Fantabulous Weekend

I had a fantabulous weekend - how about you?

Friday's bowling was fun. Gracie and her friend Maggie were using the "Squat and Roll" bowling technique. So cute to see the little kids toting these huge bowling balls. Chris had fun bowling as well. Me? I was in a funk - past few days I felt like I was in a haze. Duhhh - forgot to take my prenatals. Probably a vitamin deficiency from nursing Paul. But feeling much better today.

Saturday we loaded up and drove way down to Pine Mountain Georgia. Went to the Wild Animal Safari. Always a blast. This was my mom's first time going.

Enough of my jibber-jabbering - here's pics!

During the drive-through Safari:

And the Walk through Area

Gracie wanted me to be a monkey!

And here's the baby Cerval

Today we spent the day at the house. Did some MAJOR overhaul of the house. Got 5 big bags of stuff for goodwill. Re-organized the art supplies and misc things. Cleaned out all the happy meal toys and junk toys that had accumulated. That is all for now!

Lions, Tigers, and Bears OH MY!

This week is sure to be exciting! Chris has 4 - YES 4 days off in a row - He's got his interview tomorrow with Gwinnett PD. Then Tomorrow evening we're going to the Madison County Fair! Looking forward to that. Friday we have homeschool bowling and grocery shopping to do. Saturday we are driving down to Pine Mountain with Grandma to go to the Wild Animal Safari. Mom has never been. Gracie and I have been twice and Chris has been once. It's sooo much fun! Last time the giraffe stuck it's head in my car!!! I'm sure if you read my blog back in march, you'll see the pics! OMG I was FREAKING out! So we're going to spend Saturday down there. We have tickets already and they are expiring soon, so time to use them :-) Mom's really looking forward to it. Then of course while we're down there, we have to go by Fox's Den Pizza for the BEST PIZZA EVER and stop at the purple cow cafe for a yummy icecream. So we will be busy! hopefully I'll have more pics to share :-)

Do you know what day it is.... Today is Tuesday!

One of the many songs Gracie and I sing... LOL... The days of the week song. Those preschool teaching classes are becoming rather useful!

We've had a busy week. Sunday evening we had a picnic with the athens playgroup. Had a blast!! Paul was walking some there too! Such a big boy now! Can't believe he's almost 1! Where did the time go?

So then yesterday Chris was off- spent the day around the house and playing with the kiddos. Today I went up to the park to take pics of Paul in another overall set for modeling. Here's pics:

Then met up with my little girl model to get some pics of my squeakers!

Isn't she a doll?

Oh and I forgot to post that we got Gracie a desk! Thanks Laura!!!!!

OOOOH!!

And little man turned 11 months today! So those are his 11 month old pics! Growing like a weed!

***YAWN***SIGH***YAWN***

Yawn... Paul didn't sleep last night. From midnight till 6am, he screamed and screamed and screamed. Tried nursing, gave him gas drops, tylenol, anything I could think of. He was fine with me holding him, but wouldn't let me sit down or put him down. Made for a rather long and noisy night. Rested as much as I could this morning. Although still made for a cranky mommy. Put a movie in for Gracie and stretched out on the floor. Paul's been taking his usual naps today, so I'm not sure what upset him last night. Poor guy. He's never acted like that before.

This afternoon, we were able to get caught up on modeling for now. The kids both had a pumkin set to model for Painted*With*EZ

Gracie was being goofy!

Then here is a horse set she modeled for Painted*With*EZ

And Paul modeling for SydKohl Boutique. This is going to be his birthday outfit.

Paulywog's Modeling

Well, our little Paulywog modeled for a couple designers this morning.
First is this 3 piece hoodie puppy set! Includes the gorgeous maroon pants, puppy hoodie, and an appliqued puppy paw print tee! Click the pic to view the auction! And Click Here to view more pics from this shoot.

And here is Paul modeling the CUTEST farm overalls. This designer hasn't put her auction up yet, but I'll add the link when she gets it up! Click here to see more of this photos!

