Getting Bigger Every Day

On September 26, Hubs and I walked into Baby Bean's room to get her up for the morning and found her sitting upright in her crib, all by herself. We were so overjoyed and praised her dearly with hugs and kisses.

By the time that night rolled around, I told Hubs we needed to bump Baby Bean's crib down because it would only be a matter of time before she figured out how to pull herself up to standing. I knew from the day we set that crib up dropping it down was going to be a hard day for me because it meant my baby was growing up. I just had no idea how hard it was going to be. Sunday night we bumped it down, put the mattress back in, and slid it back up against the wall. Within seconds I was crying so hard I thought my heart would break. All I could do was sit there and sob. Time is just going by way too quickly. It is slipping through my fingers.

Hubs tried to cheer me up by telling me that I should be excited. Baby Bean would get big and we could go do all sorts of fun things with her like take her to theme parks. It only made me cry harder because it made me realize once again that time would go too fast. He then told me we could have another baby and bump the crib back up for the next one. That made me cry more. I love these moments. The ones we're in right now. Us, our darling little baby girl, and our two fantastic dogs. It is magical and so special. It will never be this way again.

I know that I will only be sad for a moment, and that it will pass. I do look forward to my little girl growing up and watching her explore her world, enjoy everything life has to offer, and experience her life. I just wish that I could hang onto these moments a little longer.

With that, I leave you with a few fun tidbits in the form of pictures and videos from the last few days.

Hanging out with Sades in Maggie's bed.

(Before you say anything mom, know that the baby LOVES the dogs. LOL! I love you. :D)

Maggie's got a cushy bed with a fantastic view.

Baby Bean likie.

"Now, I'm not sayin' you can't have your bed back,

I'm just sayin' I'm not ready to get out yet."

"Mom, why isn't my bed this soft?"

Sitting up on my own

Swinging the afternoon away

Mowing the Lawn with Mags

Somehow, for the past 30 years of my life, I have gotten away with never once mowing a lawn. I always had my dad, brothers, or husband around to do it. When Hubs and I got married, we got a dog, and then moved to a townhome with a yard for her to play in. It was always my responsibility to pick up poop so he could mow. That was the deal. However, when we bought our house last year and he would be derelict about mowing the lawn, it would sometimes make it difficult for me to find all of the presents in the tall grass. That always turned into a circular argument about me not being able to find the mines because the grass was too long, but he would have mowed the lawn if I cleaned up the dog logs, but I would have picked them up if the lawn wasn't too long. Sometimes we argue about this for hours.

A couple of weeks ago, Hubs asked me to pick up the dog logs. I told him I would, and then it rained... and rained... and rained. It rained for 8 days straight. I'm not exaggerating either. It rained 24/7 for 8 stinking days. You know that rain that recently flooded Georgia? Well, it started here.

Needless to say, our lawn got really long, and there was no way I could find all of the puppy pressies, so I offered to mow the lawn. It was a total shock, I'm sure. I had never touched a lawn mower before, and here I was, offering to mow our massive back yard. Hubs had to show me how the mower worked and how to pivot around corners, and he told me how to make sure I didn't miss spots.

Maggie is a border collie, so she LOVES to heard. I had seen Mags attack the lawn mower when Hubs mowed many times and laughed my butt off. One time I got it on video. He always told me it was funny, but it made it really hard to mow in straight lines. I had no idea how strong that little girl was until yesterday when I tried to mow the lawn. I took a little video of my experience of trying to mow the lawn with Mags. I hope you get as much of a kick out of it as we do.

Please Don't Paint the Puppies

The past couple weekends, Hubs has finally gotten the bee in his bonnet to do some of those house projects we've been wanting to do since we moved in, like finishing our floors and putting up base boards. Of course, with all home improvement projects, it snowballed from something as simple as finishing the floors eventually leading to us needing to redo our kitchen before putting on baseboards.

When we bought the house, somehow the cheap crappiness of our kitchen went unnoticed until we moved in. Hubs had returned to our previous home to paint it to sell while I stayed here, by myself, two days after moving in to unpack. This was when I realized our kitchen cabinets were made out of balsa wood and were complete and total crap. I sat down at one point and cried, convinced the previous homeowners were in their brand new house laughing at us for buying this place. Hubs wanted the best deal, and he sure got it. With a lot of work, and a little TLC on our part, this place is going to be fantastic when we're done with it.

