Labor Day Weekend Plans & More

Tomorrow morning, at 6:00 A.M (seriously?), starts the beginning of my Labor Day Weekend plans which will include being in a car with a toddler for over 12 hours. Pray for us!

But there will be lots of fun had also.

My dad is driving to the mountains of Colorado to help my Uncle build more of his log cabin that he will use as his family's vacation home. How fun is that? Not jealous at all. Anyway, so my dad is going to drop my mom, Ella and I off in Kansas on his way through so we can spend the weekend with my mom's family. I'm so excited because it's always a lot of fun. I have 4 cousins close to my age, uncles, an aunt and a grandma. And the latest edition, little David, my 4 month old second cousin.

I probably won't be posting anything else until next week since we aren't coming home until Tuesday and considering I will have to steal somebody's wireless internet that hopefully reaches to my grandma's house so I don't go into convulsions from not checking my email or my blogging friends' sites for the 20th time that day. There's no way I can go cold turkey with this.

We are going to be gone for five nights, which is a long time for the Punkin' and I to be away from our man. We are going to miss you so much!

So I leave you with some pictures from last week when my parents took my two young cousins, Zach and Ethan, me and Ella to a water park.

This is us waiting to get in the pool because the instant we arrived we heard some thunder and the place shut down and made everybody get out of the water and wait for it to pass...for 20 MINUTES. Our toes did not even get a chance to cool off. Thankfully it did finally open back up, right when I thought the boys were going to lose their minds.


Ella discovered she could splash us, which she thought was the greatest thing ever.


My dad and I decided to play a game of throw the Punkin' and she loved it! She kept saying "mow, mow", which is her word for more.


Cousin Ethan in action!




Zach and I about to head down the slide.


Sweet cousins.


I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend. I can't wait to hear about all you did!

Obsessed

I don't have many interesting happenings right now, but I wanted to tell y'all about two blogs that I am obssessed with. And when I say obssessed, I mean that in the nicest, most least crazy way possible. But I really do love these bloggers and their huge families.

The first is The Guinn Triplets. Their triplets are almost a year and a half and their pictures are so adorable, every single one.

The second one is Life Through My Eyes. This couple just had quadruplets the first of August! Quadruplets! Are you seeing a pattern with the blogs I am obssessed with? Their story is so sweet. The babies are all still in the NICU, but one of them gets to probably come home this week. It's an exciting time for them and I love that I get to be a part even though I don't know them at all.

I just saw on the Quad's blog that they are going to be on the local DFW news tonight at 10:00. All channels: FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I think Sunni wrote about both of these blogs in post of hers a while back. Thanks Sunni, you're probably the one that got me started on reading both of these.

Y'all have to read these blogs if you don't already. You will be so blessed. I promise.

Day at the Museum

This morning, Ella and Laney got to hang out together at the Fort Worth Museum of Science. This is a great place to take your young children if you live in the area. There was so much for the babies to do. They had a blast.

On the way there. Can't you just tell how excited they are?


There is a pretend grocery store. It's one of the cutest things I have seen. The babies get to shop and then go to the cashier, scan their items and pay. It's adorable.


Ella loved to put the fruit in her basket. Apparently she pretend likes it at the pretend grocery store since she definitely doesn't in real life.


They loved the fun puppet show Kristin put on for them.




Then they tried to put on their own show.

City Girl

I was reading The Preacher's Wife blog the other day like many other days and was hysterically laughing at her post about this small town country game they like to play called Cow Plop.

While reading, I was struck with how much of a city girl I really am.

I was born a blue eyed, blonde hair girl in the heart of Los Angeles. I have very few memories of living there, but I think it was long enough to instill the desire in me to live in the big city.

From there my family moved to a medium sized city in Illinois. I loved living in Illinois as a child because of all the snow. Those are my favorite memories of being there, not the size of the city, but the amount of fun that could take place.

Next is where I got my only taste so far in life of a small town. My family from Illinois moved to an itty bitty town called Cameron in central Texas and this is where we officially became Texans. I was 5 years old when we moved to Cameron, so practically a born Texan since it's almost all I know and can remember.

Cameron had all of those small town traditions that are so loved. We had only the one high school, so the town shut down just like most small towns on Friday nights. We played all the other small towns around us and it was incredibly exciting. Even as a young child I could sense the pride of this town.

I have so many memories of walking to school, climbing trees, running over to a friend's house to play, watchin my sister chear on Friday nights. We lived in Cameron until I was in 7th grade.

At the beginning of my 7th grade year, my family moved to Garland. I was once again immersed into a large city. My junior high class was about 350. My freshmen year of high school I was in a class of about 700. It was so opposite of my small town I had grown to love, but it only took me about one second to adjust back to the big city.

My sophomore year of high school we moved once more and settled in Dallas.

I love the city. I've had a taste of both and there certainly are things about that small town that I loved so much! Things like a Cow Plop! But my heart belongs to the city. I love being surrounded by people, the Starbucks on every corner, the option of which mall I want to go to, and a Super Target that is only 3 blocks away.

But we never know where God is going to take us. I could definitely find myself in a small town again and if so, I will embrace those country folk and their traditions like I never left.

18 Month Pics

18 Months

Today Ella is 18 months. That's a year and a half! A year and a half! In 6 months she will be 2 years old. But I'm not emotional about this at all. Not one bit. Not even a smidge. Okay maybe a little.

