5 random things

Last week was kind of crazy.

I had a birthday.

Gumdrop ran 101-102 fever for five days. I took her to the Dr. on Monday where we got antibiotics and then back on Friday where we got a different antibiotic and a shot.

My Boy hurt his heel in April and has been favoring it on and off since then. He was in pain after playing tennis so I took him to the doctor on Tuesday and we were told he has Sever's disease (which basically means he's growing too fast). He was put on exercise rest for 4-6 weeks and we had to go for a foot X-ray (his foot was fine).

On Wednesday, I had to go to a check up at the doctor.

So, if you are counting--I was at the doctor's office 4 out of 5 days last week.

On Saturday we were swimming at my brother in laws house and my nephew broke his leg. He had surgery yesterday. Last week wasn't awesome for us.

When I'm down, I like to think happy. Everyone always does their "favorites" on their blogs so I thought I'd join in.  Here are five of my favorite things right now.

I'm trying to make better drinking choices--this stuff is yummy and has no calories!

 I've always had trouble getting my eye make-up to stay put, until now. I am addicted to this stuff.

 I jumped on the BB Cream band wagon.  This is great stuff, its lightweight and effortless. I use it alone or under foundation.

 The best sunscreen! I'm old school and like a lotion. This one rubs in well and does the job.

 I read this book a few weeks ago and loved it. Definitely a good summer read.

I Only Celebrate Odd Years

So, today's my big 3-6. Last year, I was feeling very milestone-ish and I did this little challenge where I did 35 acts of kindness for my 35th birthday. This year I'm feeling kind of blah about my birthday,which is really unlike me, because I LOVE Birthdays (mine, my kids, my Hubs, my families....). Birthdays are a celebration of...well...of that person.

My little woke me up before midnight last night crying and needy. She climbed all over me all night and woke up with a raging fever this morning.  We hit the walk-in clinic at our pedis office at 8 a.m. and found out she probably has strep (her test was negative, but they felt like she has it and we tested too early). So, she's on antibiotics. We had a rough morning. My friend Leah texted me this morning and I relayed my woes. She said, "Thats why I only celebrate odd years."  I think she's onto something (I'm kidding, I want to celebrate all of them)!

Last year my bible study read a book about blessings. Our goal was to record 1,000 blessings in our book. I don't think I ever made it to 1,000 but I have several hundred things written down. Most of them were very simple little things, but when I go back and read them--it makes me happy. So, in the spirit of celebrating my 36th year of life, here are the first 36 blessings (or things that make me happy) of my life that came to my mind.

1. My Family (how I love them so)
2. My Friends
3. My Junior League Family
4. My Bible Study Family (my entire church family)
5. Books
6. Rain
7. Snow Days
8. Travel
9. Pinterest
10. Planning things (specifically trips)
11. A clean house
12. Our Home
13. Shopping
14. Massages
15. Gumdrop's curls
16. Lollipop's attitude towards life
17. My Boy's love of reading
18. New Recipes
19. Brownies
20. Watermelon
21. Willie Nelson songs
22. Eating outside on a balmy evening
23. Swimming
24. Summer time
25. Christmas
26. Texas Aggie Football
27. Baths
28. Clean laundry
29. Snuggles
30. S'mores
31. The garage door opening to announce The Hubs' arrival
32. Our dogs
33. Clean sheets
34. Coffee in the morning
35. Seeing my kids love for one another
36. God's grace

Happy Birthday to me.

Blog neglect

I think May rivals December as being the busiest month of the year. I feel like I just got a chance to catch my breath! Here is a little recap of what we did this past month:

I got to celebrate Mother's Day in both of my kiddos classrooms. It is absolutely amazing the things they said about me and what they made for me. I'm one lucky girl!

 This guy has lost FOUR teeth in a matter of three weeks! It's crazy! The tooth fairy is going to need to take out a loan soon!  And if you are keeping score....he is 9 and 3/4 and still believes!

 I went to Washington, D.C. for Junior League's Annual Conference.  The most important thing I did was eat this Blue Crab pie:

 I'm just kidding, it wasn't the most important thing, but pretty close. I've been to D.C. before but its been about 12 years and we did all of our sight seeing during the day. The night we got there we took a Night Tour with all the Outgoing Presidents, Incoming Presidents, and Incoming President-Elects from West Texas. It was amazing. We walked for over three hours! I won't ever forget it!