Hubs is an awesome handy man. He is such a perfectionist, and I am so glad for it because I certainly am not. Everything he does is precisely calculated and perfect. Even when he hangs pictures he's a perfectionist. I want a picture on the wall, I slap a nail in it and throw the picture on. He measures the wall's width and height, the width and height of the picture, calculates where the center of the wall is, where he wants the top of the frame to hit, etc. It cracks me up.

At any rate, we also decided we wanted to put up a couple half walls, which also needed to be done before anything else could be finished. He put them in and my job was to paint them. One of the walls went up without a hitch and he was pleased with his work for the most part. The other took some tweaking over the span of a week before he was mostly okay with it. I had primed, applied texture, primed again, and painted the first wall before he finished the second wall. He finished the second wall over the weekend, so Sunday night before I went to bed, I hurried and got it painted. I filled up the paint tray, grabbed a roller and a brush, and sat down to paint it. Mags came over to say hello between bites of kibble. I reached over and gave her an affectionate pat on the head. When I pulled my hand away, I saw this:


No, she does not usually have a white stripe down her head. For a split second I was horrified, wondering how I would ever get the paint out of her fur. Then I remembered it was water-based, and then proceeded to laugh my butt off. The good new is, it all came out with a few rubs of a wet paper towel. I have always called her my Project Puppy because she is always right by my side when I'm working on projects around the house. I guess that night she really dug in and proved she could help out. What a good pup!

Meatses

For Mother's day this year, Hubs bought me a new chest freezer. (Although we all know who bowling ball gifts are really for.) It has always been our goal to one day buy a freezer and fill it with meat. Last weekend our regular coupon mailer showed up at our front door. In it was a flier for a meat packing company nearby. They were having sale that Hubs thought was too good to be true, so he immediately got on the phone and made some inquiries. Within 10 minutes he had opened a 90-day account, even though he had the cash to pay for the meat up front, because if you opened an account you got an additional 100 lbs of meats, including 30 lbs of frozen veggies. All of that was on top of the 200 lbs of meat you could get for a few hundred dollars. He immediately made arrangements to go pick up our 300 lbs of meat and veggies for Monday night.

When he hung up the phone, he turned to me and told me that I did not have to go with him if I didn't want to because the meat was not pre-cut. Apparently they cut it on demand, while you watch. Soooo not my cup of tea. I can barely eat meat as it is, and I have to not think about the fact that it was previously a cute, furry animal. All weekend the thought of a cow happily grazing in a pasture crossed my mind. I felt so horrible knowing it was about to die and be cut up into steaks and then frozen in my garage freezer. I could just see its cute little eyes as it looked over the grassy field, completely oblivious that it was about to die. I told Hubs that if I didn't think about it, or see it in any form other than chopped up and packaged in white butcher paper, I would be fine.

Then on Saturday night we watched "The Changel.ing." Have you seen it yet or heard of the story? Its about a woman whose son is kidnapped by a serial killer in the late 1920s. With the help of a young boy, he kidnaped and chopped up over 20 children. The boy who assisted in the kidnappings came clean with the police, and they determined one of the 20 children was this woman's son. The boy said said a few of the kids got away, but he didn't remember which ones they were. They never determined if one of the 20 was the woman's kid. All they know is her son never came home. Of course, being a modern day movie, it came with gore, not limited to but including a man hacking away at screaming children with an axe, blood flying everywhere, and a pit full of bones. Yeah, so not a good movie choice before getting a load of meat.

The whole time Hubs was gone tonight, I tried not to think about it. He got home just as I was putting Baby Bean to bed. The entire back seat of his truck was packed with meat. I went out to help him bring it in to the freezer, and as I carried the bags, it made me absolutely sick. I could tell exactly what it was. It wasn't frozen, merely cold. It felt like meat and bone. I could smell it. I know it was pigs and cows, but it still got to me. On top of which, he managed to double our order from 300 lbs to 600 lbs. We're not going to need to buy meat for a very, very, very long time.

I will still eat it, and i will still enjoy a good piece of meat or a hearty slice of bacon. I think it will get easier for me to handle now that it will be frozen the next time I touch it, and I won't have to carry bags of raw meat in my arms. I am really glad he bought it. He knows I have really been wanting to start our food storage, and he just gave us the biggest boost toward our goal. I am glad my contribution will be easy things like canned veggies and Spagh.etti Os. lol

I wish I could just get the smell out of my nose!

My First Award!

Once again, the ever fabulous Leah at Life According to Leah has given me a reason to do a blog post. (Leah, I think we should just be blog best friends already. lol) She very kindly bestowed the following award upon me:

Thank you so very much!

