Weekend

I love a clean house.  I hate cleaning, but I loooove a clean house.

There’s just something about freshly vacuumed carpet, dust-free furniture, spotless bathrooms, clean dishes, empty laundry baskets, and fresh sheets that makes me happy.  However, all of these things NEVER happen at the same time in my house.  Never.

Until yesterday.

I spent the better part of the day doing laundry, organizing kitchen cabinets, putting away toys, cleaning out junk drawers, dusting, and scrubbing down the house.  I’m not sure where all the energy came from, but I was thankful to have it because my house has not been this clean or organized since we moved in two and a half years ago!

After I was done with the house, we took Christopher to the park to run around.  It was in the 70s and gorgeous outside. However, apparently every other parent in Mena had decided to do the same thing. The nicer of our two parks was packed with families, so we headed to the smaller park.  There were still quite a few people there, but the playground itself only had 3 or 4 kids running around on it, so we parked there and let Christopher play for a little while.  It’s not quite as toddler-oriented as the main park, though, so there’s not much he can do except go down a slide or two.  We stayed for probably 15 minutes then left.

Next, we went to our local Stage store because I wanted to get Christopher a new pair of tennis shoes. I had a coupon for 25% off, plus they were having a sale where if you bought one athletic shoe you could get the second for 1/2 off, so I was able to get one pair for 25% off $18.00 and the second pair for 50% off $14.00, meaning I got two pair of tennis shoes for $22.00!  I love Stages sales and the fact that you can use coupons even on sale items. I got one pair of size 6 shoes for now and then I bought a size 7 for him to grow into.

Next was a half-price drink from Cruizzers for me and Stevo, then we headed out to my parents house to take them a few things I had found when I was cleaning.  Christopher was excited to see his grandparents (as always) and didn’t want to leave to come back home with us (as usual.)  Sigh.  While we were there he got his PawPaw to swing him HIIIIIGH in his swing and got his Granny to take him for a ride on the 4-wheeler. I think he probably had more fun at my parents house than he did at the park. :)

 

This morning Christopher slept in late (thank you baby! Momma was TIRED after yesterday!) and we skipped church and stayed home and snuggled.  Well, snuggled for as long as it took Christopher to eat his breakfast on the couch, then he took off to play with toys and make a mess of the clean house.  ha!

After the beautiful weather yesterday I’m ready for spring and summer.  One of the gifts Stephen and I got for Christmas is Season Passes to Silver Dollar City.  I am SO excited about them and I’m already planning several trips to Branson this year.  We (meaning Stephen, his mom, and his brother) have a timeshare type thing with a company of Condos where we can stay in the condos for free during the odd years. Since it’s 2011, we have pretty much unlimited use of the condos ALL YEAR LONG and one of the Condos is located in Branson.  For Christmas, Stephen and I also received almost $100 in gift certificates to restaurants in Branson, which basically means Stephen and I can go to Branson and have free lodging, free access to Silver Dollar City, and several free meals!  All it will cost us is gas and whatever we buy while we’re there. I’m so excited about it! I have been thinking about trips to Branson all morning.  I can’t wait for summertime and I’m hoping the whole family can go – my parents also have Season Passes and we can take Deanna, Tyler, and Britney with our “guest passes” a few times!  Again, I’m really excited.  Unfortunately, it’s just the end of January – but I’m hoping time flies and summer is here before we know it!

a non-update update.

So... no [non-picture] post for a week a half, but there's really not much to say!

The highlights of the last few weeks include starting the Spring semester (my LAST Spring semester of undergraduate work!) and playing Charades with my family.  Aaaand that's about it!  Ha!

So far this morning I've been working on the house.  Not sure why, but I woke up with a burst of energy and I've been working on Christopher's room and laundry.  I put away his 12-month PJs this morning... which made me really sad for some reason.  I remember when I first put those sweet 2-piece PJs on him and thinking that he looked like such a big boy and now they're too small for him.  I know that his normal 12-month pants are too small/short, but I have a few outfits that I'm just not ready to let go of yet... so they're staying put for the next month or so!

Today is a gorgeous day, and later I plan on dragging Stephen out of the house and taking Christopher to the park to play or possibly going up on the mountain and doing something fun up there.  The last few days have been very non-winter like, and it's making me wish for spring and summer, green grass, hummingbirds, flowers, etc etc.  :)  I love winter and snow but I love warm weather more... which, Stephen pointed out earlier this week, means that we probably shouldn't move to Alaska like I've been begging him to.  He looked up the average temps there in order to convince me why I would not like living there permanently, and that pretty much convinced me to stay below the Mason-Dixon line.

