Will's Portraits

We had Will's two year-old portraits taken on Saturday. These are the Internet proofs, so they are small and the margins won't be quite right from the way that we ordered them, but here are the best ones :) Isn't he getting big?

Houston Pictures

Hunting eggs indoors

Reading books with Great-grandma Glenda
Posing with Great-grandma Glenda and Great-grandpa Roy

Riding the Bob the Builder bulldozer at Chuck E. Cheese's

Riding the Barney train
One of the only useable pictures I got of Will on the carousel :)
His favorite part of the night...climbing to the top of the tunnels to look out of the race car! (Notice Uncle Kendall behind him!) :)

Week in Review

Wow, what a week. Last Saturday we woke up to quite wintery weather in Big Spring. We thought our 10:40 flight was delayed until about 1:00, but when we got to the airport at 10:30, they were actually starting to board. The flight from earlier that day was combined with ours and we had to board the plane from the tarmac, which was interesting considering I am pregnant with a two-year-old and a stroller; plus, the steps up to the plane were very icy. Eek! We proceeded to sit on the unbearably hot plane for almost an hour while they de-iced it. We finally took off around 11:45 and made it to Houston at about 1:15. We also had to get off the plane on the tarmac...this time the steps weren't icy, but it was raining. Ah, the fun of it. I was very fortuante to be sitting next to a lovely lady that helped me out tremendously. We became fast friends.

Saturday was a very long day to say the least. Sunday, we enjoyed a nice Easter service at church despite the chilly weather outside. Will did his egg-hunting indoors since the ground was still rather wet. My mom's family joined us for Easter lunch (which was absolutely delicious!) and we enjoyed getting to see one another.

The week-days were somewhat monotonous for Will and I, since both my parents had to work during the day. We did a little TV-watching and made our way to a little playground not far from the house most mornings. I got to meet up with several friends from the past (and present!), so that was really great. Tuesday night I got to eat out with my friend Emily, who will be a bride in May, so it was fun talking wedding with her. Wednesday, I went to Babies-R-Us with Kelly and her son Keynan and we checked out strollers and baby girl bedding. On Thursday, Kathy and her son Patrick joined us for some swimming in my parents' pool. And on Friday, Heather and her children, Melanie and Marshall went to the playground with us and later that afternoon another friend Emily and her kids Sheree and Owen came to play. It was so good to see all of them! I hadn't seen the second Emily in about 5 years, so that was especially a treat.

Last night, Mom, Kendall, his fiancee Staci, and their friend Christa took Will and I to Chuck E. Cheese. Will had a wonderful time. He loved riding the mechanical cars and the little carousel. Kendall was nice enough to take him up into the big tunnels where they have a car that the kids can look out (he was too small to go through by himself). Kendall, Staci, and Christa earned enough tickets to get Will a cool prize, too.

Today, our plan is to take Will to the zoo this afternoon and maybe do a little shopping before we have to leave tomorrow. I have some pictures I'd like to share, but I'll have to wait till I get home to load them onto the computer (I don't have a card-reader here). So, be looking for pictures to go along with this story on Sunday or Monday!

It's been a great week, but both Mama and Will miss Daddy and will be very glad to see him when we get home. We have tried to talk to him every night and he is doing well, doing all his handy-man jobs around the house! I can't wait to see when I get back!

A Few Belly Shots

It came to my attention that I rarely include my face in my belly pics, so I tried to get one today. I still think I look pretty bad, but oh well. I took these pictures myself, so that is why the angles might look a little funny.

In other news, Will and I will be traveling again, this time to Houston. We wanted to be able to fly Will one more time while he is free :) Hopefully this crazy cold front won't interfere with our flight plans tomorrow. We will be at my parents house for a week and Scott will stay home and hopefully do some handy-man things around the house! I will still have Internet access there, so I won't be completely out of pocket. We are looking forward to our visit!

