The Weekend

I cannot begin to express how touched I am by the blog comments, Facebook comments, emails, and texts. It's incredible (a) that people read that novel of a post and (b) that people took the time to write and give advice/support.  Thank you.

It's really kind of hard to lay all of that information out there about myself. I'm so glad I will have it to look back on though.

I know I said that I was going to blog everyday this month, but I decided to give myself some grace this weekend. 

I'm glad I did because I was really tired and last night I was in an incredible amount of pain. I'm still not sure if it was just pms cramps or the beginning of an obstruction. I'm terrified all of the time of that happening again. Crohn's can make pms symptoms a lot worse, so I'm hopeful that that was all it was. I don't want to constantly talk about my Crohn's, but it is part of my life now so I will talk about it when I feel the need.

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Friday, the kids were out of school. We had the repairman for our heater come and finish fixing it and we were just really lazy all day. We introduced the kids to the first Harry Potter movie that night and B Boy is now officially obsessed. He has been pretending to be different characters and he wants to start reading the books.

Saturday morning, I took B Boy to a birthday party for one of his friends. He had a great time and I got to sit and talk with some friends from church that I rarely get to talk to!

Tim came to pick up B and brought C Girl to me so that we could have a lady date! We ate lunch at Olive Garden and then shopped at Target. It was a lot of fun to get some QT with my girl!

Saturday evening, the ladies in my book club and I all met up for dinner and to watch Wild. Since I had just read the book, it was so fresh in my mind. The movie was good, but they left SO much out from the book!

Tim has been really sick the past week and even went to the doctor on Friday. Neither him, nor I was feeling well Sunday morning, so we stayed home from church. We had a little bit during the day where we felt well enough to pick up around the house some. The house is finally starting to feel clean and normal again after Christmas. 

I'm still trying to participate in the cleaning/organizing challenge from A bowl full of Lemons. It took the entire week, but I pretty much completed the kitchen. I will be doing the laundry room this week.

I looked over and saw this on B Boy's forehead yesterday. He drew a Harry Potter scar on himself!!!!

C Girl started back to choir and GA's last night and B Boy back to RA's. They love these programs and I am SO thankful that our church offers them! 

The kiddos are out of school today and it is going to be a beautiful day. We have an appointment this afternoon, but I'm hoping we can get outside and do something! It's going to be too pretty not to! I need to store up some vitamin D!

Friday randoms

TGIF!

I'm so glad it is the weekend!

I was able to have my weekly catch up with a sweet friend yesterday during piano lessons. Her son has lessons during the same time.

Yesterday evening, some ladies in our Sunday school class met up at the home of Susan Goss. Susan is a wonderful, beautiful and extremely funny woman who goes to our church. She is also a faith based counselor. Over the past year, we have had a few "sessions" with her. She has tremendous knowledge and shares so much good stuff with us.

Last night, we discussed prayer.

Somehow, the words came out of my mouth about one of my deepest shames in my life- 

I have never prayed out loud around other people in my entire life.

She gave so much Godly advice and I feel such peace about where all of this is leading me.

I'm thankful for friends who do not judge when you confess/share. Although, my friend Kacy almost killed me on the drive over! Just kidding! She will get it!

Susan is also the childhood friend of someone that a lot of people might know:

This morning, my friend Berkli came over for coffee and our weekly "catch up." We usually walk weekly, but it is way too cold for me right now! It's fun to sit in our robes with coffee and just chat!

I ran some errands today. One of those errands was to pick up a Redbox movie for tonight. We got a digital gift card for Christmas. The way you use it is to register online, pick your location, pick your movie, and then take the credit card on file with you when you go pick it up. I *thought* I had picked a certain location, but apparently I wasn't thinking that there were two Neighborhood Markets on this specific street. You would think that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but it was 30 minutes round trip out of my way. I will definitely be more careful with that process in the future!

A friend posted this recipe for a homemade chai latte recently and I made one today. It is so delicious and easy to make! I halved the recipe to make one serving, used a vanilla chai tea bag, steeped the tea instead of using a coffee pot, and used 1 tsp. of vanilla extract in place of the vanilla creamer.

Tonight, we are going to have dinner at home and watch Rio 2!

I went to the library today to get some good old fashioned fiction. I also got the sound recording for the book, Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail. It is our January book club book. We are going to dinner and to see the movie next weekend.

I haven't listed to an audio book in years and I'm kind of looking forward to it!

the weekly recap

B Boy started TREC last week. It is our district's one day a week, all day gifted and talented program. He had an awesome time!

Last Tuesday, I got to hear my sweet friend, Berkli share her testimony at church. It was wonderful and I was so happy to learn a few things about this lovely lady!

Thursday evening was supposed to be my monthly book club meeting, but our leader broke her foot recently! :-( My friend, Amber and I decided we would still go out to dinner. We ate at On the Border and had great conversation! I'm so glad to know her!

I bought these leggings at Walmart. They are a little outside my comfort zone, but I really love them!

Friday morning, I was so nervous because Garth Brooks tickets for Little Rock went on sale and Tim & I really wanted to go! Thankfully we did get seats and we are so excited to give this Christmas present to ourselves!!!

Saturday morning, we had a "Mugs & Muffins" event at our church and we heard from Clay and Renee Crosse. We are so blessed to have him as our worship leader. They shared a great word about their ministry, Holy Homes.

(this helped keep me occupied on Sunday)

Sunday, I had to be on a liquid diet to prepare for my GI tests on Monday. I dreaded drinking the "prep." It ended up making very sick and I couldn't drink very much of it. I had to cancel my colonoscopy, but did have my EGD done. It was normal, thankfully.

