A New Addiction

Brian is at Office Depot and when he comes home I really hope he doesn't say "Let's play Wii tennis"! My arms and shoulders are SOOOOOOOOOO sore! We have been playing that thing every chance we get for the past week. And yesterday, I think we played for like 5 total hours off and on; hence the soreness. I have FINALLY gotten to the point of being able to beat Brian in a couple of things...the occasional tennis match and bowling. We are addicted. I admit it. And I hear that he newness of the Wii doesn't wear off much. Great. I am so behind on my TV shows, I haven't even seen LOST from last week yet! My DVR better not crash or anything or I will be one unhappy girl! But in any event, yes, we are addicted to Wii and admitting it is the 1st step! Now we are super excited to network our Wii with the Harris' so we can play each other from the comfort of our own homes! Think Doubles Tennis! Woo-Hoo!

Saturday was a busy day for me. I had a hair appointment in the morning and then straight to Meredith's house for scrapbooking with the girls. Unfortunately, Alma had to cancel because she was sick. It's not quite the same unless we are all there, but we had fun visiting and got some layouts done. I had to leave by 5:15 in order to make it to "Girl's Night Out". Jessica planned a fun-filled evening beginning with Bingo. None of us have played Bingo in decades if ever and we were soooo confused! If you haven't played in a while, you would be confused too...there were so many different options and computers and games. Once we got a hang of it, we really enjoyed it and it was a lot of fun. On our next available date night, I'm going to plan for us to go there. Maybe we can actually win! Then we went back to Jessica's house for drinks, food, and games. She made a trash can punch that was quite tasty. Brittany was babysitting that evening and the boys decided to go to Bone Daddy's BBQ. Apparently the wait staff dresses quite risque. Then they told us they decided to go to Oklahoma to go to the Casino and we believed them once they sent us pictures of the Winstar sign. As it turns out they were sitting at Kevin's house playing poker sending us pictures of their website! Assholes! Anyway, it was quite the busy day and I enjoyed the time away doing girl stuff. I missed my babies, but it was much needed!

Addyson is officially walking. Apparently, the time away from her Momma on Saturday did her wonders. All of a sudden she is walking more than crawling. I'll get some video to share because she is just too cute wobbling around the house. She also cut teeth 13 and 14 (I can't remember if I told you that already). Baby Girl is just growing up so fast...my last baby needs to slow down, her firsts are my lasts :(

We had Ashleigh's ARD (admission, review, and dismissal for those of you who don't habla) meeting. She is officially dismissed from speech and is no longer considered having a disability. I am so very proud of her and it has been a long, hard fought road. Her therapist, Mrs. Adams, was pretty sad and when we told Ashleigh, she was sad too. They've been seeing each other for 3 years, so it was definitely bittersweet.

Brian finally hung my memo boards on Sunday. Here they are (though the photos don't do them justice):

Detail of the ones in my office:



The boards in my office:

Ashleigh all snug in her bed:

The boards in Ash's room:

What do you think of them?

Of course Brian just came home and expected to play Wii, but now I'm trying to catch up on LOST (and give my arms and shoulders a chance to recover). LOL.

We've had Shasta for like 7 years and in that time she has NEVER even remotely tried to escape when she's in the backyard. There have been times when the gates have been wide open and she stays in the backyard. Well, for some reason the past few days, she has been escaping every chance she gets. She usually goes right to the front door. But today she was nowhere to be found so Addy and I had to get in the car and go hunting. We found her about 20 minutes later a few streets over. Damn dog! I don't know what her problem could be. Why all of a sudden does she want to escape? Brian screwed one of the gates closed that has a broken something that we think she was slipping through. UGH!

I don't know if I will be able to publish this post tonight, we just had a major storm with a brown out. Looks like the internet is working again, so fingers crossed! It's 11:00 now, so I better start heading to bed. Have a GREAT week, sleep tight!