Two Bellies

Last week I was blessed to be able to see my good friend Kara and her family! Will and I had good trips to and from Carlsbad, even though we got stuck behind a lot of slow traffic :)

The kids enjoyed playing together and it was amusing watching them learn to share. They did pretty well. We didn't do anything spectacular; we just enjoyed catching up and being goofy again. Here are a couple of shots of the two of us and our pregnant bellies. Kara is 34 weeks (she's almost done!) and I am almost 24 weeks in the pictures.

C-bad

Tomorrow morning, Will and I are headed to the great metropolis of Carlsbad, New Mexico! Although I really dislike driving (especially by myself and then on top of that, being by myself with Will), I am really looking forward to it. We are going to visit my dear friend Kara who will soon be adding another little boy to her precious family. She is scheduled to have him on May 3rd, so I wanted to see her and visit before he gets here and things start to get crazy. I haven't seen Kara since September, so our visit is long overdue. Please pray for us as we travel...I tend to be a nervous driver sometimes.

In case you are wondering, my foot is feeling pretty good, unless I have to wear shoes. I went to Wal-Mart on Tuesday morning and put shoes (flip-flops) on for the first time since Sunday after church and it just about killed me walking around because the straps were wide enough that they were rubbing right against the top of my bruise. So, I splurged on a pair with super-skinny straps for all of $4.88.

For the last two days, Will has decided that naps are not his thing. Yesterday he slept for about 20 or 30 minutes. Today when I picked him up from school, his little info sheet said "I slept," and then the times the teacher wrote were "from 12:50 to 1:15." I thought, "that ain't sleep." I tried with no avail to get him to nap when we got home. So, we've had a very tired little boy on our hands at bedtime, which I guess is sort of good. Will is also doing great with his new bed. He can get up on it and down off of it by himself and we haven't found him sleeping on the floor in several days. I'm so glad that he decided that the bed was a good place to sleep :)

This will probably be my last post for the month of March, so happy weekend and check back with me in April :)

Ouch!

Yesterday morning while I was getting dressed in my closet, I somehow mananged to hit a metal box that was precariously sitting on a shelf above my clothes and it fell on top of my foot. Let me tell you, I really thought it was broken for a while. It hurt REALLY bad. I screamed for about 15 seconds. Of course, Will was standing right next to me, so I probably scared the living daylights out of him, but he doesn't seem to be permanently scarred in any way. I didn't make him cry, so that was good. This picture isn't great, but you can sort of see the discoloration on the top of my foot. I've got a pretty good bruise. I spent the rest of the day with my foot elevated and iced. Fun!

And here is my bad-mother-of-the-day story. I was unloading the dishwasher this afternoon and Will was hanging around near me, playing with cars and such. He was driving the cars on the open door and I was just working away. Then something made my ears perk up. He said, "Mmm, good." I looked down to find him licking his finger and putting it back into the the leftover dishwashing liquid in the little flap on the door. I didn't really "freak out," but it did scare me. I of course told him not to do that anymore and read the back of the bottle. It said to call the poison control center or a medical professional right away. So, I made my first ever call to the poison control center of Texas. The man I spoke with was very nice and told me that Will would most likely be fine, if anything he might have some burning in his mouth or possibly vomitting and nausea. Well, thankfully, none of that happened...he probably only put a 1/32 of a teaspoon full (if that) in his mouth. The man said to just make sure he drank plenty of water. What an experience that was!

So, there ya go...my two crazy stories for the day. Hope you enjoyed. I will leave you with a couple more random pictures from the last few days.

Will in his own little lawn chair

Livin' (or sleepin') on the edge...Will likes to get in our bed in the wee hours of the morning and force us over to one side, giving us about 10 inches of our king size bed to sleep on. Am I sure I like the idea of him being able to get out of bed by himself?

A Little Update

I think it is so funny how many people I know that use ointment for horses on their children's bottoms. Since I have told that Corona story, I have had so many people tell me that they use it! My only question is, how come I'd never heard of it before? Will is doing 99% better since we started using it on Tuesday. I'm so glad. It tortures us as much as it tortures him to wipe that sore booty of his! Onto other things besides rear-ends...

