The "Geek Squad", I am not

Matthew fixed our monitor last night.

It wasn't plugged in.

And I couldn't figure that out.

Also, he found the software to load the "picture zapper thingy" onto our laptop. It took him point five seconds to find it. You know why? He had put it in the CD case labeled "software that needs to be downloaded to computers". At least someone is organized around here.

So, here are some pictures from the Broadway play we took Nora to.

Somebody (me) has "sucker" as her middle name. I actually convinced Matthew to buy Nora the "Dora doll". She loves it and is currently sleeping with it. I'm still embarrassed I buckled under the hype of the show and got my kid something. At least it wasn't the "light-up ball".
Here is Nora, hating her seat. "Please don't make me sit in this seat! I HATE the booster seat you nabbed for me. I do not weigh enough to hold it down and it will snap me in two...please let me sit in your lap!!!!!" I think that's what she was saying.
See, Elyn is loving the Dora doll too. I am getting my money's worth out of this thing!
Two Baby Jaguars...aka, Gibson and Nora
"No, I don't want to leave! I am starving and so tired!"
Fun times. Seriously, it WAS fun!

So happy to be able to share pictures again. And to have a monitor that works. Thanks for being such a computer whiz honey.

My kids have grown...although, I can't show you

I have many pictures to share with all of you that are waiting for them (grandparents). Sadly, I cannot share them with you at this time.

The computer that I download them to has a broken monitor.

We have two computers.

I can't find the CD that I need to install my "picture zapping thingy" onto this computer.

You can tell I'm pretty organized.

We went to see "Go Diego Go Live" yesterday. Nora really enjoyed it. Although, she cried when we first got there because she did not want to sit in her own seat. The seat that cost me $18. I'm so glad we bought the cheapest tickets that were sold because if she had refused to sit in the $42 seat that was also an option, I would have been pretty ticked off.

I mean, I'm not excited that I wasted $18, the equivalent of 18 large Diet Cokes at a Sonic Happy Hour, but hey, at least it wasn't 42 Diet Cokes.

Once Nora finally settled into her seat of choice (my lap), she was quite content and watched the show with wide eyes. She didn't want to get up and jump or dance when the actors requested it, but overall, it was a good experience.

Until we left and then she cried again. Sheesh.

Possibly because it was 12:30pm and the only thing she had eaten all day long was a half a spoonful of oatmeal and 2 sips of milk. When the girl is hungry, she is cranky.

I hear I'm like that too.

So maybe one day I'll have pictures again (for the grandparents). Until then, you're stuck with my words to entice you to return.

The sun wasn't the only hot thing today...

Dear Lady at the water park today:

I applaud you and your self-confidence.

It is truly refreshing to see someone is who is not uncomfortable wearing a two-piece swimsuit even though you might not be the "ideal" size. I wish I were as comfortable in my skin.

The world tells us that only certain body types should wear a bikini. Do you listen to the world? No, you shake you fist and say, "I'll wear a bikini if I want to!".

Well, good for you.

Even though your belly rolls were lapping over the bikini bottoms, it did not bother you.

Just because the bottoms of your swimsuit were stretched to capacity, you did not let that alter your clothing choice for the day. Oh, to have your ability to block out criticism...

HOWEVER...

You are NOT at an "adults only" all-inclusive resort in Mexico.

You are in ARKANSAS at a PUBLIC water park with many, many CHILDREN walking around.

And they do not need to see your breasts hanging out of your bikini top.

Especially the teenage boys.

Next time you wear your "itsy-bitsy teensy weensy green polka dot bikini", please wear a tank top that covers up the "girls".

I'm confident the water park is trying to keep everything "PG" but your outfit today left little to the imagination and might be classified as "R".

Let your belly rolls hang out, don't have full coverage on your bottom, show us your many tattoos on your back...but, for the love of the wide-eyed children staring at you, cover up your boobs!!!!!!


Thank you.

Using my time wisely

****I just found out that my blog does not update...aughhhhh! So, if you do use this feature, please check back to my blog quite often. Even though the update counter will tell you it's been 4 months since I last updated. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this?****

Notice the change to my blog? Well good. I am LOVING it.