13 Years Together

I know I just blogged yesterday, but I wanted to take the opportunity to wish my wonderful Husband a Happy 13 years together. We started seeing each other 13 years ago today and I simply can't believe how the time has flown! We are no exception and have certainly had our ups and our downs but I wouldn't change a thing because it has brought us to where we are now. And that's in a happy place where we simply love and adore each other to pieces. I'm sure we will continue to have those ups and downs, but that's okay, each one makes us stronger as a couple and we learn to appreciate each other more and more. We have accomplished so much together and it's hard to imagine life without him. I think back to the days when we moved in together after only dating for about 6 months. I had just graduated from college and he had just gotten out of the Marine Corps. We were SO muy poor! There were times when we had to use our Chevron gas card to get something to eat, a time when we lived in the Motel 6 for a week waiting for our apartment to be ready, and times when we didn't know how we would scrape up enough change to do our laundry. We've come a long way and am so proud of both of us. Thinking back to those days it seems so petty and selfish to bitch about how poor we are now. I know we are truly blessed in so many ways. I love Brian Shea Linder with all my heart. I love the family we created. I love the future that we'll continue to share.

Here are some facts that you may not have known about us:

* We lived in 4 different apartments (all in the same area) before moving into our 1st house.

* We were together 4 years before becoming engaged.

* We were together 5 years before actually tying the knot.

* We laughed so hard trying to move an entertainment center up the stairs to our apartment, that we (maybe I) simply could not do it and a neighbor had to come help.

* When we were in our 1st apartment, Brittany was only 5 years old. Sydney wasn't even born yet.

* There is a cabin in Pine Bluff, TX (AKA...boondocks) that Brian and I used to go to. See picture below.

* Brian and I have NOT gone on a honeymoon, nor have we gone on a real vacation together just the 2 of us.

* I just asked Brian to contribute to this and all he could come up with is "we're a little overweight". Um, Honey, I think they knew that one already! LMAO!

* We still have the Wal-Mart dishes we bought when we moved in together.

* Brian was a size 31 pants when we met...now he's a 38. That's what happens when you marry a West sister!

* Brian drove a Pontiac Firebird and I drove a Mitsubishi Eclipse when we 1st met. Yes, we liked sports cars! Now we're old and drive a SUV and a pickup truck!

I'm sure I'll think of a million more when my head hits the pillow. Here are a few pictures from WAY back when.

This is at the cabin in Pine Bluff, TX, probably around 1997:

This is at my work Christmas party, probably 1998ish:

At Brian's Mom's house, oh goodness, maybe 1999?

Happy 13 years together, Honey!! I love you so very much!

A Productive Day

We got quite a bit done today. It started with me actually making breakfast...bacon and eggs. Brian loves it, I'm not quite sure why I don't cook breakfast more often. Probably laziness. Then Brian actually started hanging my memory boards. He had to start by putting the hangars on the back of them; unfortunately, that's where that job ended. I can't even remember now what distracted him from actually hanging them. Oh, I think Addy was napping and we didn't want to wake her up with the drill. But then we cleaned the outside of the windows (they were so dirty, especially the front ones which face the south and get pounded by that southern wind), power washed the patio and the patio furniture, finally got rid of the sand box from the Lazy Race (which was way nasty), got some plumbing done around the hot water heater (I don't know, that's Brian's department), got the hose reel hung (that I bought 2 summers ago, LOL!), did quite a bit of laundry, picked up the house a bit, hmmmm, what else?!?! That's all I can think of right now, but that's A LOT! My husband is so very handy, and I am so grateful for it! I did go to Sam's to get a few things. Well, I say a few things, $137 worth! Geez, I can't get out of there for under $100...EVER! Oh, while I was gone Brian surprised me with buying a Wii. I've really been wanting one...the Harris' have one and it's so much fun! I'm not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but it's definitely a work out. That's why I'm getting a late start typing this blog tonight, I was busy getting my ass kicked by Brian in tennis, bowling, AND boxing! I must say, it was close in every game, but I lost nonetheless. After the boxing, I was breathing quite heavily and I realized just how out of shape I am! We will probably buy the Wii Fit at some point, but they were out of them.

Yesterday, we went to the Harris' for Brittany's and Kevin's birthday celebration. It was a good time. I have to give a shout out to Carrie (Kevin's sister) who looks FABULOUS! She has lost weight and has been working out a lot and it has definitely paid off for her! You go Girl! Brittany got quite a bit of cash and gift cardage, so hopefully that will help her out with prom and maybe a head start on her college preparations.