Yesterday was Veteran's day and my very dear friend, Kelly's birthday. I'm so thankful for our veteran's, especially all of my family and friends who have served/are serving.

We made chicken and dumplings last night and the kids insisted on cutting hearts out of the dough! I love that they love to cook!

Today was a hair appointment for me and a big grocery run. It was 28 degrees and felt like 19 degrees when I got home this afternoon. It is FRIGID!!!

the weekly recap

On Tuesday, I went to an even called "Mom App" with my friend, Jennifer.

The top was "raising children in the digital age." I got so much good information. I feel like I'm pretty tech savvy and there were a few things I had not heard about!

The kiddos had their annual "well child" visit on Tuesday afternoon.  All is well and they are growing right on track!

Tuesday evening was my monthly book club meeting. Our book that we had read and were discussing was Divergent. I didn't read it again since I have read it in the last 2 years. It was fun talking about it again- I loved that series so much!

On Wednesday evening, we drove down to Fayetteville. Bikes, Blues and Barbecue started that day and every year, Tim's half brother comes with his company and sets up a booth. This was the first year we were able to go down and visit him. It was also our very first time to BBBQ.

I'm very glad that we went on Wednesday because it is pure craziness and busyness this weekend!

My kids were in heaven getting to climb on all of the display motorcycles.

This picture KILLS me!

It was so good to see Tim's brother! We left and B Boy said, "I sure do have a lot of uncles!"

After the visit, we headed to Washington Regional to visit our very good friends, Rick and Brittnie. Their little guy who is not yet 4 months old, was admitted for viral meningitis. He is going to be okay, but I know that it must have terrified them. He is just the cutest baby ever! I can't wait to visit him when he is all better!

I snapped a couple of pictures of the kids with their instruments recently.

I love that they are learning to play. That is one thing I wish I had learned. I guess it's never too late to start!

My friend, Jenn invited me and some other friends to be guests at her table for the Pink Ribbon lunch on Thursday.

I'm always so honored to be able to support and celebrate her beating cancer!

How cute are friends, Elizabeth and Laurie? They bought the same top!

We got to hear from Amy Purdy, who among other things, was a 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist and contestant on Dancing with the Stars. 

She lost both legs when she was 19 after contracting bacterial meningitis. She has such a positive outlook on life and began looking at her loss as a positive and continues to pursue all of her dreams.

Our emcees took a selfie :-)

Jenn walked in the fashion show! She did an amazing job and looked fabulous! AND she just had her last surgery the other day! She has blown me away throughout this whole journey with how much she has continued to do and always with faith and humor.

B Boy had a soccer game today. We melted in the sun, but loved getting to watch him play!

We are currently watching our Hogs beat Texas A&M. We are only ahead by 1 touchdown, but if we win, that will be SO BIG for us!

funny friends, field trips and Florida Georgia Line

It's good when you have so much life going on that you don't have time to blog.

There was a LOT of life going on this past week!

I met with my monthly book club friends on Tuesday night. 

We had read a really easy book this time, so we mainly just sat around and talked, laughed and ate!

I made everyone take a selfie!

These ladies are SO funny and we laughed so much!

Thursday evening was a baby shower for a sweet lady in our Sunday school class.

She is due with twin girls very soon!

We had a great time of celebrating, talking, eating and laughing!!!

These ladies are some of the funniest people I know!

Earlier that day, I went on a field trip to Hobbs State Park with all of 2nd grade!

We learned a lot about animals in our region and the land and topography.

We made friends in nature :-)

This lizard stayed like this for a quite awhile so we got a good look at him!

It made me think of a reptile that I played with a lot as a child in Oklahoma- the horny toad.

Apparently, it is actually called the Texas horned lizard. I loved these little guys! We would catch them and keep them in buckets when they were really little. They were fun to play with and watch.

C Girl and one of her BFF's

Friday morning, I went with 1st grade on their field trip to the Spanish Treasure Cave.

The cave was neat! They got to "pan" for gems after the tour.

Jessica drove up Friday night because we had tickets to see Florida Georgia Line at Arvest ball park!

We made the BEST memories ever!

First of all, the trip there was crazy.

I had not thought that traffic would be as bad as it was. We were on the shoulder of the interstate for an HOUR waiting to get off on the exit.

At one point, we had parked at a bank and had started walking through a cow pasture to get to the park.

I quickly nixed that idea because I knew it was probably a mile to the stadium.

We got back in the car, drove down and found a "semi" legal parking spot right near the parking lot.

We got there just in time to hear the last few of Nelly's songs. I wish we had been there for all of it!

We had tickets on the field and it was awesome!

The concert was great!

Baby get your shine on!

 

Baby you a song, you make me want to roll my windows down and CRUISE!

She gets me like no one else does! 

Just a few more days until she is here for an entire week!

B Boy had a game on Saturday morning and he had a hit!

We went to the batting cages today and he was hitting most every pitch that Tim threw to him! We will master the pitching machine! Once he gets to coach pitch- watch out!

Today we went to church. We had a great sermon by our pastor and a great Sunday school lesson.

I had Bible study this afternoon. This study is about sexuality and how God intended it. We have discussed a LOT of things and a lot of it focuses on how we are going to teach this to our children. 

Purity is something I want to instill in both of my children. It is not something that is easy to do in our culture, but I am constantly praying for God to guide me in my role as their guide.