Tonight We Had Ice Cream!

So tonight we had a special little moment in our house. If you have raised children then you know how I feel, if not....one day this too will mean so much to you....

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Jack went potty on the potty chair for the first time (he went #2)!!! Yeah for him!! He was so excited. He's been trying for a long time and loves to flush so tonight was the night! We celebrated with a few M&M's and called Daddy to leave him a message. Then we called Grandma and Papa and they said "we're bringing you Ice Cream!" You should have seen the look on his face.

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Yet, I know from experience with Hailey that this is only the begining and it may be a year before we "get it" She was very stubborn, maybe he won't be so hard, but he is a boy....I've heard they are harder to train. Even when they grown up they are hard to train! I'm still working on Darren and I've know him for 12 years (almost 7 married)!! :-)

My baby Jack. 2 days old...

Now...my big boy....who also is going to move to a big boy bed tomorrow!! Talk about a week full of milestones! (We kind of put off the bed thing...when you don't have a baby on the way it's easy to let them just stay in the crib until they are almost big enough to climb out) Wish us luck! Darren will be working tomorrow night... so hopefully it will be a smooth transition or I will be very tired on Friday :-)

Anyway...Just wanted to share some of my Mommy Joys! Love to all my blog buddies and those that visit me!

Super Saturday!

We had a great time Saturday....you'll have to link to all my friend's blogs to get the full picture. I think everybody had a camera and we all were taking all kinds of pics so some are better than others... I know AMBER already has some on hers....

So are festivities were all for Ben and Tabby! They moved to VA yesterday for a new job. I'm going to miss them so much.

First we went to Sonny's BBQ for some eatin'

Sarah went for some gambling....she was betting on everything! I tried to get a picture of her squirting the hot BBQ sauce in her mouth, but I missed it. This was the after picture though!

This is Larry and Aric (Sarah and Amber's husband's) Don't you LOVE Larry's shirt?!? It says "I'm Bringing Nerdy Back" with a picture of Bert on it from Sesame Street :-) Only he could wear that and be cool!! Aric was trying to win a trophy for most rib reorders in one sitting!! We thought the waiter was going to quit coming back to check on us. We were all done and he'd say...I'd like another order of ribs please :-) This was the other table.

(L to R)Brian, Mike, Ben, Tabby, Bry, Jeanette, Dawn, Andrea, Neato, and Joe

On the way to the bowling alley! Me, Amber, Sarah, and Tabby! Such a fun ride!! Tabby changed her shirt on the way and Amber almost lost her pants and we are so G-rated!! No alcohol or drugs of any kind. Just pure ol' fun!! And no children...that's the kicker! So then after our awful bowling game, but so much fun! We went to Steak n Shake for dessert. By this time we were just laughing for no reason at all, well ...maybe because Amber was singing New Kids on the Block, but still we were laughing a lot.

KA'CHOW!!

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Make sure to check out DAWN, ANDREA, TABBY, & JEANETTE's blogs too for their pics of the night.

I've Been Tagged!

AMBER tagged me so here it goes....

The Rules: Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 5 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog. or
Share the 5 top places on your “want to see or want to see again” list. or
Share 5 things you never pictured being in your future when your were 25 years old.
Tag a minimum of 5, maximum of 10 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. The tagees have a choice of which they want to do.

My 5 random and / or weird facts about me...

1. I clean the house in the same order....Hailey's room, kids bath, Jack's room, etc.... I just have to go in that order and then in each room I have to go in the same circle each time. ...when we move I'm sure I'll come up with some other path to take and stick to it.
2. I can drink Mt. Dew at room temp. that's how much I love it. But I don't buy it often because I'll drink too much of it. I try to stick to Diet Coke.
3. I'm left handed but I throw, bat, bowl (poorly), use scissors, etc. all with my right hand.
4. I got a belly-button ring right after I got married but took it out before I got pregnant with Hailey.
5. I married my husband 5 years to the day after our first offical day of "going out"

I tag Shannon, Wendi, Darren, SARAH :-), & Amanda

Times Gone By

So while looking for my mom's wedding album....which we still haven't found....I remembered I had this CD with a buch of old pics on it that we used for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party a few years ago. Hoping to find some of my parent's wedding photos on it I found so much more that I wanted to share. I love these two people so much and I'm so proud to call them my grandparents.