I apparently didn't pick up the camera much this week. But I took these today of Addy because I just couldn't resist her cuteness!

She's trying to put on Sissy's headband here:



Laughing pretty hard that I was laughing at how cute it was that she was trying to put on that headband:



The headband around her neck, where it always ends up, too funny!




We finally had the yard done on Thursday. The first mow of the season and it needed it so badly! Brian felt bad for the lawn guy because we have him bag the grass on the first one of the season which means one row and it's full. So Brian hopped on the Dude's riding mower to get the back started while the guy pushed mowed the front. I thought he looked extra cute, so I snapped a few pictures.

Isn't he sexy!?!?!



Hmmm, that looks pretty similar to the one above:

If you click on this one to enlarge it, you can see his big smile. I'm pretty sure he had a blast on that thing!

Ashleigh was on Spring Break this past week. I did manage to take Friday off so I could spend time with her. We went to lunch with my sisters and my Mom and then I had Brittany lined up to babysit Addy so I could give Ash my undivided attention. We ended up going shopping and Ally and Peyton came along with us. We went to Marshalls and I found an outfit and a pair of shoes for each daughter. Plus, Ash picked out a Hello Kitty princess castle toy...I agreed to buy it for her since it was our "Day of Fun". Such a spoiled child! Ally found an Easter dress for Peyton there and it is VERY pretty! Then we went to Target and we got Ash, Peyton, and Sydney matching bathing suits which are oh so cute! I'm sure we'll get a picture to share this summer. I also bought the Girls' Easter dresses. I wanted them to match this year but couldn't find matching. I found two that were pretty darned close and bought them. They are cute, I'm just not sure if they are the ones I will end up with. If I find something else I like better, I'll return them. I may try Children's Place (which is where I wanted to go originally, but Ally refused to go to the mall). We'll see if I have time to go before Easter. I also bought Ash a pair of Easter shoes at Target and another summer outfit. We saw Ashleigh's teacher there and Ash was so excited to see her.

Poor Addy has been suffering with teeth 13 and 14 coming in. These two are playing games with her, one day I'll feel them, and the next I won't. Poor girl is practically chewing her finger off (and mine when I'm not fast enough!) to get some relief! We really need to buy stock in Tylenol! She also continues to take steps here and there, but still isn't consistent with it. She also still has no desire to talk. She is really quiet unless she is crying or making that "give me that" noise. Ally started doing some sign language with her the other day and Addy was doing sooo good with it! She really imitates you well when you do it. She did especially well with "more". So proud of that girl, no matter how quiet and a lazy walker she is! LOL!

Well, it's almost 11:00 so I better wrap this up. I hope you all have a GREAT week! It will be hard for me to wake up because I allowed myself to sleep in until Addy woke up this past week...7:30 was better than 6:50!! Sleep Tight!

Fun At The Stockyards

One of my best friends, Deena, had told us about Family Day at the Stockyards in celebration of St. Patrick's Day on Saturday. The weather was questionable most of the day, but by 2:30 we decided to start getting ready to go. Peyton was over for a few hours while her parents worked so we brought her with us. It was kind of a dreary day but it warmed up enough to go. We got there right about 4:00, when the free pony rides were supposed to end. Luckily for us they were still doing them by the time we walked over there. The Girls were so excited driving there and talking about riding the ponies, so I was VERY relieved they had the chance! However, once we got there Peyton decided she didn't want to ride one. She said "those aren't ponies, those are horses". LMAO! I explained to her that a pony was a baby horse but then she said "they're going too fast". Okay, now it's clear to me she is just scared and doesn't want to ride because these ponies were going 0.0002 mph! Even Addy rode one! I even bribed her with candy and she still refused! I was disappointed, but I'll get over it. I just wanted her to experience it. Peyton is usually fearless so I'm not sure what was going on. Ashleigh on the other hand ran right up and was ready to hop up! Here are some pics from the fun:

Addy being escorted by her Daddy:



Ashleigh loving it:



Such a Cutie CowGirl:



Our beautiful CowGirl Ashleigh:




At least Peyton stood in front of the ponies:

The Petting Area they had next to the horses:

Lovely Cousins - Peyton got a little dirty at the Petting Area:

Can you guess what her balloon animal is? Butterfly:

Two butterfly Girls:

Awww, I can't get enough of that smile! Am I biased? Seriously, how cute is she?

