Girls Weekend

It has come and gone. The First Annual (or maybe more often than annual) Girls Weekend! We had soooooo much fun! It went by way too fast :(

Juli Beth, Megan, and I arrived at Suzanne's house on Friday around 4:00 pm. When Megan arrived...the energy level went up. She bounded into the house like Tigger she was so excited about the weekend! First on the agenda was food. Suzy went to the store before we got there and bought supplies to make lots of finger foods. LOTS! We had tomato basil pizza, pinwheel calzones, cucumber something on french bread, homemade salsa, homemade guac, 7 layer dip, chips, candy, and a yummy cookie dough dip (you dip vanilla wafers in it). We made WAY too much food for FOUR girls! lol. We had fun making it and eating it though ;)
After dinner we gather in the living room for a devotional. This was probably my favorite part of the entire weekend. We spent over 2 hours singing praises to God, reading his Word, sharing, and praying together. Our common love for Christ what brought us together as friends over 2 decades ago...and it's what still ties us together. Here's Juli Beth and Megan getting ready for our devo.

After the devo we sat around and talked and laughed until about 1:30 am when we decided to watch a movie. Suzanne made a pallet on the floor and we were all excited to have a slumber party all night long! Then we laid down. We suddenly realized that we're not teenagers anymore. We all started talking about how much our bodies would ache if we slept on the floor all night! I warned them that I'd be asleep within minutes of the movie starting since it was so late. Within 30 minutes we'd all moved from the floor to the nice comfy beds :)
Saturday morning Suzy made us breakfast burritos and then we sat around talking until about 10:30 when we decided to get dressed and go shopping. Here's Megan, Juli Beth, Staci, & Suzanne ready to shop!

For lunch we stopped at Falcone's for pizza. It was YUMMY! It was also a GREAT deal! They messed up when they were serving the pizza and gave me 2 pieces of pizza for the price of one since the 2nd piece fell onto my plate. Ok?! So Megan and I split the meal costing us a little over $2 a piece! That's a deal!

We spent the rest of the afternoon tiring ourselves out with shopping. I was excited that I found the 3 things on my shopping list (shower curtain, dressy belt, and hairdryer)!

We went to a restaurant called Interurban for dinner. I had the Cajun Seafood Pasta. YUMMY!!!! It was fun to sit there and talk (some more) before Juli Beth had to leave. Wade was leaving for church camp on Sunday, so she had to go home to get him ready and take him to camp. We were sad to see her leave...but you better believe we got one more group picture before she left (We took over 100 pics this weekend...most of them were group shots from funny angles!).
After JB left...Suzy, Megan and I went to Bricktown to walk around and eat dessert. When we parked in the parking garage we looked over the edge to see a baseball game in progress! The breeze was blowing thru the garage and it was a beautiful night. We stood there and watched the game for awhile (until Megan complained enough of her uneasiness of heights).
We stopped at a restaurant (don't remember what it was) for dessert. We stopped there because of the guitar player/singer on their patio. He was awesome! I think his name was Aaron Newman. After dessert we headed back to Suzy's house (singing praise songs the whole way).

Sunday morning Megan left for Houston. Dad, Mom, & Brody met me at Suzanne's house to go to church. We went to Memorial Road church of Christ with Suzy and Jaxon (her little boy). After church we went back to Dad & Mom's hotel room to change, take a nap, and pack up the cars. We ate lunch at Pearls Cajun Food (or something like that). It was good Cajun food! Then we let Brody play in the grass outside the hotel for awhile before we all got in the car to drive home. Be sure to look at their blog for pics of Brody over the weekend.

Brody did really well on the trip home. He slept the first 2 hours, took a bottle for about 1/2 and hour, and then played for most of the last hour of the trip! He fussed off and on (tired of the car seat)...but overall he was pretty good! We were both very happy to get home and see Mike!

It's FRIDAY!!!!!

Today is the beginning of the much anticipated "Girls' Weekend"! Juli Beth, Megan, and I are meeting up at Suzanne's house in OKC for the weekend! I'm sure I'll have lots of pics to post after the weekend.

Brody is going to have a mini vacation too this weekend. Daddy Steve and Namaw are driving up from Arlington to babysit him in OKC for the weekend (it didn't take much arm twisting)! Mike will stay at home to work on the house.

Pray that Mike will be safe this weekend, Brody won't cry the entire drive, and and that God will be glorified in the reunion of old friends.

Taking it in

What do you think of when you think of someone smelling like the great outdoors? Usually I think of the guys when they get back from playing football...or little boys coming inside sweaty and stinky!

Last night Mike went outside to move some water on the grass. It was a warm, sticky summer night. When he came back in the house he sat down beside me on the couch. It was about bed time for me. As I leaned over to give him a hug goodnight...I could smell the great outdoors. The smell of the wind with a tinge of sweat. Normally this would gross me out and I'd say something like "I think you need to go change your shirt!". For some reason last night...it just smelled right. It was the smell of my man after a days work...work that he did for our family! It caused me to pause for a few minutes just to lay my head on his chest and take it in.