And now I'm going to get back to working on the house.  :)  Happy Saturday!

Project 365: January 19-26

 
1.19.2011 – Christopher enjoying some cinnamon graham crackers.

1.20.2011 – Sweet Jasper asleep in my lap.

 
1.21.2011 – Hanging out in his (new) PJs.

1.22.2011 - This was the time it was when I realized I hadn’t taken a picture this day… (Photo taken with my iPhone)

1.23.2011 – I gave Christopher two tortilla chips and some water, and he sat down in his little chair at the coffee table in the living room and made himself a “plate”  with the chips, a clothes pin, and a mini tape measurer.

1.24.2011 – Why play with toys when you have pots and pans?

1.25.2011 – Every night before I go to bed, I go into Christopher’s bedroom, check on him, and give him a goodnight kiss.

1.26.2011 – Christopher found a new playing spot… Jasper’s cage.  Lovely.

Recap of 2010

I started this at the beginning of January, but I just sat down and took the time to finish it. It took me longer than I thought it would, but I’m glad I finished it. I enjoyed going back through the year and seeing all the fun things we did in 2010.

January:
Stephen, Christopher, and I flew to Salt Lake City, Utah, to visit Stephen’s biological father and grandparents. We also got to visit Park City, Utah. I loved the mountains!
We participated in the baby dedication at First Baptist Church.

Feburary:
Christopher tried his first solid food. (green beans!)
Christopher turned six months old. (sniff sniff)
After being home with Christopher for the first six months of his life, I returned to work. (SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF!)

March:
I didn’t blog much, and I think we mainly worked. Nothing extremely special happened in March.

April:
Christopher started crawling and turned 8 months old! He started looking less like a baby this month.
Stephen and I made our first big purchase together as a married couple – a 2008 Pontiac G6.

May:
We attended Aunt B’s graduation ceremony.
My favorite brother turned 21.
Strawberries were in season. Exhibit A and Exhibit B.

June:
Sweet, sweet summer arrived.
I turned into my mother found a new love for working in the yard!
Christopher made the front page news.
Christopher started WALKING!
I quit my job at Walmart and prepared to go back to college!

July:
I took two summer college classes at HSU and put a lot of miles on our car!
Operation Holly Bush Removal took place and my front porch was transformed!

August:
I finished up my summer classes at HSU and received an “A” in both classes!
Nana got a pool!
I threw Stephen a surprise birthday party.
Christopher turned ONE YEAR OLD and we had his Birthday Party!
I started the Fall Semester of college at HSU.

September:
College football started and Christopher and I cheered for the Hogs!
I had major test anxiety over my first Accounting exam, then aced it.
Christopher had his first haircut.
Stephen and I went to Branson, Missouri for our 2-year anniversary.

October:
I turned twenty-five years young.
Christopher continued to grow and be way too stinking cute.
Christopher was a monkey for Halloween.
School continued on at full-speed. (Read: not much happened, including blogging.)

November:
I started the Couch to 5K program.
Thanksgiving Break finally arrived.
I took sweet fall photographs.

December:
We went to the local Christmas Parade and fireworks show/Park Lights ceremony.
We visited the Christmas Train & Santa.
The fall 2010 semester ended. (Four A’s and a B in Accounting!)
We celebrated Christmas with our families.

2010 was a GREAT year for us! The highlights were Christopher turning one and me returning to college. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings us!

ankles, classes, and jobs (oh my?)

Friday morning, I woke up to Stephen hollering (in a panicked, I’m-in-alot-of-pain way) “Baby! Baby! Wake up!” When I finally realized what was going on, I looked down at the foot of our bed and saw my husband laying facedown on the carpet, clutching his chest. (Maybe he wasn’t clutching his chest, but that’s what I thought he was doing.) I immediately thought that he’d had a heart attack (not sure why that’s the first thing I thought of) and started asking what was wrong, what had happened.  He told me to check his ankle, so I was relieved to know that he wasn’t possibly dying. Ha!