Three little cutie patooties:

So that's what we did yesterday (Saturday). Today the Rogers were nice enough to invite us over for lunchner because they were cooking skirt (sp?) steak that Brian loves so much. So it was a great meal with great company! Thanks Rogers, it was great and we had a great time! I hope you liked the mashed potatoes, I couldn't get a good read. I am the potato queen...if it's a potato, I can cook it. It's the one thing I cook well...everything else is rather questionable. And my mashed potatoes are the one thing that BOTH my children will actually eat. Addy really seems to love them. But my best potato dishes are mashed, cheesy potatoes, and potato salad. We have NEVER had boxed potato buds in this house, I always make them from scratch. One of the VERY few things. One of my goals this year is to learn how to cook a few more things.

Speaking of food, Brian's Mom came over Friday evening with some homemade alfredo sauce. We cooked some fettuccine and we had ANOTHER great meal! I usually only eat Olive Garden's alfredo sauce but her alfredo sauce "from scratch" was to die for! OMG, I probably need to work out every day this week to work off all this great food!

Oh, at the Rogers today, Addy did quite a bit of walking. She even took like 4 steps at one time, several times. I actually think it was good for her to be around Jessica's kids because she was following them all around. Progress. YEA!

Our lawn guy emailed me last week to see if we wanted his services again this year. Brian and I talked about it since business has been so bad and the economy, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, hopefully business will pick up with the warmer weather, and we felt bad about him losing business (apparently he's lost 60% of his clients since last season due to the economy), PLUS we really don't think we'll have time to keep up with it. Brian will probably be working at least Saturdays over the weekend and probably the occasional Sunday. I like mowing but me and the weed eater don't get a long. Anyway, we're going to give it a go and hopefully we'll be able to afford it through the season. If not, we'll just have to cancel later on down the road. But I REFUSE to cancel the Cleaning Lady in order to afford it! LOL!

I took this picture this evening. A typical pre-bedtime scene in our house. I wanted to finally capture it.

Brian still hasn't hung the darned memo boards. He said he'll do it tomorrow (like I haven't heard that before, LOL) so hopefully I'll have a picture for you next time. :-) I hope you all have a GREAT week! Ashleigh is on Spring Break this coming week and I'm hoping MAYBE Brian and I will be able to take just 1 day off to take the kids to the zoo or something. We'll see how the week plays out. Sleep Tight!

Here At Last

I have to apologize...it has been W-A-Y too long since I've blogged last! As always, I've been so busy with everything but first and foremost I wanted to finish editing Jilian's newborn pictures. I am happy to say that I DID finally finish those pictures, Jessica picked them up today, she looked at them this evening, and her and Jeremy LOVED them! I am so excited they liked them because I was soooo nervous about it. I won't post anymore of them than I already did, but you can keep checking her blog here for when she posts them. I hope you all like them too!

Oh goodness, what has been going on around here the past 2 weeks? Brian's older sister, Tracy, and her 2 kids, Bria and Tanner, came into town on Sunday. So we headed down to Arlington and spent the day with them. While we were there we took some family pictures (you can see them below). Brian's Mom, Margarete, made us a wonderful lasagna lunchner (lunch and dinner for those of you who don't habla). I say lunchner because we were so stuffed we couldn't possible eat another thing the rest of the day! Very yummy! The clan will be headed up to our neck of the woods tomorrow night so I can cook them dinner. On the menu: ham, cheesy potatoes, caesar salad, and rolls. Hmmm, I just realized I didn't plan on dessert. Oh well, we'll probably be too full. Tracy and the kids roll back out of town on Friday morning. :-(

Allyson and our old childhood friend, Erica, drove down to San Antonio for a Century 21 convention. Erica lives in Washington state and flew in Sunday night and then they left Monday morning. I got to see her briefly before they left while Ally was dropping Peyton off. When they come back Thursday we'll go to dinner so we can spend a little time together before she flies back home on Friday. I sure hope they are enjoying their 4 days without us!