Will is completely moved into his new room! We got a set of box springs and a bed rail on Friday and I think it is going to work out really well. Last night when we went to check on him around 11:30, he was either still in his bed or he had gotten back into it instead of falling asleep on the floor. I think that is the first time since we transitioned him out of the crib that he hasn't been on the floor when we looked in on him. I think he really likes his bed, he just has to get used to it. He's really doing well with the whole transition, though.

In order to get Will moved in, I had to clean out the closet that was to become his. This was a major undertaking since it was the "catch-all" closet of the house. It had seasonal decorations, old Master Follies cosutmes, gift-wrapping supplies, camping supplies...you name it, it was in there. It has taken a while, but I got everything out of there that really had to come out (the camping supplies stayed). So, now the end of my hallway and a whole corner of my living room is filled with garage sale stuff. If you didn't know us and just walked in the house, you'd probably think we are moving because there is just stuff everywhere. I really really really need to have that garage sale I've been talking about having for almost a year now!

Not much else is happening...we are just hanging out, living life. I have had a few people ask me about names for Baby Girl. I am not sure I am quite ready to announce my current pick to all of blogworld yet, but if you would like to make your suggestions, feel free. Maybe you've come up with something that I've never thought of and would be just perfect for our little one.

Spring has Sprung!

On this first day of spring, it certainly looks as if spring has arrived around here...trees and flowers are abloom and sunshine is in the air. We've had a string of beautiful weather lately and have been taking advantage by letting Will play outside and taking evening walks. Will looks like a true little boy now because he has scrapes on both knees and elbows. He never cries when he falls, so I just end up finding them later...hopefully they don't sting too bad :) Here is a picture of our pretty purple tree in the backyard, which is only pretty and purple for a couple of weeks out of the year (it will turn into leaves).

In other news, I know that we just converted Will's crib into a toddler bed last week, but last night we decided to try him in his new room with the twin bed. He seemed really excited about it until we actually left him in there to sleep. Then he wasn't too thrilled. But he eventually fell asleep and stayed in the bed for couple of hours until he rolled out onto the pillows on the floor (I hope to get a guard rail soon, but we need box springs for that). Anyway, he didn't make an appearance into our room this morning until about 7:15, so that was good. We'll see how tonight goes.

I will end with a funny story about Will. Yesterday, we went to the pharmacy to pick up some Corona horse ointment that you can use for diaper rash cream because Will's booty has still not recovered from last week's illness. When the pharmacist put it in the white pharmacy bag, Will said, "Chicken! More!" I guess that tells you that he is used to going out and getting chicken that comes out of white paper bags...hmmm...

Waxing Gibbous

"Waxing gibbous" is the term our preacher likes to use for us pregnant ladies. So here I am "waxing gibbous" at 21 weeks and 4 days.

Hope everyone has had a happy St. Patty's Day :)

In the Middle of the Night

On Tuesday night, we converted Will's crib into a toddler bed, hoping it would help him transition to a "real" bed (which we already have set up for him in another room). The past few nights have gone a little better than expected, but still, it has been interesting. We have been closing his door all the way when we put him in bed so he can't just come out of the room, but before we go to bed, we open the door so he can get to us in the morning and what-not. When we opened the door last night, this is what we found:

We decided to go ahead and put him in the bed (just so you don't think we made him sleep on the floor all night!). It has been interesting waking up in the mornings to a little voice at the foot of the bed instead of over the monitor. The past two mornings it has been an exclamation of "Daddy!" that has woken me out of my peaceful slumber and into sheer panic. It's just not what I expect to wake up to! Yesterday morning, he was kind and woke us up a little after 8:00. Today it was before 7:00. Hmm...I'm not so sure I like this whole gaining independence thing.

Weekend Madness

Oh, what a weekend! Will became sick on Saturday with bad poops. Oh, how I hate poop! This did not make for a very good weekend. Scott had to preach at another congregation in town on Sunday and we also had the fun task of getting all of our tax stuff ready by Monday. Ahh! Will and I didn't make it to church services at all on Sunday, neither at our home church or the one at which Scott was guest-preaching. Oh well. It rained all day long on Sunday which was nice because it helped me get some much needed sleep.

