Thursday thoughts

Today has already been a full day.

C Girl and I had to leave the house at 7:15 for an 8 am appointment. She had a consultation for Myobrace. We ended up doing all of her photos/mouth records and were there until 10:30!

I had to rush her to school, grab lunch and head to my hair appointment.

 I had subtle highlights done and I really like it! I was wanting a little something different for a change!

 I tried to get a decent picture!

I'm enjoying an afternoon cup of coffee before the kiddos get home and we have to head off to piano lessons.

One thing that has been pressed on me a lot lately is "leaning in" to relationships (I just finished reading Restless by Jennie Allen.)

What I mean by that is going past the superficial and digging deeper to know people more. I have met friends in many different ways since moving here and I'm blessed to know a lot of wonderful ladies. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to know some a lot more!

Fun times with family and other things

Life has been B.U.S.Y. lately.

I'm not a big fan of complete business, but this week has been full of family time so that makes it all worth it!

Last Tuesday, our women's ministry had our spring brunch. We had WONDERFUL breakfast food, got to visit with friends, and we heard from a lady from another local church who is very knowledgeable about home organization.

Thursday morning, I attended the volunteer breakfast at the school that my kiddos attended previously. I still occasionally volunteer there. It is a wonderful school and they have implemented the Leader in Me model. This is their second year of using it, and it has been incredible the change that it has made with students and the school overall.

They focus on the 7 habits of highly effective people.

On Friday, we traveled south to do decoration for my family and to attend the graduation of our great niece, Madison.

We don't get very many opportunities to go to Belleville (where my Cates family lived for many years) and Ola (where Tim grew up.)

My biological father,  granny and grandpa, aunt and other cousins are all buried in the same cemetery there.

We also went to the cemetery where Tim's dad is buried.

It's not something that I want to do often, but it was good to go back and visit and remember our sweet loved ones that have gone on. The kids were very interested in this whole process and especially seeing where Tim's dad's grave was.

We drove around Ola and Tim told us some stories from his childhood. The kids are at an age where they soak all of this kind of stuff up. Ola is a very tiny town and a lot of it is sadly run down now.

Tim spent lots and lots of time at this lake.

The school where Tim went to high school, where he coached football, and where he eventually became principal.

Afterwards, we headed to see Madison graduate.

Madison is a beautiful, smart girl and we know that she will do great things!

Tim loved catching up with one of his former football players, who now is the head football coach in the Two Rivers school district.

It was a long day because we drove home Friday night.

B Boy had a baseball game early Saturday morning, and then we came home to get ready for company. Keith, Jessica and Parker came to visit!

We took C Girl with us on our shopping excursion this time. It's safe to say that this girl is going to fit right into our shenanigan's! We had some hilarious times!!!

Oh, I love these moments! I love that my kiddos have awesome cousins to grow up with and so much family that loves them!

Uncle Keithy gets attacked by children every time!!!

After they left to head home, we headed to Crystal Bridges. They were having a Chalk Fest and chalk artists were working on this cool chalk illusion.

The kids got to create their own chalk art!

Craig Thomas was the chalk artist.

There were lots of awesome chalk drawings all over Walker Landing.

We went inside to the children's art area for a little while.

This morning, we had another appointment for B Boy with the ENT. We are not removing his tonsils as of this time. We are going to go down some other avenues and see if we can find some nose improvement. We are tired of nasty boogers!

I had a hair appointment today!!! I love those days. I also wore a shirt I bought this weekend that I LOVE!

I went to a PTO meeting at school today. I'm involved in PTO, but it was only the 2nd meeting that I have attended this year. I'm hoping to get more involved next year. It was a nice break this year with only BPTO though! Last year wore me out!

B Boy had a baseball game tonight. They played a great game, but we did not win. It's only our second loss, so that's pretty good! B Boy was part of a great play tonight and the coach gave him the team ball after the game! He was super excited! So proud of him!

Hair drama & other things

This week has been something else.  I had a hair appointment on Monday for my normal color and cut.  On Monday evening, as I was looking in the mirror in the bathroom, I noticed that my hair was not looking normal.  

My roots(new growth) were way darker than the rest of my hair.