Here are the rules that come with the award:

1. Choose 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content and design.
2. Show the 7 winners' names and links on your blog.
Sarah at The Potters
Journey girl at Donor Eggs
Mrs. La La at Empty Uterus Syndrome
Marla at Marla'z Austin Journey
Melissa at Melissa's Thoughts and Realizations
Seussgirl at One Day Two Day
~Ifer at The Mind of IFer
AKA at Just Another Day in Paradise

3. List 10 honest things about yourself.

1. I love dogs and have ever since I can remember. Actually, I love all animals, but especially dogs. My dad gave me my first dog when I was 6 years old. He was the runt of the litter and had a genetic defect, so he couldn't be sold. He became "my diddle goochums." He died on Thanksgiving when I was 8. The next dog I had lived for 14 years and died the day after Thanksgiving the year I graduated from college. I watch my dogs closely around the Thanksgiving holiday now.
2. I have been a better, kinder, happier person since moving to Texas last year. I have never had as many good girl friends as I have now. I never used to like girls and rarely had girl friends. I have 3 girl friends that I hang out with on a regular basis. I love it!
3. I am a spendaholic. If I have $5 my first thought is, "What can I buy with $5?!" Savings? What is that? Luckily I married a penny pincher, and we keep our money separate so I don't spend all of my money AND his. Very wise!
4. I have a problem with people who feel a sense of entitlement because they are them. I further have a problem with people who think rules were made for everyone but them to keep them safe from the rest of us. A 4-way stop means EVERYONE stops, not everyone but you. Rude behavior is inexcusable, especially when it is unprovoked.
5. I find a sick sense of pleasure in knowing the people who blare their stereos down the street in their cars so everyone can feel their bass will one day be hard of hearing. Bellt.one loves those people! "Eh?"
6. I love the TV show One T.ree H.ill. Laugh all you want, we'll make more. I am seriously angry they kicked the two lead characters off the show last season. I don't plan on watching the new season next year. Without Lucas and Peyton, there is no OTH. (I currently own seasons 1-4 on DVD. I'm waiting for the price of seasons 5 and 6 to go down.)
7. I am a writer by profession, but can't diagram a sentence to save my life. I got a B in grammar in college and that was only because I went for after-class tutoring with the teacher. I hate grammar!
8. I have had mono 3 times. The last time I had it I had to take 5 weeks off work. I had been married for all of 5 months. I loved the fact that I got to stay home for over a full month because my sweetie worked from home and we had just gotten a new puppy (Mags).
9. I am a germophobe. I have to sanitize my hands when I get back to the car after touching a gorcery cart. When we go out to dinner and I open the door, I have to do it with my non-dominant hand so that I don't use it to bring food up to my face.
10. I have a secret blog that only one person knows about AND knows where it is located. I've had it for a while now and enjoy the annonymity it provides.

It's the Little Things

Help Leah and Taher Adopt!
The fabulous Leah from Life According to Leah asked me to please post up a picture of the vase I made for her to raffle off on her blog in an attempt to help them raise money for their adoption. Leah and her husband recently underwent two rounds of IVF that went very wrong, and are now taking the route to adoption to expand their family. Every Friday she holds a raffle on her blog and asks that you donate only $5 to buy a ticket to be entered into the drawing. She has had some really great prizes up the last few weeks, and I hope her fans find my artistic work worth a few dollars toward her cause. If you are interested in this beautiful piece of work, hop on over to her blog and chip in!



Please know that the picture does not do the colors justice. I had to use a flash to get the picture, and as you can see, it kind of washed it out a bit.

A Present Changes Paws
For our first wedding anniversary I took Hubs up into the mountains to a Swiss getaway for the weekend. The trip ended up being interesting, to say the least. I look back on it and laugh, he looks back on it and thinks it was a waste. Nothing is ever a waste if you choose to laugh about the little disappointments that life sometimes brings.

During our stay at the chateau, we visited their gift shop. This was back in the days when money was abundant and ready to be spent. Ahhh those early newlywed days.... *sigh* Upon walking into the gift shop, I immediately laid eyes on a handmade leather dog collar with gold cows on it and had to have it for Mags. The smallest one they had looked like it might be too big, but I bought it anyway. (It was only a measly $50!) When we got it home and put it on Mags, it was definitely too big and it looked rather uncomfortable. I was bummed, but I still loved the collar, so I hung it on a coat hook next to the back door, hoping to use it some day.