I checked his ankle, expecting to see bones poking out of bloody skin, but saw nothing like that. We eventually got his shoes and socks off and couldn’t really see anything out of the ordinary, so I helped him get to the couch and then went outside to turn off his car, which he had started to warm up before he left for work.  He had started his car, then was taking some trash from the front porch to the side yard trash can for me, when he slipped on some black ice on our driveway and twisted his ankle pretty badly. I got him some pain medicine and called in to work for him and we decided to wait a few hours to see how it looked/felt before going to the hospital.

We ended up going to the ER to get it checked out and three x-rays later (can’t wait to get that bill) we discovered that he just had a sprain.

SO… we he spent the next several days laying on the couch with me taking care of the kiddo, the puppy, and the house. Fun times.

***

Yesterday, Stephen and I headed to Arkadelphia to get him registered for classes. Since I’m going on Tuesday/Thursday this semester, with classes starting at 9:30, we were trying to get the same schedule for him – but since it was the day before classes started, we had trouble finding classes that weren’t already full.  We had to get permission from three different teachers so that he could get into classes that were already capped out. Thankfully, we were able to get him into 12 hours – nine on campus and three online. He’ll have to wait on me on Thursday afternoons while I’m in one class, but I think it will be a good time for him to play games on his iPhone work on homework. I’m SO SO excited about Stephen going back to school – in a few years we will both be done with our undergraduate degrees and hopefully have good-paying teaching jobs and possibly working towards our graduate degrees. I don’t want to wish time away (I’m trying to ignore the fact that my baby boy turned 17 months old yesterday and will be a year and a half old next month) but I am so ready for the next “phase” of our life – moving from Mena, buying a newer house, possibly maybe considering thinking about making Christopher a big brother.  :)

***

Speaking of jobs, I am also SO HAPPY to announce that my husband turned in his two weeks notice at Walmart today. He’s been there for entirely too long seven and a half LONG years and he deserves a better job, which is exactly what he got. He is the new SPORTS EDITOR for the Mena Star, our local newspaper. He and I are both really excited about this opportunity. His hours will be more flexible than at WM and he’ll be able to do it and still go to school, which is perfect. I just know he is going to LOVE the job and everything that it entails. He’s excited about everything that he’s going to be able to do and I don’t think there is a better man out there for the position!

***

Today is my last day of Christmas Break. I need to be picking up the house, catching up on laundry, and ordering textbooks, but instead I’m enjoying the day at home, covering Christopher with a thousand kisses, laying around in jammies and watching TV. I’ll clean when Christopher naps and get ready for school after he goes to bed tonight. It’s a bittersweet day because I am excited for Stephen and I to start back to school (for the sole purpose of being excited about being one semester closer to graduating) but I am going to miss my lazy days at home with my favorite little boy.

Project 365: January 10-18

I’ll admit that I’ve ALREADY screwed up this project because I didn’t take a picture on Friday. Actually, I did – but it was of Stephen’s swollen foot/ankle and let’s just say he doesn’t have the prettiest feet, so I’m going to spare y’all and not post it. :)

1.10.2011 – Christopher’s first time to play in the snow

1.11.2011 – Bella and Jasper

1.12.2011 –This one was taken while we were at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Papas. His shirt says, “Have an ICE Day!” which I thought was appropriate because everything was still snowy and icey.

1.13.2011 – Christopher helped Momma make home-made biscuits. (His great-grandmother’s recipe.)

1.14.2011 – the day Stevo sprained his ankle (while taking out the trash for me!)

1.15.2011 – Christopher enjoyed his first taste of Cheetos!

1.16.2011 – My super big boy. My mom bought this outfit for him for his birthday and we thought it was SO big and that it wouldn’t fit until after cold weather season!

1.17.2011 – So sweet. (Sorry this is so similar to the picture I took a few days ago, but it’s the only one I took on the 17th.)

 
1.18.2011 – love.this.stuff.

Christmas Card 2010

I know this is WAAAAAY late. I didn’t do this before Christmas, because I had such a fiasco with my Christmas Cards and I didn’t want to post my card on here until everybody got theirs, then I just never did it. I remembered today and thought I would go ahead and post it anyway, just because it’s too cute, and of course for my own records in case something ever happened to my copies.

This was the front of the cards:

This was the inside! 

The colors are a little off here, but I absolutely loved the cards and will definitely be using Shutterfly in the future. :) I got lots of comments on how cute they were and I was super happy with them. In the future, I am also going to try to order my cards early so that people aren’t getting them on Christmas Eve. Ha!