 We spent most of our time at the Conference and capped off the banquet the last night by receiving the JLM's award for being in the Association for 50 years. We had our Annual Meeting on May 21, where the Bylaws I have been working on all year were passed....and I officially became President-Elect.

While I was gone, My Lollipop was honored with the Viva El Espanol Award (given by her Spanish teacher) for her 1st grade. We are quite proud!

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. We ALL had tears on the last day of school. Saying goodbye to our 1st grade teacher was pretty tough. She and I have become really close. We both cried when we hugged goodbye (which made Lollipop cry, which made Gumdrop cry....). Good thing we will probably get to have her again with Baby Gumdrop in 5 years! I'm so thankful my kids love school, look at the sad faces!

 We had a wonderful dance recital. Isn't she precious?

 We got to start the swimming season with an Itsy Bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini!

 If you read my blog way back when, you will know that My Boy spelled every bonus word right on his spelling tests his first grade year, so we took him to the Great Wolf Lodge.  Lollipop wanted to make a wager with me that she could do the same thing. I told her to go for it.

Guess where we went last week?

 My mother-in-law kept Miss Gumdrop for two days so I could fly solo at the Great Wolf with the two big kids. We met up at the Lake and did some hard core cleaning up and playing. My grandmother also had her 75th birthday party yesterday so we drove to Coleman to attend. I didn't get a single photo! I got to see several of my cousin and other family members that I haven't seen in years. Happy Birthday Gaye Gaye, I love you!

May was great.....but we are ready for Summer Time!  Bring it on!

Home sweet Home

I've never been particularly proud of my decorating skills. I'm not very good at knowing how to put things together. I've always put more effort into clothes (decorating myself and the kids!) than into decorating my home. This is for a number of reasons: The Hubs and I agree on very little as far as decorating style goes (and yes, he very much has an opinion),  I don't feel confident enough to make big (expensive) decisions without his support, and I've made so many "mistakes" in the past that I'm a little scared off.  Anyway, my sweet friend Ashley has stepped in and has been walking me through things with an ever-so gentle hand. I've gotten a few, "UMM...no" and a "A lamp where? You dreamed that." Mostly, we agree. My taste and her taste are not the same, but she's awesome at what she does.  I think its looking great!  We still have a ways to go, but as she told me the other day....it doesn't all have to happen at once! And its constantly changing....everytime she comes over she moves stuff around. For instance, the candle holders in the first picture our now on the table behind the couch. The lamps in the last pic are now in my bedroom.  More photos to come on another day!

The wooden chairs go with my old table...my new chairs didn't pass inspection so they are being re-made :(

She even organized our shelves!

And moved the candle holders....

We thought this ottoman would be a great thing (causing fewer head injuries than our old wooden coffee table) but so far its just the coolest wrestling surface ever :)!

A typical Monday....

I saw a fun post on another blog I read that showed what she does on a typical day.  Mondays are my "home" day.  I don't have any meetings and try not to schedule any appointments. I need at least one day a week where I can be a stay at home mom.  I do not have a paying job, but I'm sure not home much :).

I usually wake up at about 6:30 and turn on my Keurig. I take thyroid meds the second I wake up and have to wait and hour before I can eat or drink (every.single.day.). Turning it on and getting it ready keeps me going (plus the Hubs can have the first of his three or so cups).

From 6:30 to 7:30 I make lunches, feed breakfast to people, dress people, and gather peoples things for school.

7:35 (on a good day) we head to school.

Between 7:30 and about 9:30. I eat breakfast, load the dishwasher, do laundry, make beds and pick up stuff.

Around 9:30 I work out. I have a bunch of videos. I alternate doing those and doing the elliptical machine.  I used to be a gym rat, but I've found it so much easier to exercise on my own since I had Gumdrop.  Thankfully, I'm self-motivated so its been ok--but I miss the gym. My hope is to get back to  SOON (probably Sept when school starts). Gumdrop catches up on Mickey Mouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, or Dora usually.

10:30.  Grocery shopping.  As we pulled in Gumdrop said, "NO HEB! NO HEB!" So, I bribed her with a donut.

We have a little Monday tradition of getting McAllisters after we run errands at about 11:30. I order a choose two for her and get a sandwich and a salad for Gumdrop. I eat the sandwich the next day and she eats the smaller portion of salad.  She was always stealing mine, I've discovered this works perfectly!

