The Story

Okay, I suppose I've heard from enough of you either by comment left or email sent so I'll tell the whole story. Please know I'm not telling in jest - simply retelling what happened. Josh and I were on our way to pick up his date (I was riding with him so I could get pictures of the two of them. Brian was coming a few minutes later after dropping Ian off at his coaches house.) We were at the end of our neighborhood turning left onto a four lane road (well, two 2-lane roads with a median separating them) and the sun was beginning its decent (it was 4:50pm) in the direction we were turning so the glare on the road was pretty bad. Plus, there was someone in the right turn lane turning into our neighborhood. Josh began to move forward a little thinking the way was clear and, all of sudden he stops and says oh, no. Then, I finally saw the car just as it was, I thought, clearing us but all of a sudden I'm seeing the car swerve into the other lane and I see a fender in the middle of the road. My first thought was - Who's fender is that? Then I realized what was happening - she's swerving and finally loses control, goes into the ditch and proceeds to roll a couple of times before finally landing on the roof. People had already stopped and were running over to help her and I ran over. Thank the Lord she was able to crawl out of the car of her own doing but all who were present advised her to stay there until the medics got there. She did leave in the ambulance but was fine except for some cuts and bruises. I'm so thankful I was in the car with Josh because I know he wasn't being careless it was just a tough situation and he must've just pulled up a little too much. He and I barely felt the impact so it truly felt like a dream. A really bad one. After all the police reports were done and she had left in the ambulance, we left in the mini-van. Believe it or not, I let Josh continue driving to her house. We were both still pretty shaken up and we took our time getting to her house as well as just hanging out once we got there. Her parents said they were okay with Josh driving as long as he felt comfortable. He did drive that night - the minivan - that's why the picture of him opening the door for her is in the minivan. No more incidents that night. The car is now in the shop and I really don't want to know what our insurance is going to be now. The good news is that everyone is okay and that Josh didn't pull out any further. If he had, I may not be writing this right now. The Lord was truly watching over us and I'm so thankful for His protection.

Much Anticipated Prom Pictures!!!

I know many of you have been looking every day to see if I've posted pictures yet from Josh's prom - or at least I like to pretend that you have - and I finally have them. I've put them all in a scrapbook style for your viewing pleasure. There's a bit of a story of something that happened that night but I won't spell it out for you this time - you have to look carefully at the pictures to see if you can figure it out! If enough of you leave a comment, I'll include the full story in my next blog (bribery, let's see if it works?! {smile}). He had a great time and it's a night he won't soon forget!! Enjoy the virtual scrapbook!

Make a photobook - it's easy!

I Finally Got a Haircut!

Okay, it's not exactly earth shattering news but I've been wanting a haircut for at least a month now and it hasn't happened. I last had a "trim" back in early December and before that my last good cut was in September so it was definitely time!!! I've always wanted to do "before and after" pictures so I did that today - my loving husband is so sweet to appease me! Here's the before picture of the back of my hair...

And here's the after of the back of my hair...

Not a drastic change but definitely a change and I'm so happy about it! Here's the front...

This is also the first time since Ellie was born that I've been able to go to the salon by myself and I enjoyed every minute of it - not that I don't love my Ellie but I do enjoy getting my hair done in peace!

Ellie's Rash & Cute Bath Time Pictures

Well, I might have to own up to the fact that Ellie is allergic to milk. Back in November I had given her a small amount of potatoes with butter and cheese on it. Later that evening (after going to bed) she was up throwing up. A couple of months ago at a function, I gave Ellie one of the Panini bagel cracker things to gnaw on and a few minutes later while she was still gnawing on it we noticed all around her mouth it looked like she had mosquito bites. We took the cracker away, washed her up and a little while later the rash was gone. Then, another time we were at a restaurant and I gave her a couple of bites of Ian's macaroni and cheese and Brian showed me when we got home that it looked like she had welts on her lips! We've been somewhat avoiding milk because of it but we've tested it a little by giving her a small amount of yogurt and she didn't react so I was starting to think maybe it was something else. Well, today at lunch I gave her some of our leftovers from last night (a kind of chicken pot pie casserole) and she started acting a little funny but kept eating it so I wasn't sure what was going on. After she'd eaten a good little bit, she ended up spitting up some of it and I thought perhaps she hadn't chewed something well and that caused her to gag. Because of the spit up I had to change her clothes and she was not happy. I thought she wanted to nurse so I nursed her but she still wasn't happy. Brian took her and was holding her when she started to gag a little and he was quick enough to get her to the sink and she pretty much emptied her stomach. After that she felt a little better but still not quite herself. I left to get Ian and when I got home Brian tells me he thinks she has hives on her stomach. She did. She was keeping down some apple sauce but didn't want anything else. I ended up giving her a homeopathic medicine to help with the hives and a little while later she was acting much more herself and finished the applesauce. Oh, boy. I don't know if I'm ready to deal with allergies! I've known so many friends with kids with allergies but we've never had them and I'm going to have to really change a lot for this. Some of you out there who are dealing with this, please give me your thoughts/comments/feedback - I sure would appreciate it! During her bath tonight I realized I hadn't gotten any good pictures of her in the bathtub so I thought I would do that plus include a picture of her rash. It makes me hurt just to look at it but it doesn't seem to be bothering her and her breathing never seemed to be in jeopardy - praise the Lord!