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So this is when it started...they met in highschool and weren't they so beautiful?!? My grandadaddy is E.Y. and my grandma is Doris.

They were both in the marching band. My grandad was the drum major. I think this was his senior year. They went on all kinds of trips together and have so many good memories of this fun time that they shared. Graduation Day 1954They got married on Thanksgiving Day 1954. They lived down in Miami where they grew up. This is my mom! She was their second child. This dress is a little cream one with pink rose buds on it. She saved it and we have pictures of Hailey wearing it!!I just thought this picture was funny...very James Dean like!! Isn't he so cute :-) I'm not sure which baby that is though...I'm going to guess my aunt sue-sue...someone tell me if I'm wrong!Here's a good pic of the stairsteps! Mike, Jan (my mom), Suzanne, and Steve. Four kids in five years! Wow!!More pictures of all the kids growing up....Here's one right out of the 70's! My mom is top right. Love the beehive grandma!! Here is a wedding shot! That's my mom getting ready. They got married Jan. 1st 1977.Getting ready to walk down the aisle. Now I just have to find a picture with my dad :-) This one is just for kicks....This was like 97 or 98...my grandaddy is a HUGE Harley guy and drove from Florida to the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota. He got in a really bad accident with himself and the bike and his pull along popup camper.... in the rain....on a hill...not good. This was when we all picked him up at the airport. Poor thing was so hurt. His jaw was even wired shut. But we are just glad he's still here!! He still has a Harley and loves to ride....just not all the way to North Dakota and not pulling a camper!

The Breakfast Club

Sarah, Stacia, Tabby

Well our little breakfast club was short lived but very much enjoied. Tabby, Sarah and I started meeting for breakfast at IHOP on Tuesday mornings once Tabby found out she was moving to Virginia. We so should have been doing this like forever ago!! I can't believe the time has come. We have no more Tuesdays left :-( Tabby is going to move this weekend with her husband, Ben and their little Isabelle. We are going to miss them terribly but I know that distance will not hinder our friendship. God brought them into our lives and I'm so thankful we all got to know each other so well. We are going to have an exciting weekend filled with fun to send them off!! Now we just have to look forward to road trips and if we ever want to head north we'll have a place to stop and rest in Virginia!

Isabell and Riley were "unoffical" members of the Breakfast Club. They were the entertainment!

Catching Up...

So I never did a posting about Hailey's trip to Sweet & Sassy.... She went last month for one of her preschool friend's birthday party. It was so much FUN!

First she got to pick out her princess name and dress and then they started on her hair.Then it was off to makeup and nails...she got tons of glitter on her eyes and pink nails :-) This was the final result! She had the prettiest hair-do! That was my favorite part. They danced and did a fashion show on the runway and all around the store! It was such a fun morning for girls! She'll remember it for a long time!
So this week the kids were actually playing together NICELY so I had to run get the camera and get evidence of it :-) Hailey took all her pillows and blankets off her bed and made a sleep-over party! Then they read a ton of books. They did this for a really long time and were so good while I got busy packing up closet stuff and things we can live without these next few weeks.
They even hugged for me!! This is also a good before shot of Jack's hair. It had gotten quite long and it was so time for a hair cut.
This is the new do!! It is really short like Daddy's but can spike on top! We can spike all of it or just the bangs...just depends on our mood. :-)

This was definatly an all spike day!

