Wrapping up July

Beauty in the Common Things: Not having anything to do or anywhere to go. All summer, our family has been coming, going and back around again. It was nice today just to be lazy and love on my son.

Listen In: Honey barking outside. She is inside for the week being spoiled. She got 'fixed' and has to rest inside until she heals properly. She occasionally barks outside, I think to let Rowdy know she's still here.

View from the Kitchen Window: A lab mix looking depressed. Rowdy apparently is a sensitive soul. He literally looks sad that Honey is not with him. I remember when he was a puppy, our other dog Daisy got hit by a car. Daniel  buried her in the pasture next to our yard. Rowdy sat there for hours just staring in the direction of the buriel. We'd call him over to us and he'd just give us those sad puppy eyes.

Dinner Plans: Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

My nephew came back and stayed an entire week with us. It also happened to be the week my sister in law stayed a week with us. It was a fun, but tiring week.

We took a visit to see my niece, Vivian, who Grant now paid more attention to. He loved on her and was so happy to feed her. Here he is helping feed her and looking so happy to help me.

My family. It took a while to get us all together, and some of us are STILL not paying attention!

Fletcher and Grant had a great time playing the entire week. Grant would wake up every morning and immediately say, "Mimi's house?" , which is where Fletcher was staying. Here they are helping MiMi with some watering after playing in the pool.

Here, we are going to see Daniel at the ballpark. I made them hold hands whenever I could just because it was so darn cute!

Also, this week happened to be Vacation Bible School at our church. Daniel and I were both teachers and my mom and sister in law even got in on it. Here are some of the ministers helping the kids with one of the songs. It was only 4 days long, but it sure wore us all out! But I was definatley glad to be reminded of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Daniel and I, along with being Bible lesson teachers, were called on to be puppets. The one on the right cracked me up.

Grant was a little too small to be in a class for VBS, but joined in the action anyways. Here he is, of course, singing!

Here is my sister in law, Erica and my nephew Fletcher. Fletcher was in Erica's group for VBS. By day 2 he was absoluetly in love with her. Looks like he already has roaming eyes....haha.

Every day we did something different after VBS. One day we went to Hawaiian Falls, a local small waterpark. Grant and Fletcher loved it!

Here are all of us after enjoying the water.

Here is Grajt spraying his Daddy. Daniel then tried it out and sprayed a bunch of pregnant women. Whoops!

Grant is didnt know where to start when he got there!

Here is Fletcher spraying Erica. I tried to tell him that wasn't the way to get a woman!

After all the family had left, Daniel and I took Grant for a day trip to Glen Rose, TX to see the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park. It is a drive through safari. We were blessed that it was cool that morning, unlike this week being in the 100s.

Grant loved being able to get out of his car seat and roam around the cab to see the animals.

Here is Grant feeding some deer. I loved how the deer would come right up to you that you could pet them. Too bad hunting isn't this easy!

I loved it when we finally saw the giraffes. The herd was running with several zebra. Grajt yelled "Dinosaurs!". Indeed, they looked like dinosaurs running with their long legs and necks.

This rhino got my "So glad you're behind this fence" award. We got pretty close and he looked sweet, but I definatley wouldn't like to make him angry!

The ostrich got the "Thanks for making my husband flinch" award. This sucker was hungry and let you know it. Daniel was very hesitant to roll down the window.

rajt loved also being able to pretend 'drive'. Almost every time we get in the car he asks to drive. Boy, will we have our hands full in 14 years! Hmm, maybe they will raise that minimum age by then!

Lastly, we had to stop and see the dinosaurs. Glen Rose is also known for its Dinosaur State Park where there are footprint fossils and Dinosaur World where they have life size dinosaurs. This one was on the way out of the wildlife park. I'm sure glad they are extinct!

Being an Aunt

Beauty in the Common Things: Our dog, Honey, is in heat and has apparently been sneaking in and out of the yard to get what she wants (or atleast try) so we are having to let her in more often. We brought her in and Grant randomly says, "Oh Honey, she's so cute!"

Listen In: Team Umizoomi, courtesy of Nickelodean

Dinner Plans: Probably something on the road, I have to go pick up my nephew so he can stay with us for the weekend!

View from the Kitchen Window: Daniel finally mowing the yard. We've been so busy lately that its a jungle out there!

I'm an Aunt again! My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on July 1st. She was 9 pounds, 4 ounces. It was a long day that ended in a c-section and plenty of smiles. I'm so excited to be able to spoil her and dress her up in all sorts of things! Grant was sick the day before Baby Vivian was born, so I didn't get to hold her and love on her in the hospital. We waited for everyone to get settled in and then went to visit.

This was her 'coming home' outfit. I bought this outfit for her, never knowing that she'd be leaving the hospital on July 4th! What a firecracker!

Baby Vivian was crying and Grant got concerned and decided she needed to eat!

Proud Aunt and Uncle.

After Vivian was born, we went to visit Daniel's grandparents. They live in the hill country of TX where there are deer everywhere. We took GiGi's mustang convertible out for some deer sightseeing!

There are over 50 deer in the field that we were looking at, and plenty of babies.

We spent July 4th with my brother and his family. Its always great to see how my nephew has changed every time I see him!

Here is Fletcher and Grant in the firetruck. Gotta love matching t-shirts!

After going to the park, the boys took a dip in the blowup pool. They loved taking turns holding the garden hose.

After a good 4th of July weekend and some last minute shopping at IKEA and the Gap Outlet (thanks, Daniel!), we headed home. Halfway there, we ran into traffic and got rear ended.