Will had decided to get up at 5:00 Sunday morning and since he didn't have any intentions of going back to sleep, he and I went out in the rain to get breakfast at McDonald's at 6:30. I thought that would be a quick little trip there and back, but no. We waited in the drive through for what seemed like about 30 minutes. Maybe it was really closer to twenty. However, it was a ridiculous amount of time. Each person in front of me took so long to order that I thought they must all be ordering for an army or at least their entire Sunday school class. When I finally pulled up to the little ordering box, I saw that all the person in front of me had ordered was a deluxe breakfast. I was amazed. It took me maybe 30 seconds to order. Then, when I got to the window, the man told me the credit card machine was down. I had only brought my debit card and my driver's license with me. Thank goodness Scott had a stash of quarters in my car, so I had to count out $4.32 in change to pay. Crazy!

Today, Will seems to be feeling a lot better. He was in such a foul mood (I know it was because he felt so awful) all weekend that it was good to have my sweet boy back again this morning. This week is spring break (for the entire world, I think!) for Scott, so he doesn't have to make the trip to ACU tomorrow--yea! Wednesdays are always a little bit insane because of that. It's nice to have him just a phone call away.

I don't have any new pictures right now on account of my camera's batteries died and I have been too lazy to find new ones to replace them. Hopefully soon I will get some pictures up of Will's new room (still unfinished) and my lovely baby bump. Speaking of my lovely baby--she is doing quite well, it seems. She is my little acrobat. It feels like she is constantly doing somersaults and kicking and punching away. Maybe she will be a little gymnast or a karate champ when she gets older :)

Pink Anxiety

Okay, I have a question for all you moms out there who have little girls. When you went for your sonogram and the technician said (without guarantee, of course), "it looks like a girl," did you have anxiety about them being wrong? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it's hard for me to be really excited about having a girl because I am so afraid that I will have everything for a little girl and she will come out a boy! Not that I wouldn't love having another little boy, but do you know what I mean? Am I nuts? I guess I am just worried becuase she said that there was an 80% chance it was a girl and to save my receipts if I go nuts buying pink. Well, like I said, we did not see a "turlte," and it looked like two lines to me, but I'm still weird about all this. So, my question is, did you all just accept that you were having a girl without question, or did you worry too?

Baby #2 is a...

...girl! Well, at least there is an 80% chance that it's a girl. I'm still kind of scared to believe it myself. I wish they could be a little more definite. However, I definitely did not see a "turtle," and it did look much more like girl parts than boy parts. We are excited! I now have to do a lot of looking at all the wonderfully cute girl items out there to choose what I want for the nursery. There are just too many things to choose from, if you ask me! I've been doing some surfing on eBay today already.


In other news, we got Will's new big boy room painted this weekend and somewhat put together. His new bed is good to go and valances are hung. We do need to do a few touch-ups around the room, though. We are still waiting on a rug I ordered that will hopefully look really cute and pull it together. Thanks, Mom, for all your help. We really enjoyed having you here!

Certifiable

Well, not that kind of certifiable, but I am now certified for pregnancy Medicaid. This is a huge blessing for us. We do have individual insurance coverage, but no individual plans offer coverage for maternity. You can only get that through a group. So, this pregnancy was going to have to be completely out of pocket on our part. With some help from the hospital business office, we were put in touch with the Texas Dept. of Health and now are covered by Medicaid. This came at a great time because our very expensive "big" sonogram is coming up on Monday. Whew!

Anyway, that's what's happening with us today. My mom is coming this weekend and is going to be helping us paint and put together Will's new big boy room. She is bringing the old twin bed that my brother and I used as kids for him. So exciting! She is also bringing him an outdoor play structure that you can climb on and slide down. He will love that because he is really into playing outside lately. Now we just have to be really diligent about picking up doggy doo.

Have a great weekend :)

Beth Moore Live! (Via Satellite) :)

I was asked by a friend to post about the Beth Moore simulcast I went to today. It was, of course, awesome. They said that they were reaching around 100-150,000 people today, which is pretty amazing. Over 500 different places were doing simulcasts. It was a blessing to be a part of it.