Everybody at church thought I was holding someone else's child!! They didn't recognize him at first :-) It was funny. Ralston said he looks like Mr. Darren and Darren of course loves that! Jack now has to have his hair done every morning though so this is kind of new territory... we got him some blue gel like Daddy and he asks me if his hair will be blue every time I put some on it!!

So last but not least....we had a showing yesterday but no news yet....that's usually not good when you don't hear something quick... but we are moving along steady with our purchase of the new house. Everything is good to go. We did our home inspection this week and got all the little paperwork stuff done with the mortgage office. So we are currently set to close on Feb. 15th!! The kids are as excited as we are. They have been helping me pack. I keep telling them we can't pack everything because it's too soon :-) I painted Jack's room this week too. It's no longer blue with car border now it is a sandy color that is more appealing to more buyers. I think the next project will be to get the frogs down in the kids bathroom :-) (The lady who had this house before us LOVED border. I promise to never put up border at this new house!!)

I'm back :-)

So our computer crashed last Sunday and we had no luck reformating it. The hardrive was fried and we lost everything. But Larry came to the rescue yesterday and now we are back up and running, but have to start all over with everything. We are getting ready to go to evening services and we had a house showing this afternoon so I will do an update tonight to bring my blog back up to speed :-) I missed all my blog buddies so much and can't wait to catch up on all your blogs too!!! This has become such an addiction :-)

Check out these Pictures

So my cousin Shannon took some awesome pictures of my mom's house all decorated for Christmas. They are so pretty....looks like something from a magazine! You have to check them out on her blog...click HERE. Or click on Shannon under sites i visit. She is really talented and has even started her own business.

2nd set of party pictures :-)

Okay...so it was just a user error....some of the pictures were too BIG....why blogger just wouldn't tell me that I don't know...but anyway...I finally figured it out and here are the pictures from Kaitlyn's birthday party.
Kaitlyn is our sweet little friend that we met when we first moved back home. She is our realtor's baby and my mom was also keeping her during the day until our Memaw moved in with my parents. She is just a few months younger than Jack and we've already arranged their marriage!! Hailey, like a light switch, changed moods and became quite the little entertainer. She was very happy at this party. Jack had TWO pieces of cake here and more icecream! Oh my goodness! I can't believe he didn't throwup that night :-P

So I just had to post some pictures of when Jack and Kaitlyn were little! This was around Easter of 2006. How cute are they?!? Janice, her mom, was always jealous that my baby boy had more hair than her baby girl :-) This was their first Halloween. Jack was Nemo and Kaitlyn was a Jack-o-Lantern. We went trick-or-treating around my mom's neighborhood. How time has flown by!

1st set of pictures....

For some reason I could load the pictures from my Mom's 50th B-day and Ralston's B-day party, but I'm having trouble with Kaitlyn's party.....I'll keep trying....



My mom is taking turning 50 like a champ! I think she is happier now than she has ever been :-)
This was Ralston eating his Dinosaur cupcake-cake! The kids loved all the dino-stuff at the party!
Dose one for Jack....He loves cupcakes and icecream....Hailey not so much...
If you can pick Hailey out in this picture (in pink) you will see her lovely "look". She was in a " don't take my picture" mood....however at the next party that totally changed and it was only an hour later. Oh the life with a four year old little drama queen! It's never boring :-)

So I tried three times to upload pictures from this weekend but no luck....I guess blogger is having some technical difficulties. My mommy turned 50 this past Friday!! We took her out to eat....she wanted Krystals (don't you just love her) and then went back to the house for icecream cake! The kids had lots of fun helping Grandma blow out her candles. It was party weekend for us because the next day we went to Ralston's third birthday party. It was loads of fun for the kids, and adults too :-) Then off to Kaitlyn's second birthday party right after that! Again great times! But let me tell you...my kids were so hyped up on sugar after that they were ruined. I think we just went home and sent them to bed. It still took all of Sunday to get them completly detoxed! I will try very hard to post some pictures of the fun filled weekend tomorrow. I'm actually going to try to get to bed before 11pm tonight...that's like a HUGE accomplishment for me!