Here are the 18 things that I love the MOST about Ella:

1. She must say goodbye to everything when walking away from it. Her toothbrush, the door, her highchair, her stuffed animals, her crib, her food, her bath.

2. She loves to snuggle with her stuffed animals. She picks one that she will love on for the day and she carries it around the house constantly giving it hugs.

3. She can point out her nose and everybody else's nose and wants to do it a million times a day.

4. She can shake her head no when asked a question, but doesn't know how to nod yes. So every question's answer is a no with a very passionate head shake.

5. She loves to drink out of big people cups way over her sippy cups.

6. She will almost pay attention long enough for me to finish reading one of her books to her.

7. She has learned to climb on the couch, chair and ottoman. I'm not sure if I love this, but it's stinkin' cute.

8. Her vocabulary is expanding daily. She's starting to say two words together, not very many yet, but a few. The sweetest is "hi mama!". My heart melts everytime.

9. Her new favorite show is The Upside Down Show on Noggin. She loves those guys. I can actually cook dinner thanks to them.

10. She has so many friends that she loves so much. She gets so excited when she gets to see one of them.


11. She feels very passionate about many things and one of those is her swing. We finally had to store her inside baby swing, but we spend a lot of time on her swing outside.

12. She doesn't cry anymore when I drop her off at our church nursery. We had major issues with this a few months ago, but she is over it. And I am one of the things that she gets to say bye to as I walk out the door with my bottom lip out.

13. She is the girliest baby I have ever heard of. She makes everything into a bracelet and/or necklace. She must constantly have either of those on her body at all times. She loves bows and hats She loves to play with my shoes. She hates getting dirty and will barely touch the grass.


14. She is becoming very independent. Not sure how much I love this, but it definitely is good in some ways. Like eating. She now wants to feed herself with a spoon. Which means I get to eat at the same time she is eating. See, look how positive I am about her growing independence.

15. Peek a boo and chase still remain her favorite games. She laughs so hard everytime we play and there is no sound sweeter.

16. She loves to give kisses, real kisses. She actually leans in and puckers her lips. It's the sweetest thing ever! And she loves to hold our hands. I can ask her to hold my hand and she reaches up and grabs my finger. In those moments, could I be any happier? No.

17. She has such a sweet deamenor already. I thank God every night for the sweet spirit He placed in her.

18. Last but not least, I love the way she loves our dog Jones. Since the birth of Ella, poor Jones has taken a back seat in our lives. He went from baby to dog. But I'm thankful for him because he adds so much entertainment to Ella's life. And he loves her. He is very protective of her and can hear her crying before I can sometimes. He's a good dog.
These pictures were taken when Ella was about 6 months old. I couldn't resist posting them again!






How is it possible to consume so much love for somebody? I've said this before and I'll say it a thousand more times, but being able to experience the love for your child here on earth is a daily glimpse for me to be able to imagine how much more God loves His children.

"How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure. That He should give His only Son, to make a wretch His treasure."


Happy Half Birthday you precious precious girl!

200th

This is my 200th post! It really seems like a lot, but I've been blogging for a few years now and so it really should be my 400th post or more. I went through many dry spells not because of my lack of desire to blog, but mainly because of my lack of feeling creative. I have however done much better the last 6 months and I hope that I can continue to be better for many more.

I thought in honor of this 200th post, I would give a little background of why and when I started to write.

My first post was November 9, 2005 when I was 23 weeks pregnant with Ella. I honestly have no idea why I thought of blogging. I must have known somebody who had done it but I can't remember who that was now. So I just started experimenting.

Like most of y'all, I started a blog with the purpose of keeping far away family informed with my pregnancy, including pictures of my growing belly bump and stats on baby. And then to keep far away family informed on baby Ella. Since then, my blog has remained just that and then some. It's been a joy for me to be able to "meet" so many new blogging friends as well as a blessing to be able to share our sweet baby girl in all of her cuteness with y'all.

Thank you guys for your support through your commitment to keep up with us and for all of your sweet comments. They are blessing, every single one.

Want Some?

You Broke The Chains Now I Can Lift My Hands

I think I might have just stolen the spot for a pretend BFF.

Amazing. Breathtaking. Extraordinary. Spectacular. Beautiful. Striking.

Seeing Mandisa live exceeded all the moments I spent daydreaming of what it would be like to see her in person since I found out about her concert 4 days prior to it. Not only did I feel like I had gone to heaven and was listening to the Angels sing, but she looked GOOD y'all!

She sang several of her worship songs from her new cd. Each song blew me away more and more. There's no doubt that this girl can SANG, but she can bring the Word too! Her message was just as incredible as her singing ability. She was incredibly encouraging to everyone in that room Thursday night. She had such a great testimony of her relationship with the Lord. She talked about how when Simon said the horrible thing about her, she spiraled down and started doubting the Lord and shutting Him out of her life. But He sweetly reminded her of what true beauty is in His eyes. That His idea of beauty is certainly NOT what this world's idea of beauty is. And He brought her out of the pit she was in.

Towards the very end of the concert, Mandisa announced this would be her last song. I was begging the Lord to let it be "Shackles" and it was! We were pumping our hands in the air. I could have heard her sing it 20 times that night and still remained amazed.

We were so blessed!

Ella had so much fun dancing to her music!




"Look it's Mandisa!"


Thanks Grandma and Grandad for taking us!