Ellie is 10 months old!

I won't repeat myself about not believing my baby is 10 months old (oops, I just did, didn't I {smile}) but she is! She still has no teeth but loves to eat. She eats a good bit of baby food still but also loves regular food. Some of her favorites right now seem to be rice, fruit of any description, loved spaghetti, and eats any type of meat pretty well. Something new she started doing on her 10 month birthday is CRAWLING!!! Yep, she is officially crawling but what's funny is I'm not sure if she fully realizes what this means as she doesn't go far - just far enough to reach a toy that may be out of reach! I'm sure it won't be long until that changes, though. She's not a big cuddler but she loves to be held. She waves bye-bye, claps and will occasionally do the signs for more and all-done. She likes to turn the light off (by pushing the switch down) and she seems to enjoy playing with her toys at least for short periods of time. She likes to stand at the coffee table and she'll sometimes bob her head like she's grooving. She smiles a lot but she likes to get her way, too. Her "fun thing" she likes to do that we get on to her for is taking out her bow. She'll take it out and hand it to us. She likes to hand us anything she's holding. I think it's because she likes to hear us say "Thank you" and do the sign for it. For some reason I can hear her saying "You look so cute when you do that!" As you can tell, I'm sharing some pictures I took today. I couldn't decide which one to show, so I picked a few. These last two are funny faces I caught her making so I just had to share them!

Visit with Jen

My friend Jen came to visit this weekend. She lives in Missouri but was on a business trip to Biloxi so she drove up to visit over the weekend. She arrived Friday evening and left this afternoon. We had a lot of fun and picked up right where we left off - we hadn't seen each other since 1999! Plus, during that time we hadn't done a great job at keeping in touch and only reconnected a few months back so it was really good to see her and catch up on each other. We became friends when we were both in Columbus, MS, and she was a bridesmaid in my wedding. While she was here we pretty much just hung out and got caught up on everything. Yesterday we were having our garage sale (I'll talk about that more later) so we were a little busy with that until noon but then we all went to lunch and then she and I headed to get pedicures (Jen was the person who bought me my first pedicure so it seemed only fitting that we go do that!) We did a little shopping then came home and had a yummy dinner of Brian's grilled chicken, I made a twice baked potato casserole, fruit salad and Jen put together a yummy salad. Then, we went through old pictures and shared old memories and stories - so much fun. Hopefully, it won't be another decade until we see each other again!

Guess who got their license?

Well, it finally happened. Josh got his driver's license yesterday! I picked him up a little early from school and we got there and we were seen right away and out of there in ten minutes - thank goodness! He was pretty excited. He couldn't help smiling for his picture for his license. We let him drive to school today plus he took his brother to school so I didn't have to. I almost didn't know what to do with myself this morning! I actually went out walking around 7:45am instead of 8:30am! So, I was officially ready for the day by 10am! Wow! I'm trying not to think about it too much (the fact that he's out there by himself) but I did say a prayer as they left this morning and I figure it's all in the Lord's hands now! Here are some pictures of him with his license plus them leaving this morning.

I've Started Jogging!

I'm finally doing it, I'm jogging! I have been wanting to for a while now since Brian seems to enjoy it so much but I always had this whole mental block thing going. Before I got pregnant with Ellie I could go to the gym and do a 5K on the treadmill there but as soon as I got outside and tried to run I couldn't get much further than a few minutes down the road. Well, while Ian was on Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, we invited our neighbor to go walking with us. During our walk she says to me, "You know, your pace is just about at a jogging pace." So, I got to thinking about that and last week while I was out walking I decided to just pick my feet up a little more so it was more like a jog and it wasn't too bad! I did it in spurts that time but decided to try more continual spurts next time. Well, they also say when you start trying to run you shouldn't do it everyday so I've been sticking with that. I walked on Monday but on Tuesday I had it in my head I would jog at least part of my 2 1/2 mile walk I do. So, I walked about a mile of it and then started jogging. I actually jogged about 12 minutes - so right about a mile and it wasn't too bad! I just walked yesterday with Brian but today I jogged some more and I did about 15 minutes of jogging after walking for 5 minutes. I'm "pleased as punch!" I will keep it around 15 minutes for the next couple of times then try and push it up to 20 minutes. I just had to adjust in my head the reality of pace. I think, before, when I would go out to run - I was trying to full out run rather than just picking up my feet a little bit more than I was actually doing. So, obviously, I'm not out to win any races but I feel good that, I hope, my mental block is over!