Whew! We have 1 more set to model when Paul gets up from nap. This is going to be his birthday set!

Oh and here's a quick pic from the other night of spighetti eating!

Did ya miss me?

Wowsa! Time does fly! Been very busy.

Homeschooling is going great after a rough couple of days. Gracie is enjoying it and we're actually getting a lot accomplished. I listed a bunch of the kids clothes and have a few more to list that they had outgrown, or in Paul's case, I got a little carried away and bought too much!

Chris had Friday and Saturday off. On Friday we took Gracie skating for the AThens Homeschool Skate Day. That was a lot of fun. Her and a couple friends were holding hands and skating. They were all too cute. I wish I had remembered to take my camera. Then we spent the rest of the day running errands. We were supposed to have a date that night but it was storming so badly that my mom wasn't able to make it up here. So we just enjoyed our time together.

Saturday my Aunt was in town. We met them at the mall and then did a little shopping and went back over to my grandmother's house. Paul has been walking a bunch lately and was chasing after my grandmother's dog, calling it a "titty tat". He doesn't walk full time yet, only when he wants to. He still gets around much faster crawling. He loves to walk around places holding our hands though. And of course Gracie likes to help him walk. I need to get a pic of that. Too funny.

So, I've been asked - What is NFP. NFP is Natural Family Planning. We'd like to wait a bit to have a third baby. So we're trying this. It's the Natural way without any "barriers" or drugs. So we'll see if it works. If we have a third within the next few months, it obviously didn't work ;-) If we don't, then it works. We are totally not against having a third, we're just waiting to see if Chris get the job change that he wants and a few other things. Supposed to wait a year and all that jazz.

So I've got Paul's birthday finalized. Sent out invitations to family. I'm one that has to plan my life out in advance. Plus between my family and my brother's family, its often hard to coordinate dates. So we're actually not doing the river thing. I'm thinking it may be too cool out by then. And we're having it on Paul's birthday. Just doing like what we did for Gracie. Join us for Cake kinda thing. Different place though.

So my shoe order should be in tomorrow! Can't wait!!! Now to find a place to stick them all till they sell! I'm going to put most of them on ebay and leave a few for my site. Although with ebay's free listing fees right now, I may rethink that!

Anyways, have a great week!

NFP

Are you practicing NFP? If so, Email Me as I'm just getting started and have a question or 2!

Bug Off!

We went to the park today with Athens Families Playgroup. Had a lot of fun. We had flies for lunch. Seriously! LOL. A mob of flies was swarming us while we were trying to have lunch. I know an old lady who swallowed a fly.....

But we had fun. Gracie got to play with 2 of her best friends, Maggie and Daniel. I got to chat with some other moms, so all was fun.... except the ducks trying to eat me.... I hate ducks.....

Gonna get to work.... kids are resting.

You're Beautiful Baby From the Outside In.....

I love this song by Tim McGraw. It's in my head right now. Gracie and I just watched Flicka. Somehow I think Gracie is going to be just like the girl in the movie. She's got a lot of spirit and energy. To quote another great song, "She's a wild one, with an angel's face" or perhaps "Born to be Wild". It's funny though, when I look at her, I see myself looking back. She is sooooo me in every way possible! I think that's why we butt heads so much! Although I think musical-wise she's just like her dad! Can't really carry a tune in a bucket and NO interest in the piano. Me, I love music. Love to sing, dance, play the piano, clarinet, and oboe. Paul loves to dance too. Gracie looks at us like we've lost it!

Anyways..... to update on our "debt-free process" we are doing good. Although, OMG I just bought 400 dollars worth of shoes wholesale for my business! YIKES! Several of them are presold. Hopefully I can sell the rest. I KNOW I can sell the rest, right? LOL. No worries - it's on my business account though and I was able to pay for the majority of them from my business earnings. We're knocking down the other bills as fast as we can. Our goal is still debt free except for the house by tax season.