Some of my girlfriends and I scrapbooked a couple of Saturdays ago. I didn't take a picture of the layouts I did, but if you want to see them, remind me when I see you and I'll show you. Speaking of taking pictures, I haven't taken pictures yet of the french memo boards I made for Ashleigh's room and my office because Brian STILL has not hung them! UGH! And now he's starting to get busy with work so who knows when they'll get hung. I will probably have to take a picture of them anyway even though they are not on the wall. I'll try to convince him this coming weekend. They've kind of become a permanent fixture on the end table in the living room. LOL!

Addy is still not walking. She did take about 3 steps unassisted a few days ago but she definitely is not being consistent and she still prefers to just crawl and doesn't even seem to want to walk yet. I guess she'll do it on her own time. As far as her talking, I took her for her hearing test and to see the ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat Doctor for those of you who don't habla). She passed her hearing test with flying colors, her frequency and pressures were perfect, and Doc said her ears were beautiful. GREAT news! We can rule out her hearing as a reason for her not talking. Doc said it is typical for younger siblings to not talk as soon as their older siblings because those older siblings tend to "speak" for the younger ones. It's funny, because Margarete said the same thing happened with Brian. Tracy used to always speak for him so he didn't learn to speak for himself. Plus Addy is home with me all day without much social interaction. She'll get there eventually.

Ashleigh continues to do very good in Kindergarten. I'm sure I've mentioned they started their Leveled Readers in January when they returned from the Holidays. I am so proud of her for how well she has done. She is already on level 9 which she will read to Mrs. Roberts tomorrow and then she'll be on level 10. She seems to breeze through most of them once she sounds out her new words. Tomorrow she has her class picture, I need to come up with something cute for her to wear.

My goodness, I know I had a lot to say but I'm drawing a blank. I guess I'll leave you tonight with some pictures from the past couple of weeks (you can click on them to enlarge each one):

Last Friday my Mom and Ally wanted to go to lunch after Mom got done at Kidney Clinic and I was trying to keep Addy awake. I put her in her high chair with Cheerios and when I came back, this is what I saw. Poor Girl was so tired and ready for her nap. The phone eventually woke her up when it was time to go:



Flashlight Fun:



Showing off her mouth full of teeth:



More flashlight of fun:



My Beautiful Brown-Eyed Girl showing off her tooth brushing skills:

Here are some of the family pictures we took in Arlington on Sunday with Brian's family. Clockwise starting at 1:00: Tracy, Katie, Brian:

Me and my handsome hubby:

The Grandkids. From left to right: Tekoa, Bria, Addyson, Tanner, Ashleigh, Kaileyanna

Today (who am I fooling...everyday, like 28 times a day) Addyson decides it will be a good time to empty my ribbon drawer from my wrapping cart. As big of a pain it is to clean this up 28 times a day, I couldn't resist snapping some pictures (and yes, I thought it would be cute to put 3 pony tails in Addy's hair, hehehe, we needed a change):

Yummy Ribbon:

She must like the way that gold ribbon tastes:

Sally LOVES to lick Shasta's ears. I know it's gross, but Shasta LOVES it too:

Awww, cutie sisters:

Alrighty folks, I'm going to finish watching AI (LOVE Allison by the way!!) and Biggest Loser (was a fan of Felipe until I just witnessed his temper!) I hope to not be such a bad blogger in the coming week. Thanks for sticking with me! Sleep Tight!

So Sorry

I apologize to all 3 of my readers! I have not updated in quite some time. I promised myself I didn't have time to blog until I got Jilian's pictures edited. It took a lot longer than I anticipated (and no, Jessica, not because she is ugly like you suggested the other day you big goober!) Anyway, I burned their disc this morning and I am DONE! Unfortunately, I am dead tired, and don't want to update tonight either. But I do promise to update in the next day or two. In the meantime, I hope you have a GREAT week! Sleep Tight!