and a lake view! So, I did get a few good pics. Here are some of them. I know it seems like a lot, but it's really not considering I took about 120!!!

My Fish Kiss!

Payton and her Aunt Lana





Payton with her Aunt Lana again.

This group of kids walked by us and Payton just decided she wanted to go with them. So, she grabbed the girls' hand and took off walking with them!!

I feel so "Martha-esque" (Is that a word?)

I made toffee last night for the first time ever! I got the idea from a girl on a mom's board that I am on. I pulled up a recipe from www.allrecipes.com, went to the store for the stuff, and made it last night. It was actually very easy, and might have to make it a yearly thing. I packaged it up in this cute little box to give to my neighbor! Yeah!

An Update...if you will

Remember this? Well, I just received the bills from the doctor and hospital for this little incident. Can you say $469.03!!!!!!! And that's OUR PART! I freakin' hate having insurance with a deductible. That was one freakin' expensive fishing trip. Dayum!

Just 4 More Days...

Yeah! I am so tired of the malls, streets, grocery stores, and everything else being so packed! I love Christmas, and this time of year, but I hate how crowded everything is! I'll be glad when it's not so freakin' crowded. I think I have all of my shopping done. I guess what I have is what everyone is getting...if they didn't get what was on their list, then they're just going to have to do without. :-) Is that mean?

I would like to say thank you to everyone for all the lovely Christmas cards. I mean, you guys have some good-lookin' families. Feliz Navidad.

Check this out

This was the sunset yesterday. Isn't it gorgeous?

Isn't She Lovely?

Isn't She wonderful....here's the infamous ornament. Ain't she purty?