I got a hold of my stylist and she had me come in Tuesday to "fix" it.

I had my book club on Tuesday evening, so I didn't really examine my hair a whole lot. It had looked better in the salon so I thought all was well.

Wednesday evening, I was once again in the bathroom looking in the mirror.  

My hair was NOT better.

BIG sigh.

I had another friend who used to do my hair stop by. She agreed that it needed to be fixed.

SO, yesterday I went back to the stylist for the 3rd time this week.

It does look MUCH better, but I can still tell that it does not look as good as it normally does.

So, 5 hours at the salon later, I'm still frustrated. I really love my stylist, but I want my hair to be normal every time.  Should I try to find another lady?  

If any of my local friends have recommendations, please let me know!  

Wednesday night, Tim and I discussed health insurance options while the kids were at AWANA. Hot date, right?!

Insurance is definitely not the easiest thing to understand and decide on :(

Yesterday, I had my appointment for the Cancer Prevention Study-3.  What an honor it is to be able to participate in that. The appointment only took 25 minutes.

Afterwards, I met up with my friend Jessica from Sunday school.  Do you remember my friend Jenn who I told you about not long ago?  She is also in my Sunday school class and was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Yesterday was her birthday AND her 2nd round of chemo.

What a suck that is!

Jessica and I went and got Sonic drinks and cupcakes for everyone who was sitting with her.

I got her a card and a tiara.  I'm so glad she liked it and I hope she did feel like a queen yesterday.

She decided to shave her hair last night because her hair has began falling out.

I know inside she is having a really hard time. Who wouldn't be?

BUT, you would never be able to tell from the outside.

We laughed and told stories and had a great time visiting with her yesterday.

It's so hard watching a friend go through this.  She inspires me so much. 

I'm not naive to think she has it all together, but she her sense of humor and trust in God are so obvious through it all.

I'd love for you to pray for her.  Pray that the chemo kicks this cancer's butt so bad that it never comes back! And pray for strength for her during all of this. 

When I left the cancer center, I had to run home to do some things, go to my 3rd hair appointment, hurry over to pick up the kids and take C to gymnastics, run home after to make dinner, have the kids get baths and do homework, go to a 1st grade parent night and then home to put the kids to bed.

Do you ever have days like that?  I felt like I barely had time to pee yesterday!

Today, I'm going to catch up on cleaning the house, make a meal to take to a family and hopefully have a fun date night with my little family!

Tomorrow, we are helping my brother, Kevin move to his new house!  They recently sold their 1st house and just bought a bigger house with a bigger yard.  They live right across the border in Oklahoma now.  So now my brother lives in another state! funny! They still will work where they do now because they literally live very near the AR/OK border.  My brothers have always helped move us, so I was glad to be able to return the favor.

It's raining here this morning. I'm so thankful for the water for my plants & grass and for the lower temperatures that it brought!  I'm enjoying the rain and a big ol' cup of coffee!

I hope everyone has a very enjoyable weekend!

Friday through Tuesday: December 7-11, 2012

I'm throwing this post together because I don't want to forget to blog these things and my week is crazy busy, so I have to do it now!

Friday night, we made graham cracker "gingerbread" houses using healthy snacks.  This was super fun, the kids LOVED it, and they ate it up after we made it!

We then watched "Elf" as a family.  We love that movie!

Saturday, Keith, Jessica and Parker came for the weekend! They made it to join us for the Bentonville Christmas parade! I adore having family with us.  We had such a nice time visiting and eating chicken and dumplings and lots of cookies!

Sweet cousins

My Parker baby and I

Me and my Jessica!

My brother Keith and I

Sunday evening, C Girl had her choir performance at church.  They got to sing all of the songs that they had worked on in choir.

She wanted her picture made by the "beautiful tree"

Monday, I cleaned house all day and we just had a nice dinner of "brinner." That is breakfast for dinner if you are wondering!

Today, I had an appointment to FINALLY get my hair done!  It had been 3 1/2 months! I had to miss the 4W luncheon and I was pretty sad about that.

I went a tad darker and I'm loving it!

We are going ice skating tonight to celebrate Ryan's 6th birthday!  Then, I'm off to a Girl's Night In with some Sunday School girls! Woot!