Grant and I were asleep in the back when it happened and we were all ok. The girl who hit us did have some injuries, but nothing terrible. That made for a LONG trip home.

Labor Dance

Beauty in the Common Things: Having the husband I've always dreamed about. (you'll see what reminded me of this on the next one)
Listen In: There is nothing on Monday night TV, so watching "The Bachelorette". Eww... liers, idiots, and players all wrapped up in six pack abs.
Dinner Plans: Chicken Nuggets, broccoli, corn. Banana bread in the oven...done in an hour!
View from the Kitchen Window: Looks like rain is coming, which we need!
We are still waiting on my niece to make her grand arrival! She will certainly be here this week, but we are all growing impatient. So to get this show in the road, I made Grant put on a 'labor dance'. So, my older sister that I love, please watch this video and suck in the labor vibes!! I want to meet your daughter!!

summertime

Beauty in the Common Things: Grant was sitting next to me this morning and said, "Momma, I need a hug." Oh my, I melted! If you know me at all, you know I'm a hugger!

Listen In: New A/C running (yeah!) while watching 20/20 about Michael Jackson and Grant watching "The Jungle Book" very intensely.

Dinner Plans: Pancakes and sausage

View from the kitchen window: NO sun room. This was on the back of those and it was really wasted space for us. I didn't do the FULL before picture, but just imagine the first one with a roof on it:

This is the after. Its not 100% finished, but its a good start. There is some peel and stick tile left that our dog Honey is doing a good job of removing (I decided just to leave her to it!). I eventually want to stain the concrete and add a pergola. So later on, my backyard will look like this:

Ok, maybe not that fancy, but you get the picture!

Things have been nothing but constantly busy since school ended. I taught tech classes for teachers and then went straight into teaching summer school. Teaching economics is totally different from what I've done, but I have a good group of kids to test the waters with. Speaking of water, we've been doing plenty of swimming so far.

Here is G after swimming at Grammie and; PePaw's house. We went to see Aunt Erica graduate from high school. Congratulations, girl! We are proud of you!

I bought these new floaty type devies made by "Puddle Jumpers". I love it! It keeps him afloat really well and he can move pretty freely with them.
He's been getting brave. Here he is at the Double D Farm. Look at that form!
Grant and Jacob checking out the Gator at the Double D Farm.
One day D took Grant to the zoo while I was at school. He's a braver man that I, but I know they had good Daddy and son time!

We've also been patiently awaiting my sister to have little Vivian. She is 40 weeks today. Every phone call, every thunderstorm, and the latest full moon has made my heart jump. This is my first niece and I can't wait to meet her! Her and I will be best girlfriends! Expect a big blog when she arrives!

Below is a video taken on the way back from Costco with MiMi and PawPaw. PawPaw turned up some dancing music and we were all rockin' the Tahoe. Maybe Grant picked up some moves from me showing him and his Dad my moves from Zumba....haha.

Giving it a Second Thought

I had to blog on another site about a topic. This is what I chose, and I thought I'd go ahead and transfer it here!

I am a product of Generation X. I grew up loving on my Cabbage Patch dolls, watching "Saved By the Bell" on Saturday mornings, and playing Super Mario Brothers on my Nintendo Game System. When learning about wars in my history classes, it never interested me much. Ok, so some people fought, they died, blah blah blah. Yet as I have transitioned into adulthood, I have began to see things about the past from a different angle.

My husband introduced me to the History Channel, which made me realize that I didn't know anything about history. I am actually embarrassed at what little I know. But when I think back on it, I never made it past WWII in any of my history classes! We always ran out of time. I decided to add this to my to do list: restudy history, especially post WWII.

Little did I know a series of events would peak my interest more and more. In April, Junior class students began reading "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brian. Students remarked on how interesting it was. I decided to add it to my to do list: summer reading of "The Things They Carried".

In May, we had a special event come to our hometown. It was a traveling Vietnam War Memorial. It is a replica of the one in Washington D.C. and an additional Sept. 11th. memorial. It was a 3 day event that included vigils, music, and special presentations. The weekend it came, we just happened to show up at the time all the army helicopters came in for a landing. I was amazed at the size of the Apache and the Chinook and could envision men jumping out and going to duty for their country. My toddler son got to sit in the cockpit of the Apache and toy with the instruments as he wore his puppy dog backpack. A part of me laughed, but then behind me I saw the Vietnam War Memorial. The list of names behind me on that wall were all someone's babies. I had to take a closer look.
I couldn't believe the amount of names on that wall. I even double checked that I wasn't mistaken. I remarked, "So are you telling me all these people died in the Vietnam War?" "Yes, honey.", my husband said. At that point I realized that I had no idea of the magnitude of wars. It was time to check in with ones from that generation, my parents.

My father was 18 when he was drafted. He said he and many of his classmates loaded up on a bus to a nearby town for physicals. Everyone was eating 3 or 4 candy bars on the way to raise their blood sugar...anything they could think of so they wouldn't have to go. Thankfully, my father's football injury from the year before is the one thing that kept him off that road to Vietnam.

Now on my to do list: Thank God for all those who served and bless the ones still serving.

Bye-Bye Brooks & Dunn

Tonight, we say good-bye to one of the best country duos ever: Brooks and Dunn. Thanks for the songs that made me dance, made me cry, and made my son do this:

Need a laugh?

Click here if you are having a bad day!

Sometimes I randomly put this on my board at school and the kids, one by one, realize it and start laughing. How can you not love it?