 At 12:30 I made desert to take to Leadership Retreat for League that we had last Tuesday and Thursday.  Gumdrop is a fantastic baker.  We try to bake on Mondays because she loves it.

 1:30 is rest time.  She doesn't nap much anymore, but she will lay in bed and rest for a bit.

 From 1:30-2:30 I do my third or fourth load of laundry for the day. 

 And I catch up on emails and do anything I need to do that is League related while Gumdrop rests.

We head to carpool about 2:30 and wait in line for a good 30 minutes.

 We don't have anything after school on Mondays so we have a snack and start homework. Then they play outside if its nice while I fold laundry.  I love having big windows so I can see them.

 At 5:30 I start dinner.  We had tacos and Mexican quinoa salad.

I didn't get a pic but between 6:00-7:45 ish we eat, clean up, shower (including me), and get ready for bed.

At about 8:00 we read bedtime stories and the kids hit the sack.

I hardly watch T.V. so I'll sit on the couch (or go to my bed) and read for about an hour.

I'm a firm believer in early to bed, early to rise.  Or maybe its just that I'm old and I can't stay up much past 9:30 or 10:00.  Its not very exciting, but its a typical Monday!

April update (2 new posts)!

The last three weeks of my life have been pretty chaotic.  I've tried to stay strong but I'm kind of at the "I want to crawl in a hole and sleep" point!  Here is a phone pic update:

This one helps herself to juice now whenever she feels like it!

I have been having bouts of nausea for the past four or five months.  After numerous blood tests and trials with a few different types of medicines, my Gastro Doc decided we needed to do an abdomen sonogram and an EGD (esophagus, gastric system, and duodenum) test.  I've never been sedated before and I was REALLY nervous. I had to fast and what was supposed to be an 11:00 sono and a 1:00 EGD ended up being an 11:30 sono and a 3:00 EGD.  I was at the hospital all day and it wasn't too fun.  I did fine with the sedation and was up the next morning helping with move in for our Junior League market.  Thankfully, I have nothing majorly wrong with any of my organs. We are attributing it to STRESS and IBS (too much info, I know) and I did test positive for an infection in my stomach called H pylori. I'm on antibiotics and I'll start a new medicine in a few weeks when I kill off the yucky infection.  My doc was afraid it was my gallbladder, so I'm thanking my lucky stars!  I know that stress plays a huge role in all this, so I have to figure out how to de-stress!

Spring Fling Market! I spent four entire days at our fundraiser (we have multiple events).

The Children's event portion of the fundraiser:

Next year I'm not buying this one a ticket :):

And finally, my pal Ashley and I have been working, working, working on my new home. We went to Haverty's last week and loaded up on accessories.  Isn't this lamp fabulous???

And on a very exciting note, this little Princess is potty trained.  I'm not saying we are completely accident free, but she is doing awesome. She is so sassy and has such a spunky little personality. I'm so in love with her!

Read the post below to hear about our action-packed weekend!

Go West...to the Track meet!

My kids had their Spring musical on Friday.  This years theme was Go West!  This year 1st - 3rd grade performed together. This was My Boys last lower school musical and I was overjoyed that he and his little sis got to do it together.  He will choose between choir and band next year, the days of these cute plays are over for my oldest :(.

Lollipop chose to be an Indian (no speaking roles for 1st graders).  She's on the bottom row on the end. Isn't she cute?!

 My Boy was the wagon master and got to wear "a big taco hat" as coined by his sister.

 So proud of my kiddos!

As if that wasn't enough excitement, we had our track meet Friday afternoon and Saturday.  Lollipop was able to participate for the first time this year. It was so fun to be able to see them enjoy themselves. We love our school and its great sense of community.  It's so awesome to watch 1st graders standing at the finish line cheering on 6th graders.  I love our school!

Long jump (we didn't win any medals this year, but we are ok with that!)

 Cheering on her bubba while he runs the long 1500 m race

 There were more kids at the track meet than I've ever seen before, so it was harder to get medals this year.  My  Boy has a bone bruise in his left foot. I'm so proud of him, he ran through the pain and did great. He ran against 3rd and 4th graders in the 1500 and got 7th place (just out of the medals).

 Love this girl!

 Running the 50 m! 

 This display of sibling love brings tears to my eyes.  Look how happy she is seeing her bubba at the finish line!

 My Boy also ran the 200m and the 400m. Like I said, he was in pain but did such a great job!

We can't wait until next year!