That some day has come! The collar caught my eye the other day as it sat nearly hidden on a bookshelf. I laughed and showed it to Hubs, then set it on the table. A few days later it occurred to me that Sades is much bigger than Mags and she just might be able to sport the collar. Here is how it all went down:

See the beautiful collar? Sades does too. *sniffie sniff*

Make a closer inspection Sades. What do you think?

Sades likie. I told her to wear it to bed and to let me know tomorrow if she wants to keep it.

Growin' a Garden
It has been raining and overcast here for the last 7 days. We saw a bit of sun on Wednesday only to have the rain return again by this morning. It has been raining 24/7 since last Thursday night. I appreciate the rain very much and the cut on the AC drain even more, but a little sun would be nice now.

The day before yesterday a nice little mushroom garden started to sprout in our lawn. The mushrooms have grown exponentially every day. Tonight when I got home from work, this is what I saw:

'Shrooms anyone?

(Please ignore the gigantor weeds.) By the time the sun went down tonight, those suckers were twice that size!

Anniversary Recap

Our fourth wedding anniversary day started out great. I left Hubs a card on his desk chair before heading to work, which he found upon walking into his office. I sent him an IM once I got to work telling him happy anniversary and to check the blog for his next surprise. He loved the writeup and the video.

I had made up and printed out a coupon to present to him at dinner that night for a tree in our new back yard. We had a landscape plan drawn up and received it two days before our anniversary. Hubs has always wanted a pecan tree, so I wanted to buy him one as an anniversary gift. Call me sappy and sentimental, but I really like the idea of our children growing up with that tree and always knowing I gave it to their daddy on our anniversary. Next year I plan on having a garden plaque made up to go on the ground in front of it or on the fence behind it to always immortalize our marriage and the tree.


Hubs bought me a new MyTouch phone (the TM.obile version of an iP.hone) for our anniversary a couple weeks before. Awesome gift! I still love it.

That night I took him to Papp.adeuxs for dinner. It is our favorite Cajun seafood restaurant and comes with a nice little price tag. It is always a treat. We usually use family and friends being in town as an excuse to eat there. Everyone wins on that one. On top of taking him to dinner, I bought him a whole pecan pie from the restaurant. His fav!

By the time we got home from dinner I was starting to cramp a little bit. I had been spotting a little throughout the day, but my visitor wasn't due for another week. I figured at first it was just the IUD acting up again. But within a an hour or so of getting home, I was in so much pain I could barely stand up straight or breathe. On top of it, my spotting had turned into bleeding, leading me to believe my visitor was early. I apologized to Hubs and asked if he would be upset if I turned in early, without pie and ice cream. He didn't mind, so I took a pain pill and mozzied off to bed. The next morning the pain was gone and the bleeding had completely stopped. I started thinking about it this week and wondered if the cyst on my left side had ruptured that night. When I looked up the symptoms, they were consistent with what was going on, right down to still being tender a couple of days later. What a wonderful anniversary present to myself.

We made up for all of it the next night though by cuddling and watching a movie while eating our delicious sweet potato pecan pie complete with Blu.eBell ice cream once Baby Bean had been put to bed. Our anniversary was wonderful, and I look forward to our next one.

Happy 4th Anniversary!

To My Sweetheart,

Four years ago today, I walked down the aisle to become your wife. It was by far, one of the happiest days of my life. I had waited and searched for many years to find the man I knew would become my companion until the end of time. On June 25, 2004, you walked into my world and turned it upside down. I knew the moment I saw you that there was something special, and within a few short months, knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you and have a family with you.

Over the past four years, my love for you has grown exponentially stronger. Our marriage and our love for one another has been tested and proven it can weather anything. We have seen each other at our worst, had our fights, and held each other when it seemed like all hell was going to break loose upon us. Through it all, you were by my side, holding me, and sometimes carrying me. You helped me to be strong when I was weak. You guided me when I needed a push in the right direction. But most importantly, you stuck with me and helped me achieve the one thing I wanted most: to be a mother to your children.

There have been many moments in our lives together that your love for me has been proven time and again, and in those moments, I remember how very blessed I am to have you in my life, as my husband from now until the end of time. I want to be with you forever, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to keep our love for each other and our marriage strong. You are a wonderful husband and father. Your love for me and our baby is astounding at times. I am so blessed with your patience and unconditional love.

You help make sense of a crazy world. You help keep things in perspective. You're my hand in the dark. The gentle reminder that life is not only worth living, but that it is great. You're my sun in the morning, and my moon and stars at night.

I am honored and blessed to be your wife, and I will love you all the days of my life and beyond.