First and Last

• First Memory-playing in snow with my dad when I was maybe 3 (we lived in D.C.)
• First Real Kiss-D.J. Salinas I was in the 7th grade...my 14th birthday party
• First Love-Darren
• First Thing You Think In The Morning-no...just a little longer
• First Pet-the first pet that I got to go get was a grey tabby cat and we named her Suzie (my parents had dogs before I was born that were theirs)
• First Question You'll Ask In Heaven-I have no idea
• First Thing You Think Of When You Hear The Word Vacation-Relaxing on a beach front
• First Best Friend-Keri Glasscock
• Last Time You Dressed Up-well if chruch doesn't count...My mom's merry mug party
• Last Thing You Ate-chicken quesidillas
• Last CD You Bought-veggie tales christmas sing along for Hailey
• Last Good Book You Read-Power of a Praying Wife (currently reading)
• Last Time You Cried-two weeks ago...argument with Darren
• Last Time You Told Someone You Loved Them-tonight when I tucked the kids into bed
• Last Really Funny Thing You Did-Today I took a princess gift bag to a little boys birthday party because 1. It was the only bag that fit the gift and 2. He told his mom a few days before he wanted to have a princess party just like Hailey's... I thought it was a little funny.
• Last Thing You Watched On TV-Spongebob, with the kids....Iknow...it's pittiful

Santa came last week...But the BRAMLETTS came this weekend!!

So me and the kids have only been counting down the days since last June when our very dear friends, the Bramletts, would come back to visit...and get their car :-) First we were telling Hailey Turkey Day, but Brett Farve won that holiday, then we thought before Christmas, no...that's when they moved from TX to FL, so we got them for New Year's!! It was worth the wait!! We had a wonderful weekend....too short but we are so thankful they are close and know that we can go see them or they can come back up whenever!

This is Sage, Ralston, Hailey and Noah at church Sunday night. They were so ready to go play with each other!!

Sarah and Larry got each other a Wii for Christmas. They are so the cool kids now! We want them to come over every night :-) (But they have to bring their game) We all went to Tabby and Ben's Sunday night. This is Larry and Ben boxing each other. We locked the babies up anyway we could :-) Just kidding!! This is Riley, he's Sarah's little one! He is our happy baby, smiles for everyone. He'll be one in March. Such a cutie!Okay...back to the boxing...you know you are getting old or out of shape when you have to take a break after each game...your arms get so sore!! The kids did so good for it to be so late! Sage was reading the kids stories. Noah doesn't look too impressed here! He's probably heard this one A Hundred times!! Mine however thought the air mattress was the coolest trampoline ever!! And love ALL of Sage's stories! Poor Isabelle's room survived all the chaos thank goodness :-) Ms. Tabby-Abby and Ms. Brama-Lama-ding-dongWe played a little Wii with Darren since he worked the night before. Sarah boxed him (they love to fight each other) and she knocked him out in less than 30 seconds!!Then it was my turn...I knocked him out too...but the next round he knocked me out so we're even!On New Year's Eve we went to the church to play games, eat, and have fun! We played Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader. Tabby and Andrea so won that! And then we played Fact or Crap, my mom won that won....she knows her Crap!! Tabby said it's cuz she's full of it :-) Here is Allyson (Dawn and Mike's baby). She has the cutest laugh in the world! She kind of laughs at you and knows just the right moment to do it :-) We were cracking up at her! Okay...before the night was over we had to get a picture of all the girls.
left to right:
Me, Sarah, Amber, Tabby, Dawn, Andrea
Goofing off!


Hope all had a great New Year's eve!

And I want to say Happy Anniversary to my Mom & Dad! Jan. 1st 1977 they got married! I'm trying to find their wedding album so I can post some pictures from their special day!