The worship leader was really good; I thought he would have done really well on Broadway. He had one of those Broadway-type voices--big, beautiful, lots of verbratto, able to hold really long notes, etc. His name is Travis Cottrell. The rest of the worship team was excellent, too. They sang a lot of songs I didn't know, but I did know a few or was able to catch on.

I went by myself, so at first I sat by myself. At our site, there were only about 70 people (quick background--the First Baptist Church in our area recently went through a pretty devastating split; they lost about 250 members, including their pastor, youth minister, and two other staff members. So, attendance was low, I think because of this) so it was pretty obvious I was by myself. A teacher from the high school where I used to work had me come and sit with her, so that was nice; I didn't have to sit alone. The only bad part about today was that the wind here was HORRIBLE (with gusts up to 62 mph). I had to put that in all caps and bold so I could really convey how bad it was. The sky was brown. Even if you closed your mouth when walking outside, you still got dirt in it. This is how bad it was. Anyway, because of the wind, the satellite feed wasn't so good. At one point, right after Beth got up to speak, the lights went out and the feed went completely off. Thankfully, she was still doing intro-type stuff. After lunch (which I'm sure everyone fervently prayed during lunch for God to calm the winds), the feed was much better and hardly acted up at all. Yea!

Beth Moore is just an incredible speaker. She can make you laugh (for those of you who know about her "hair ministry," she did quite a lot of that at the beginning), she can make you feel like she is speaking directly to you and about you, and she can definitely make you shed tears, whether of joy, appreciation, heartache, or pain. It was a really great experience for me. She was teaching on deliverance and letting God deliver us out of our respective "pits." I'm sure her book is awesome (titled "Get Out of That Pit"), and I hope to get it, maybe when it comes out in paperback or I can get it used. I just don't have the bucks to spend on it right now, but I would really love to read it someday. Today's simulcast made me really want to go and hear her speak live; God really can use this woman to speak to people--it's really just awesome. I recommend you go and see her if you ever get the chance, or go to a simulcast. I think you would really enjoy it.

As for the rest of our day, it was great, even though the weather was quite hellish! Will spent the better part of the day with one of his former Bible-class teachers and had a good time. Scott was busy getting ready for a scavenger hunt with the youth tonight. The hunt ended up at a restaurant where we met him for dinner with the kids. It was fun even though we didn't get our food until after 8:15! I feel like I just got home even though I've been home for almost an hour now. I hope everyone else's Saturday was as blessed as mine has been. Have a good Sunday!

Okay, so I really don't have anything to say, but I figured, why not blog?


For those who do not know (which is probably most of you), I am taking a leave of absence/hiatus from my job for a while. I am really tired and it is a good time to lay low in-between busy times. So, for the last four days, I have been back to being a stay-at-home-mom and I am loving it. It is so nice to have a pretty much constantly picked-up house, clean dishes/sink; I even mopped my floors today--a major accomplishment! So, I am pretty proud of my Susie Homemaker skills. Sorry to toot my own horn, but for those who know me well, you understand why I am so pumped about this.

Pregnancy related news: the baby is most definitely moving around in there. I have a little acrobat on my hands. It's so much fun to feel it move! I always thought that was pretty much the coolest thing about being pregnant (other than the fact that you are helping to bring another life into the world, that is). On the flip side, I think my pregnancy is affecting my eyesight. I remember reading somewhere when I was pregnant with Will that the fluid levels (or something like that) can change in your eyes or behind them and cause temporary changes to your vision. Well, let me tell you, this is really annoying because I have had a constant headache for about a week now, and I am ready for it to go away! If it is still persistant by my next appointment, I'll have to ask for medical advice. "They" say you shouldn't get a prescription change while you're pregnant because it could be just a temporary change, but what do I do in the meantime...just suffer? Anyway, just thought I'd share my weird eye problems.