I am accused many, many times of spending too much time on my blog. We recently got "Tiger Woods golf" for our Wii and I am sure that my accuser is about to be spending too much time on that.

In an effort to starting using my time wisely, I have added this handy feature to my blog.

Now, I no longer have to look at every one's blog to find out if they have updated. I don't actually read every blog every day. That would be kind of crazy. And some blogs, I don't read for weeks at a time, because they are hardly ever updated (you know who you are...yeah, I'm talking about you).

Thanks to blogger, I know longer have to wonder if someone has updated...they do it for me!!!!

This feature is an easy one to get if you want it. Go to the "Layout" section of your blog, click on "Add a Page Element", choose "Blog List" and get to work.

I had to copy and paste all the URL's. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it and I hope you find it.

Also, if the blogger on your list has a "member's only" blog, then you will not be able to tell if he/she has updated recently. Those secret keepers don't what the outside world to know ANYTHING (and I don't blame them most of the time).

Also, if you look at my left side, there are two friends that I was not able to transfer. I am going to try again tonight and hopefully I will be successful...just know I am not leaving you out Lisa and Nicola...I love you both!

Have fun and start making lists on what you are going to do with all of the extra time on your hands.

I'm going to play a game of Tiger Woods golf.

Papa Dan's visit

****Updated to add: Mr. Scary fixed our refrigerator. And it was covered by our warranty. Apparently the motor to the fan went out. Also, we got a check for our food! Yea!
My dad came to visit last week. He was here for several days and we had a great time during his stay with us!
Elyn and Nora enjoyed getting to know him better and I think he was pretty smitten with them.
We spent one evening outside blowing bubbles...always a favorite around our house!
Nora is usually scared to death of dogs. She likes them from a distance at least. My dad brought his dog with him and by the second day, Nora was warmed up to Keesa and ready to play. A small miracle as far as I'm concerned.On his last night here, we went out for ice cream. Elyn was in a good mood even though she didn't get any. Just 3 more months Elyn!

This is a picture I got this morning. Matthew thinks it's fun to teach Elyn how to walk. (Although, I assume she stay a baby for the rest of her life and just be carried around.) Anyway, Nora wanted to help her little sister out and grabbed her other hand to assist. So sweet! Thankfully, Elyn is NO WHERE near ready to take off on her own!
Oh, and the refrigerator repairman is here right now. Let me just say that I am SOOOOO glad that Matthew is home. A scary looking fella!!!!!! Hopefully Mr. Scary has good news for us!

Maybe we'll start eating at home soon

The repairman comes tomorrow. HALLELUJAH!

I am tired of our ice cooler being our refrigerator.

We have been pretty busy lately. My dad came to visit and I have some super cute pictures to post, we started VBS tonight and our room is a disappointment compared to last year...but we think the kids are learning.

I need to get "un-lazy" and clean my house. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

Oh, Matthew fixed our door. He is not at all happy with his work, but he is a perfectionist. Truly a perfectionist. I think it is wonderful. It even opens and closes better.

The best part though? It didn't cost much to repair. We were afraid it was going to cost around $900-ouch! So far it's been about $50-much better!

I'll update on our fridge tomorrow, I'm sure you are on pins and needles.

Is your refrigerator running???? You better go catch it!

So, this morning, I decided to start the day off right. I got out of bed and took off for the gym for a jog. I just knew that because I started it out with a jog the day was going to be spectacular.

Then, I walked through the back door.

"The refrigerator is not working" are the first words I hear upon opening the door.

Um, did the refrigerator not hear that I had left to go jogging? It was supposed to start my day off to be spectacular!

My husband, whose nerves are now on the outside of his body, has been on the phone all morning seeing if the Sears repairman can come and fix the mistake. He can.

On Monday.

I don't think our milk will still be good on Monday. Or in an hour.

Frustrated with Sears, he rings another repairman who tells him he can come out this afternoon, but, watch out, it's going to be expensive.

Oh, that's okay, we have piles of money laying around that we need to get rid of.