So if you need shoes, email me! I've got tons!

Personal Stuff

Okay I just typed a bunch of stuff and deleted it. Why? Because I can! I felt better typing it out but it's nothing that the rest of the world needs to be reading.

OOOOH and this is late but,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!!! I hope you bought me something when you went to Ron Jon's! You promised me something 4 years ago from there!!


Well, I've gotten Paul's birthday party planned. We're inviting my family and a couple close friends. Should be fun. We're planning on having it at the river if it's not too cold. Usually it's like 80 degrees here on halloween so we should be okay. If it's colder, we'll make other plans. We're going to grill out. I love having parties - I like having lots of people around. I got with my sister n law and we finally found a date that my brother would be off and that Chris was off! My brother hasn't made it to any of Gracie's parties because I always planned them when he was scheduled to work. He's a firefighter :-) So proud of him! But yep, every party was scheduled on his work day.

That is all for now. I think I've been typing this for an hour! Had a bunch of stuff to delete! Now no one will ever know what was posted.

School!

So we've somewhat officially started Gracie's homeschool preschool today. She is doing great. Very excited about her new books. Right at this moment she is practicing cutting construction paper shapes out so I have a small break. Homeschool was a hard decision for us. Chris was somewhat against it and I don't feel that she was ready to face the "real world" by herself. We sat down, talked about it for a very long time and made our decision. We talked about his hesitations and my reservations about homeschool and we've made a great compromise and we're approaching it as a team. We're actually doing Kindergarten work with her as she's completed all the preschool work. We're learning to read, write, and have Kindergarten work books. I also bought at target yesterday "site word" flashcards. I was actually suprised about how many she already knew! I do have a "Want" list though, that we're working on with Chris' overtime checks. I'd like to get a speaking clock to help learn time, definately want/need a school desk, looking for a shoe-tying card, and need to get a laminated calendar. I hope to perhaps get down to Gwinnett and go to the School Box Store to get the calendar and other learning things. I'm excited about this. We've decided to study 1 animal in-depth each month - letting Gracie choose the animal. Studying 1 bible section a week for memory. And the list could go on and on.

Enough of that... care for some pics? Here's me and Gracie yesterday

And My "Trick" and "Treat"

And P is for Paul (or even Peppermint!) He's modeling this shirt for designer Love My April. You can see her on ebay here or her website here

And lastly some shirts I had made for the kids from Torrilynn123

Bloggety Blog Blog

Just some random thoughts from me today.....

Things I have learned in my years..... By Erin Haag

* Don't let anyone borrow anything unless you never want to see it again!

* The dishes won't clean themselves!

* People will not change, the only person you can change is yourself.

* Kids grow up too fast..... really.

* Blood is not always thicker than water. Love is always thicker than blood.


Just wanted to post randomly today things that are on my mind.

Oh- and you guys -- I see who comes to my blog --- Marisa, Denise, Rachel, Christy, Jennifer and the rest of you. Drop me a line on the blog and say hey every now and again!

All Better!

As it turns out, Paul ended up having Roseola. He had a rash yesterday, but they say once the rash appears, it's over. But at least he's much better now. You can Read More Here. It mainly effects kids under 2, so no worries about the rest of us.

Almost all caught up on orders. I'm feeling wiped out though lately. Just completely exhausted. I've been having to take a nap during the kids rest time. Must be those late evenings and early mornings catching up with me!

Long Day

So Paul's been running a fever the past few days. Today I get him up, he's burning up - check temp - over 103. So I call Chris. He says to be ready when we get home and we'll take him to the ER. So off we go. Of course, they can't find anything wrong with him except the fever. I hate that answer - just alternate Tylenol and Motrin. So that's what we're doing - he still has a fever every time the meds start wearing off. And he's just rather grumpy.

Today's Chris' last night on nights. Then 28 days. Woo hoo. I like him on days because then he's home at night, but then he sees the kids a lot less.