This weekend the First Baptist Church in town is hosting a Beth Moore simulcast. She'll be speaking based on her new book, "Get Out of That Pit." I'm planning on going and I'm excited about it. We've been doing her "Patriarchs" Bible study on Wednesday nights at church and I have really enjoyed it, so this should be really great, too. [By the way, Lubbock friends, in case you didn't know, I hear that one of the churches up there is doing a simulcast as well; if you are interested in attending.]

Next weekend, my mom is coming and I'm really excited. We had to postpone her trip for about 3 weeks because of our unexpected trip to Florida, but now she is able to come and will even be here for my big sonogram on the 5th. I'm looking forward to seeing her.

I guess that's about all I have for now...I hope everyone has a great weekend!

***Okay, just in case it happens again, I have no idea why blogger insists on making this whole thing one paragraph. Sorry if this is confusing to you! I did try to fix it!***

A Friendly Weekend

I got a special treat this weekend. One of my best friends from college came to pay me a visit! Jen lives in Lubbock, so you'd think we would see each other pretty often, but we don't. I haven't seen her since Labor Day. So this was a fun weekend just to catch up, relax and have fun.

Me and Jen after church this morning

Being silly

I don't have much else to report right now...you can look at my other blog for new pictures of the bump and Will. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Happy Valentine's Day

If I never hear the word "Valentine" again, I might die a happy woman. No, I'm kidding. But seriously, when you work in the floral industry, it is rare that your Valentine's Day is happy. Not that it's horrible, or sad, it's just stressful! The past two days at the shop have been absolutely insane. The phone rings non-stop (I can still hear it ringing in my head!), there is never not someone needing help, there are constant orders to be typed and filled...ahh! I'm just glad another February 14th has come and gone. I don't think I ate lunch until after 2:00 today and then I barely scarfed it down. But, I did log in almost 12 hours today--good for my bank account :) That does make me happy.




Anywho...my V-day gift was plugged in and waiting for me on the kitchen counter this morning. I am the proud owner of a brand-new microwave! Yea! The one we had was one that Scott had won at his project graduation in 1996 and it was really starting to bite the dust. It would take forever to heat up food. So, I am super excited about my new appliance.





Our trip to Florida was pretty good, under the circumstances. Flying out of Midland at 7:30 AM on Thursday wasn't the best, and landing in Midland on Monday night at 11:00 wasn't either, but other than that, it was a pretty good trip. It was really nice to see all of Scott's brothers together again. I have only met his oldest brother, Patrick, and his family one other time, so it was nice to get to know them a little better. I had also only met my sister-in-law, Monica (wife of another brother), and her kids one other time, so it was really nice to see them again, too. I think that everyone enjoyed getting to spend time together. Thank you again to all of you who have been praying for Scott and his family. It has meant a lot to all of us.





I am including a picture of Scott with his brothers and another of his parents, brothers, their wives and all the kids. Big family!

Patrick, Corey, Scott, and Trey

(From left to right--sort of:) Brett, Monica, Brandon, Kayla, Corey, Tristan, Harvey, Lauren, Will, LaDon, Scott, Becca, Trey, Liz, Abby, Amber, Patrick, Rachel, Michelle, and Andrew

16 Week Baby Update

Well, in less than a month we will (hopefully) find out whether the newest addition to our family is a boy or a girl. I went to the doctor today for my monthly check-up and everything seems to be going just fine. We heard the baby's heartbeat and I had my triple-screen blood test. All in all, not a too exciting appointment, but next month's will be.

In other baby news, I am about 99% positive I have felt the baby move. It feels just the same as when I first felt Will move, so it just has to be. Even though it's early, I think I am feeling it just because I know what to "look" for. It's pretty cool!

Not much else is happening. We are getting ready to head out on Thursday and as soon as I get back next week, I will be thrust into the fire at work because it will be Valentine's Day! It is always super-crazy, so it should be interesting when I get back. Tonight I am going to have a girls' night with Harmony and some other friends of ours. Harmony's family is out of town, so she is having a little get-together at her place. It should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. Tomorrow, I get my hair cut. That's always fun. I really just like it because they wash your hair and it feels so good :)

I'm not sure that I will post again until after I get back from Florida, so everyone have a safe and happy weekend and Happy Valentine's Day :)