Brody Walking

Brody has started walking more lately. He'll let go of things and walk for a few steps before falling to his knees and crawling. Here's a video of him walking to me.

Like Father Like Son

I walked into the laundry room the other day to find this: Brody found my headlamp that Mike has been using lately while working on the house. I guess he's seen Mike wearing the headlamp and wanted to be like Daddy. He did a great job getting it on his head, however, I think that Mike wears the lamp on his forehead rather than the back of his head!

Yesterday I walked into the living room to find Mike teaching Brody how to install memory in his laptop! He was giving step by step instructions. I snapped a picture just as Brody was helping Mike get the laptop back together.

Just so you know that Brody's like his mother too....
Brody LOVES to talk. He talks all the time (I've been told I was like this as a child too...Mike says I'm still like this). He tries new words every day. Besides "dada", "mama", and "ba" (for ball and to describe what sheep say), he also says "datch" for watch, "kkkkk" for drink (he used to say "inkkk" but shortened it to just "kkk" to save time), "uck" for duck, and "a-000" for thank you. He also tries to say puppy, Remy, Trevor and will try pretty much any word that you try to get him to say (although most times it sounds nothing like what the word really is)!

As I'm typing this right now, Mike and Brody are wrestling on the living room floor....laughing like someone just told them the funniest joke they'd ever heard!

New Pool

Tuesday afternoon Brody and I played outside for several hours. He would play in the pool for awhile and then crawl around the yard, shop, dog pen, etc...basically he would get filthy dirty and then go get back in the pool!

While we were camping, Brody loved climbing over and back over the railroad tie at our campsite. I found a substitute today...the roll of carpet in our shop! (please ignore the mismatched outfit in the pic below! The stripped onesie he wore to work doesn't quite go with his swimsuit! lol)

Here's my little swimmer blowing bubbles in the pool. He LOVES blowing bubbles!
I know...he needs a haircut. We're waiting until he turns 1 before giving him his first haircut.

Climbing out of the pool to go see what Daddy's doing.

I wouldn't let him get near the wood Mike was staining...so he went inside the dog pen to get a better view.

Walking without teeth

This weekend was busy! We hosted the 14U and 16U State Softball Tournament this weekend. Mike was wanting to work on the upstairs bathroom, so I took Brody with me. RaeAnn's sisters and mom watched Cheyenne and Brody while we worked out at the ball diamonds. Saturday the kids had a lot of fun playing together (see RaeAnn's blog for pictures). Yesterday Brody was pretty fussy. These teeth are going to be the end of me! Sundays are always hard (schedule wise) and yesterday was no different. He only had one 45 minute nap all day long! No naps combined with the teething tends to make a baby a little fussy. It sounds like he and Cheyenne still had fun yesterday. I stopped by RaeAnn's house to nurse him around 4:00 and they were outside playing in the baby pool. Brody must have been having fun because as soon as he hugged me he went right back to the pool! The exciting part is how he got back to the pool......he walked! We've seen him take a step here or there...but this was an all out walk of 5 or 6 steps! I was so excited to get to see it!

Mike worked on the bathroom all weekend. He won't let me see it (he calls it his Ty Pennington room...you know how Ty has a secret room on Home Makeover that he won't let anyone see until the end?). I'll be sure to post pictures whenever he lets me see it :)

As of this morning Brody's teeth still haven't come thru yet. He woke up at 3:30 am (15 minutes before my alarm went off) and was really hot to the touch. I gave him some Motrin and then he just wanted me to hold him (very unusual for our active little boy). I ended up taking him downstairs to our bedroom and had Mike hold him while I got ready for work. He finally fell asleep when I was almost to work this morning and as of right now (5:55 am) he's still asleep. With as little sleep as he got yesterday, I'm hoping he'll sleep for awhile this morning so I can get a lot done!

Obsession

Brody is always very happy to see me in the morning when I get him out of his crib at work. He doesn't usually say much until after he nurses (kinda like how I didn't talk to anyone until after I ate my cereal when I was a teenager). As soon as he finishes nursing he starts talking. His first word is the same every morning. "Ball" I can't even begin to count how many times Brody says "ball" in a single day.

The other day I was pondering the fact that my son is obsessed with balls. I thought, "Why is 'ball' the first word out of his mouth every morning? Why not 'mama' or 'drink' or any other word that he's learned?" As I was pondering this I looked around my office and suddenly realized how MANY balls there are! Remember...I work at a recreation commission...so it's not really abnormal to have balls in my office.

I thought a picture tour of our building would do this story justice and give you an idea of why Brody has such a love for balls. Please keep in mind that summer is CRAZY busy at our office. Don't pay attention to the messy desks or cluttered areas. We haven't had time to straighten up lately!