Matthew calls Sears again to see if they decided to come out to our house after hearing the frustation in his voice. They haven't, but they did kindly inform him that if we use a repairman that is not dressed in a Sears uniform, our warranty is voided.

Needless to say, we are waiting until Monday, because I was kidding about that money comment and we would rather have it fixed for FREE.

We did find out that if we save all of the containers from our spoiled food, we can get up to $250 in grocery reimbursement.

EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER is saved. I did clean everything out though. I'm not sure the repairman wanted to dry heave while going through our spoiled groceries.

The good news is the our freezer is still working. Hopefully it will hold out until Monday. And for 20 more years.

And in other news...

A few months ago we discovered that the frame around our front door was rotting. Thank you builders for throwing our house up in two weeks to move onto the next development and not properly installing the gutters. We appreciate you.

Matthew started the "let's see how bad this really is" process today and found out it is much worse than we had hoped for. It also is going to take more tools than we have available. Sounds easy, huh.

Soooo, our front door is laying in pieces in my entry way. Since it is after 10pm and most of our neighborhood is asleep, construction has been put off until tomorrow.

Not wanting super-easy access through the front of our house for the crazies that might be out late at night, Matthew nailed plywood over our door frame.

And if that doesn't say "boarded up drug house", I don't know what does.

It's classy.

My handy husband is going to try and remedy our front door dilemma tomorrow.

And hopefully no one wakes up at 2am with food poisoning from questionable food that I served tonight.

Fun in the summer

Since we have returned from our "vacation" we have been having some fun! Matthew and our friend, Michael, put our playset together last weekend. Nora and Elyn got this for Christmas from my mom and it has sat, neglected, in a box since then.

We are hoping that this helps Nora not to be so scared with climbing and sliding. She can be such a scaredy-cat...I guess I should say "cautious" instead. Sorry Nora. I'm sure next summer I'll find Elyn scaling the top of it. Nice.

These are some pictures from our swim party last night. Nora loved the pool! Even though it was 66 degrees outside and her teeth were chattering, she DID NOT want to quit swimming. She went off the diving board for the first time last night. So she's not ALL scaredy-cat, she tries new things with gusto occasionally.
But it backfired. Water went up her nose and she was regretting her decision to be gutsy.
She quickly recovered from this and was right back in the water...the shallow end though. She was done with the diving board!

Tagged!

Michelle tagged me, so here goes:

What were you doing 5 years ago?
1. Being a newlywed. It was a an intersting transistion for us because we were also surrounded by 180 campers.
2. Watering my sister's avacado plant. It died.
3. Brushing dead spiders out of my bed each night
4. Applying for teaching jobs in Searcy, not sure what we would do if I didn't get one (thankfully, I did!)
5. Looking at the house that was transforming from "his" to "ours" and seeing a lot of work that needed to be done.

What are 5 things on your to do list today? (It's 9:23pm, so I'll tell you what I did)
1. Went to the gym and ran!
2. Washed, dried, and folded 5 loads of laundry
3. Went to a swimming party tonight. It rained and Matthew and Nora were freezing.
4. Brainstormed about our room for VBS
5. Tried to DVR the US Open for my dad who is coming to stay with us tomorrow night and was traveling today and couldn't see it. I tried!

What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
1. Diet coke...I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a snack, especially if it is from Sonic.
2. Hot Tamales
3. Ice cream
4. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
5. White cheddar cheez-its

What are 5 things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off all student loans
2. Give money to Harding/Camp/church
3. Buy a pretty piece of land and build a dream house
4. Get a really great photo editing program and a great computer to go with it
5. Make some improvements to my post baby body...gravity has not been kind either

What are 5 of your bad habits?
1. Cracking my knuckles
2. Too much time on computer after my kids go to bed
3. Caffeine
4. Nighttime television
5. Instantly putting my hair in a ponytail instead of taking time to actually "fix" my hair

What are 5 jobs that you have had?
1. Pizza delivery girl
2. Secretary for admin. computer center at Harding
3. Waitress (Dillons in Searcy (before it was Colton's) and Red Lobster in Nashville)
4. School teacher for 7 years
5. The most rewarding and difficult job of all: MOMMY

Name 5 places you have lived:
1. Weatherford, Texas
2. Searcy, Arkansas
3. Antioch, Tennessee (aka "The Ghetto"!)
4. Smyrna, Tennessee
5. Northwest Arkanasas

Okay, tag, you're it...if you want to be.