How did we get so BUSY?

It's been a while since I've blogged about things - the days just seem to fly by and the nights go even faster since it seems we have some sort of activity every night. (Might I refer back to a previous blog about BASEBALL???) To be honest I've also been having fun playing on Facebook - it's a little bit addicting and fun finding lots of friends from the past. If you aren't on there, you might think about it and look me up! :) Just don't blame me if you spend more time on there than you really should!! As a recap of the last couple of weeks, here's our schedule from Easter forward.
Easter Sunday: Family recovering from being sick, parents here.
Easter Monday: Try to get Josh's driver's license early that morning just to find we calculated wrong and his 6 months is up April 10th not March 10th. I then take him on to school. Ian and Brian on Spring Break. Parents head home.
Tuesday: Somewhat relaxing day home with Ian and Brian. They have baseball practice that evening.
Wednesday: Brian leaves at o dark hundred for Atlanta where he's flying out of to go to NYC to meet his "Eagle" for his research project. Go walking in the morning. Ian, Ellie and I go to the commissary. FUN STUFF! I take the boys and our neighbors to church that night and someone else brought them home.
Thursday: Take Josh to school, go for walk, spend some time with Ian while Ellie naps. After her nap we had packed a picnic lunch and head to a park we've been wanting to go to and have a nice afternoon at the park. No activities tonight!
Friday: Take Josh to scshool, go for walk, spend some time with Ian while Ellie naps. We eat lunch at home but decide to go back to the same park. After a while there we were thinking about heading home when it starts raining, definitely time to go! Brian's flight is delayed a little coming home but he still gets home around 6pm. Have a nice evening at home (Josh went home with a friend and then to the movies, got home later).
Saturday: Brian and Ian have baseball practice that morning. But after that we have a nice day at home. Planned to camp in the backyard. Brian worked hard, got the tent set up we had a fire in our fire pit, roasted hot dogs then started on the marshmallows and the rain started. Slept inside. (side note: tent is STILL up!!)
Sunday: Go to Josh's friend's church and go to lunch with them afterwards. Nice to spend some time getting to know them.
Monday: Life back to normal as far as school schedules go - everyone is back in!! Have OCF that evening.
Tuesday: Another normal day. Brian and Ian have baseball that evening.
Wednesday: Normal day. I had a steering committee social that evening.
Thursday: Normal day. Ian has his first game that evening. Start time was 7:15pm but because the game ahead had to go into an extra inning due to a tie it didn't actually start until more like 7:45pm - and these are 7 year olds!!
Friday: Normal day. Josh and I go after school with his date and her mom to pick out his tux for the Prom. WOW are tux's expensive!!! Especially considering I'm just renting and not actually keeping it!! Brian and Ian were supposed to have baseball but (PRAISE the Lord) it was raining and storming so practice was canceled and we had a relaxing evening at home.
Saturday: The morning was quiet and we were able to do some things to get ready for our community yard sale this coming Saturday. Ian was supposed to have a game at 1:15pm but it got canceled because of the rain. He had a birthday party at an indoor inflatable place from 2:30-4:30 for a friend from school and then from 5-7pm we had an OCF social on base.
Sunday: Brian and Josh went with our neighbors to Birmingham to see Spam-a-lot. They've had the tickets for a while so they had been looking forward to it. They had to leave at 10am and I just decided to stay home with Ian and Ellie. Ian had another birthday party for a friend from school at 2pm at the bowling alley so while he was there I came home and Ellie got a nap. Brian and Josh got home (well, Brian did Josh went on to hang out with friends) around 6pm and then it was back to the grind of studying for Brian as he had an in class closed book mid-term today that he was a little nervous about.
So, now the week starts over again with all the usual evening activities to keep us busy. But, hey, that's what it's like when you have kids involved in things, right?! Now you know what we've been up to (at least for the most part) for the last two weeks. I know you wanted all the details...