This basket of basketballs is in the same front office that his crib is in. This is a random assortment of baseballs & softballs shoved into a corner by the file cabinet. Oh...there's also a small football in the bottom right corner of this picture.
Here are some trophy baseballs on top of one of our bookshelves.
On top of the other bookshelf rest 3 basketballs (these are the good balls that we don't let the kids check out).
Don't you have a baseball by the power strip in your office?
The green bucket is full of tennis balls left over from tennis camp (in early June) that we haven't had time to take back to the storage room yet.
Softballs for this weekend's State Babe Ruth Softball tournaments.
Even the decorative stone in the office (a present RaeAnn and I got for Junior a few years ago) has a ball carved into it!
Our office isn't the only room in the building that contains balls. This is the conference room (also used to store aerobics equipment).
Aerobics room

Balls in the weight room

Storage room
Used baseballs and softballs in the storage room (the boxes above, below, and beside the cabinet are full of new baseballs/softballs).
I can't leave out the child care room! There are MANY balls in this room. Toni (one of the babysitters) told me that Brody collected 14 balls while I was teaching aerobics on Wednesday.
I didn't have time to walk upstairs...but there are also balls in the gymnasium upstairs. The only room in our building that doesn't contain balls is the bathroom, however, whenever I have to go to the bathroom I put Brody in the stroller and give him a toy to play with while I go to the bathroom. Lately he's been taking a golf ball...so I guess whenever Brody's in the bathroom there is a ball in that room too!

How many balls do you have in your office?

Proud Wife

This is for Sissie (and everyone else too):
Check out Mike's scorecard (click on the link then go to "Event Results" on the left, then click on "American League Results", then click on event #11) I was so proud of him when he told me about his golf match Tuesday night! He played REALLY well! His team is now leading the league by 17 points with two matches to go in the season! If you scroll down to the bottom you'll see how well he did on Tuesday night. He had the low gross, low net, most birdies, and was tied for most pars! I'm so proud :)

I also had another reason to be proud today. You know how honest little kids are? Many times they say things that you know are true but don't really want to hear. Today Dwayne and Rene stopped by to borrow some luggage for their trip to Ethiopia. When they drove up our driveway Taya (one of their daughters) said, "Wow! Is that grass real?!?!?" Yep. My husband has our yard looking so beautiful that kids think it can't be real. They've never seen a yard like that in the country before! Even the mail lady notices! One day she left a note in our mailbox that said, "Your yard is BEAUTIFUL!" I'm so proud :)

July 4th

This year was a little different. Last Wednesday didn't really feel like July 4th to us. Every year since we moved to KS we have worked the Freedom Run on July 4th. This year the race was moved to Saturday to coincide with Sterling's Old Fashioned 4th of July (which they moved to the weekend to coincide with Sterling College's 120th Anniversary Celebration...which was cancelled due to lack of participation). There was still some stuff going on at the Sterling Lake on Wednesday the 4th. We went out there in the morning for the Hole-in-One contest. They goal was to hit a golf ball onto the island in the lake and the closest to the pin would win. There were a lot of guys waiting in line...so we just watched rather than participate. Brody obsessively watched the golf balls and said "ba ba ba" over and over! I finally took him for a walk around the park to keep him from crawling over and grabbing the golf balls from the golfers!

Here's Brody at the park slide. Ever since he saw Malachi climbing up the slide at the Little's house, he LOVES slides! This one was a little bit bigger than Malachi's.
I decided to keep walking around the lake to where the vendors where. Brody got really wiggly...so I put him down and thought maybe he'd crawl beside me in the grass. As soon as I put him down he turned around and started crawling at super sonic speed back towards the playground!

Mike walked with us over to the vendors and we went in search of a toy ball (Brody was still obsessively saying "ba" translated "ball"). We finally found a cool little ball for him to play with. The icing on the cake was when Mike found a water hose that had a pinhole in it and was shooting a stream of water up in the air! He and Brody stood in the water for a while cooling off. (It's kinda hard to see in this picture...but the water is spraying them.)

It rained on July 4th...so the fireworks were postponed until Saturday night. That was great for us! We worked the race in the morning, worked on the house all day, and then got to see the fireworks at night! It was over 2 hours past Brody's bedtime...so he was a major wiggle wart! He would watch them for a few seconds and then start down the hill towards the lake! In this picture he's standing on Michelle (leaning on Jed) and watching the fireworks.

Fireworks over the lake.

Vacation Posts

Here's how I'm gonna do it. I'm going to make a post for each of our vacation days. I'll date the posts the date that it actually happened...so LOOK BELOW THE POST TITLED "HOME" to see NEW POSTS about our trip. Make sense?

Home

We made it home from our Colorado vacation last night around 11:00 pm. It was a WONDERFUL vacation!!! It was made even better by the fact that Brody slept until 9:00 am this morning!!! WOW! He's NEVER slept that late! I'm going to start posting about the vacation tomorrow when I get home from work. First I need to move the pictures from Mike's Macbook to my computer so that I can go thru them and pick ones to post. Believe me...you don't want me to post them all. Between Dad, Tyler, and us...we took over 1000 pictures!!!! Yikes! Stay tuned for the exciting story!