Woo Hoo...Girls Night

I got to go out to dinner with some of my old girlfriends tonight...I don't mean old as in age old, I mean as in I've known them for a long time. We used to work together at good ol' EDS. Man, how times have changed. OTB in Allen, thanks for all the confusion. We had a great time. No kids..wow, how exciting that can be. Sorry, no pics for you. That darn place closes at 10 PM. WTH????

~~~Oh, by the way... when I came home, was Payton asleep in her bed? No, she was asleep with daddy in MY bed. Hello? That's not the routine?! What's up with that?

Brooks....don't be mad

I know you are upset. There is counseling for that. I know you wanted that ornament...but it was obviously meant for my tree. I will take a picture of it tomorrow, just you show you how great it looks on MY tree. Really, don't cry.

Christmas Party

Today was fun. We went to my mom's group Christmas party. We had an ornament exchange for the mommies and a book exchange for the kiddo's. Oh and we ate, of course. We always eat! :-) I got a really pretty ornament (thank you Brooks, and sorry Bonnie for stealing it from you). Anyway, it's awesome. I thought I would steal my ornament because I liked it too, but I didn't. That was my plan though, if anyone stole this one from me. Anyway, I got to use my new camera and take lots of pictures of cute kiddo's. I'll post some for your viewing pleasure.

Now for some good news

1. The Cowboys won last week. Yeah, thank you, no overtime. I'm so tired of these nail-biter endings! They are stressing me out.

2. I bought myself an early Christmas present. My brother has gotten me into camera's and picture-taking. Well, really my child is really the one who has gotten me interested in the picture taking, but he is into camera's and I've been digging his camera. So one day he tells me, "If you like this camera, you should get the D50" (which is a step down from his). So, what do I do? Think about it non-stop, research it, read reviews, and finally (after like, a week) give in. This is what it looks like...

Anyway, I absolutely love it so far...and thank you Troy for helping to increase your baby sister's debt. Pictures to come.

To catch you all up....

I know, it's been like a month since I've posted. So here's a little bit of what's been going on...

A few weeks ago, Jeff locked me out of the house. Yes, he did. I walked him out one morning, and when I walked around back to pick something up in the back yard, he left and closed the garage door when he left. Well, I had walked out through the garage with him, so it's not like he didn't know that was the only door that was unlocked. Oh, did I mention that all I was wearing was a t-shirt and undies? No shoes, no pants...Lovely, I know. So, I start checking all the windows, knowing they're all locked...of course, they all were. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that Payton was still in her bed, still asleep, I hoped. The next thing I decide to do is to walk to the neighbors. Well, we live out in the country, so it's not like they're right next door. Their house is about 5 acres away. Don't forget, I'm barefoot and we have a rock road. Oh but don't worry, I just walked across the freaking hay, weeds, and dirt. It felt GREAT! OK, so I make it over there, and guess what? Not home. So, I book it all the way back to my house and finally decide it's time to break a window. I broke the little one by the front door thinking it will be the cheapest to replace...not. Not only that, but it was double-paned, tempered, so none of the glass people had it in stock. Oh well, at least I made it in the house to get my baby! It was over a week before the window was fixed...the day before Thanksgiving.

OK, so some time passes...nothing too exciting happens, or at least that I can remember. Last Monday night I was getting ready to drive to Austin with a friend. Well, I turned on the water and we had no pressure. Jeff tells me to call the neighbor to see if they have any water pressure...of course, they do. So what does that mean? We have a busted pipe. So Jeff takes his big light out to look, and sure enough, water spewing everywhere on the side of our house, and a swamp! Lovely. This month's water bill should be massive. So, I need to leave, right? Who's gonna watch P so Jeff can fix the pipe? I'm already late to meet my friend, so it's not like I have time to hang out. I call my mom, no answer. So, I decided to call my sweet neighbor, who loves Payton. I hated to bother her, but knew she wouldn't mind. So, she graciously said she would come over. OK, now we're truckin. I was just a few minutes away from getting to leave my nice warm house to go on a three hour drive to Austin...did not want to go. So neighbor comes over, I go to leave, and what do I do? I freakin' BACKED INTO HER CAR!!!!!! OMG, what else can go wrong?? I was so upset and ticked off at myself for being soo stupid!!!!! OK, so the car isn't fixed yet. I felt horrible. So much for Christmas money! OK, I'm ending this long post now, but more to come.

Last Weekend

I was treated to an awesome concert~~ Gwen Stefani, with the Black Eyed Peas as the opening act. We had an awesome time. You can see pictures here.

More Fall fun

So me, my girl and my girlfriend and her kids are off to the pumpkin patch again today. This will be the second trip for us, and like the umpteenth one for her. What kind of mom's would we be if we weren't constantly in search of the perfect picture of our adorable little ones? The weather is lovely outside, so it looks like it will be a beautiful Texas Fall day. Wish me luck! Back later with more pictures.

fun Friday night

we had a good time last night; went to dinner with my brother, his wife, and their little girl. Payton loves to play with Emma and give her lots of hugs and kisses. Emma's finally getting to where she likes to play and hug/kiss back. They are pretty fun to watch. We just learned that Emma is going to be a big sister come next summer! Woo hoo! Can't wait to have another niece or nephew! Of course, now they are pestering me to join in on the fun. I'd love to, but heck if I want to prego during the heat of the summer..no thank you.

anyway, that was a tangent. after dinner at dodie's, we went to their house to let the girls play, and we also watched a movie...Sahara...ever seen it? It was ok, I guess the best part was seeing Matt Mconaughey...wow, talk about a cutie. man he is built! ok, that's all for my friday night excitement!

Exactly how did this happen?

Jeff took a half day off today to go fishing with his good buddy Cotton. Apparently, after fishing for about 45 minutes, Jeff hooked "a big one". His instant reflex is to jerk, and I mean hard. So, when he does, the hook comes loose & fires back "at about 30 mph", and nails him in the head. It pierced his ear with one hook, and implanted into his scalp with another. Lovely, huh? He's at the ER right now. Am I a bad wife for not going with him? I mean, we do have a baby to take care of after all. Anyway, of course I took pictures.

Fall pictures

OK, I know, I know, it's been a while. I'm behind again. What's new? We took Miss P to the pumpkin patch last weekend. It was OK, I didn't get really any good pictures. My husband always rushes me! Darn him. He's like, hurry up and take the picture. It doesn't matter if she's looking or not. Well, excuse me, but yes it does matter. To make matters worse, after we were there about 30 minutes, Payton got stung by a bee right on the cheek. Poor little thing! She actually was a trooper though. She only cried for a little bit. So, we left shortly after and got her some Benadryl. Here are the crappy pictures. OK, she still looks cute, but dang, she could have looked and smiled at least once! Hopefully we can get out there again before they close.