Sweatin' Up a Storm

Today was rather a crazy day in our little household. There was no sleeping in for me this morning. Both of my pups had to be to the vet by 8:00. Sades was getting her annual physical (I kept telling her she was going to be felt up), and Mags was scheduled for her first teeth cleaning. At 8:15 we pulled into the parking lot, my poor pups were completely excited thinking we were "going for rides" only to find later on that they weren't going to enjoy the destination as much as they thought. Mags was whisked off before I even got a chance to kiss her head and tell her good luck. I did get to kiss Sades goodbye and tell her to be a good girl.

My plan all week had been to spend all day Saturday cleaning the house, as I decided not to bother last weekend and now had double duty to do. But before heading home, I took a few items back to the home improvement store, and then went and got Hubs and I a very healthy donut and kolache breakfast. I got back home just in time to get Baby Bean up for the day and fed.

Next up, cleaning the chariot (aka car). I have to admit, once I got into the car to start cleaning it out, I was rather embarrassed, and asked Hubs jokingly how my car had gotten so dirty and messy as I tossed french fries and Che.etos out the door onto the lawn. I was really cleaning it out because Baby Bean is about 1lb away from being too big for her infant carrier, and truth be told, she is SO over that thing, so it was time to install the Big Girl Seat. Let me tell you, unlatching the latch system from my car was no picnic. My hands still hurt from jamming them down into the seat to get the latches undone.

While it was not hot this morning, it was humid. Very humid. Before I was even done vacuuming half of the bench seat in the back, I had sweat and condensation dripping down my face. I still had about an hour's worth of cleaning to do. I finally managed to get it all done, however, and the car looks and smells great! (It no longer smells like a vet's office). *Let me just add here, I really am NOT a pig. My car just gets very neglected. It has been too stinking hot here to not neglect it.* Baby Bean's new car seat has been installed, slept in, and spit up in already.

Once the car was clean I fought with my computer to put together a little project that will appear on my blog on September 10th. Then it was time to feed the baby again. Then Hubs said we could go to the home improvement store. Why?

BECAUSE WE ARE FINALLY GOING TO FINISH OUR FLOORS!!!!! (I wish I could make this text flash.)

On top of finishing the floors, we're adding two pony walls that will increase our usable wall space, and eventually increase the limited storage capacity in this house.

Before I knew it, it was 4:00. The only thing I had managed to clean was the kitchen. I hadn't heard from the vet saying that the dogs were ready, so I made the call. Five minutes after walking in the door, I was on my way back out.

Mags was sooooo happy to see me. They brought her out alone and first. She sat there and whimpered for a good 5 minutes and just wanted me to hold her. The poor little girl looked as though she had been under anesthesia, and was sporting a bandage on her leg. I felt so bad. But I am happy to report her teeth look fantastic! Next they brought out Sades who was a ball of exuberant energy. I bought them a rope bone that they could play tug with together for being so good at the vet, as well as a bear for Mags. When I took her bandage off tonight, it exposed a paw that had been shaved all the way around just above the knee. Poor little girl!

Again, I got home just in time to feed the baby. Then I helped Hubs for a bit, then we went back to the store, then I vacuumed one floor in our house and did a load of laundry, and before I knew it, it was time to give the baby a bath, feed her, and put her into bed.

It is 11:27 PM right now, and I am still wondering where today went and how I was so busy, yet didn't manage to get very much cleaning in. Its a good thing it is a long weekend. Maybe by the time I get back to work on Tuesday I will have a clean house. Or not.

Passing the Torch

Growing up I was a big fan of Win.nie the Po.oh, as a result, I had every single stuffed animal character in the story, including numerous Po.oh bears. They are the select few stuffed animals I didn't put in storage. This past weekend, I officially handed the collection over to Baby Bean.


This little Ro.o actually belonged to my older brother, but somehow got mixed in with my collection. I don't think he will miss it. On top of which, it is Baby Bean's favorite out of the collection. She smiles and giggles at him and loves it when he "bounces" and goes, "Boing! Boing! Boing!"


At church on Sunday we ended up sitting next to a woman with a banana yellow purse that Baby Bean kept trying to grab, so I figured she would like to play with Ra.bbit. I looks like she is enjoying him to me.


I love this picture because we had been sitting on the floor playing when Baby Bean's daddy got home. This is the smile with which she presented him upon his telling her hello. I felt so lucky I had my camera in hand and caught this special smile.


This is the smile I got after she smiled at her daddy. She was so happy he was home. She is definitely a daddy's girl, which is just fine with me because I too, am a daddy's girl.