The best dad in the world!

Happy Father's Day Matthew! You truly are the best daddy I know. I am awed each day to watch you with our daughters. I am so thankful that God allowed me to parent our children with you. Thank you for loving them so much, for being so understanding, and for bringing fun to their days. I love you so much!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The rest of our trip

We've been home since Thursday and we have been busy! Matthew has been working in our yard and I have been unpacking and doing laundry. I wish the spiders hadn't gone crazy with the webs while we were away. I hate to tear down their hard work, but it has to be done!

I downloaded my pictures last night and uploaded them to Flickr today. You'll be happy to know that I was able to cut the "over 400" down to 250. Still a crazy amount.

Here is the rest of our trip, in pictures...

As you can tell by Elyn's smile, we had a great time the rest of the time we were at my mom's house. One night, we had a shrimp boil...yummm!

And we continued with swim lessons and hanging out at the pool

Wednesday night, quite a few of the family went to Joe T's to eat some good Mexican food. We love Joe T. Garcia's!

Matthew drove back to Fort Worth Wednesday night and was able to join us at the pool on Thursday. We had some fun and Nora learned to fly in the air.

Not wanting to leave Elyn out, Matthew threw her in the air too.

Nora had such a good time with Bailey. In fact, yesterday I told her we were going swimming and she asked if Bailey was going to be there. Thankfully, we are going on a vacation with my entire family in August and they will get to play together for a week.

It was a tad hot outside and the ice cream was no match for the sun.

On Friday, we were in Little Rock. We went to the zoo with Aunt Julia. It was toasty and the animals didn't smell very good. I'm surprised Aunt Julia didn't throw up...her being pregnant and all!!!!!!!! Yea!!!!!! We can't wait to meet baby Hughes in Feburary.

Nora told us the only things she wanted to see were the elephants and the giraffes. We saw the elephants first and then after we had seen the giraffes, she turned to us and said, "All done!". Um, sorry kiddo, we each paid $8 to get in here, you're seeing a few other things too.

Sadly, while we were in Nashville, I was a horrible picture taker. I thought my lens was messed up (it's not) so I didn't even get out my camera at most places. Here are a few that I did manage.

We went over to Matthew's aunt and uncle's house one afternoon and Nora got to play with her cousins (we could never figure out if they were 2nd or 3rd cousins). They were all playing in a little pool when we got there, so I stripped Nora down and let her get wet.

This precious little boy, Tom, kept calling Nora a little boy. I guess without any clothes on it is easy to make that mistake.

Nora loved playing with Aunt Linda's wooden spools. Such a great toy!

On Wednesday, we went to Camp Tahkodah to spend the day. It was wonderful! The girls had a great time and were EXHAUSTED by the time we left. Nora fell asleep in the van before we had even left the property.

This is how Elyn crawled around most of the time...she didn't like her knees to touch the ground. I can't say I blame her.

Nora loved stopping to pick up stick along the way. It was quite funny. Each time she came to one (about every 3 inches) she would stoop down to pick it up and act as if she had never seen a stick before.

By the time we were ready to go swimming, Elyn was tuckered out.

But Nora was ready to test out those swimming lesson skills she just had.

She loved the creek and was super sassy about showing off. She cried when we left.

On our last day of our trip, we went to see Matthew's grandparents. Nora loves Papa and Grandma!


So there you have it, our trip. Have I mentioned how happy we are to be home? Because we are!

I have more to blog about...like what has been happening in our yard and a post dedicated to Matthew tomorrow. I'm glad to be back in the world of blogging. I haven't completely caught up on all of my blogs I read and am hoping to do that soon. I miss knowing what is going on with everyone!!!!