Remembrance

I remember days of bologna and cheese sandwiches. I remember sitting on her porch swing, listening to the bugs. I remember playing her made up sort of charades game where my brother and I had to figure out what her occupation was. I remember lazy days of playing outside. I remember helping her do chores. I remember telling her I was a tomgirl, not a tomboy.

I remember her walking us to the end of the dirt road to the bus stop everyday. I remember the excitement we would get when the "UPS" man would show up, or the time when the school bus actually drove up the dirt road. I remember waking up to the mouse on my head and the frantic search for it, all the while my brother slept.

I remember the pancakes she would make my brother and I for breakfast, the ones that were so huge they were almost never cooked all the way through. I remember eating spaghetti and coleslaw, biscuits and gravy, fried apple pies.

I remember listening to blue grass music and standing in front of the window air conditioning unit in the heat of the summer. I remember tall glasses of sweet tea, with more sugar than was probably healthy for a little girl.

I remember when she would make homemade jam and keep it in the building next to her trailer. I remember the chicken coop, the huge sandbox my brother would spend hours in, the tree swing. I remember her goldfish that lived for what seemed like 20 years. I remember the stacks and stacks of Harlequin romance books.

I remember the day my Mom was in a car accident and broke her neck. I was sitting at my Grandma's house, doing homework. After that, my Mom was set up in a hospital bed at my Grandma's house since she had to spent the next few months in a halo. I remember washing her hair on the front porch.

On Monday, my maternal Grandmother passed away. I am choosing to keep in my mind the memories I have of her from my childhood, the ones where I spent every summer day with her. I choose not to keep in my memory the visit from last December, where she didn't know who I was and didn't know where she was.

Rest in peace, Grandma.

Baby Clara

My Stepsister's daughter got to come home from the hospital last weekend...

Tiny! She is still a little under 5 lbs.

And nope...no tingling in my arms to hold another baby. No urge to go convince Ray to have a third. There was a time when he wouldn't have needed that much convincing, but we kept my friend's six year old daughter all last weekend, and the sheer volume of three girls in our house all weekend long pretty much killed that.

Friday Pictures

I am a slacker, I know. But every.night.this.week has been something. Tuesday soccer, Wednesday tutoring and haircut, Thursday band. Even when I got home from band practice at 9:00pm last night, Ray had to go back out and meet clients. It's just been one of those weeks. Ashley has been sad she hasn't gotten to play with her friends more, Audrey begs to go outside as soon as we get home. Oh, and work is sucking too. My every other Friday off has been taken away. I am glad it's Friday.


So of course no new pictures have been downloaded, so here are some more pics from our last weekend at the beach.

Ashley and her best friend Hayden.

Yes, she is wearing a Sunshine Designs shirt here. And yes, it says Birthday Princess. And no, it wasn't her birthday.

Sometimes she likes the sand, sometimes not.

These kids love rides.

We are not sure if Audrey is our child. She doesn't really like ice cream.

Friday Pictures - The View From the Van

These are pictures from our trip down to Myrtle Beach last weekend...enjoy...

The World's Greatest Invention

The World's Second Greatest Invention...
The Chauffeur (aka He never lets me drive...)
Trouble.
More Trouble. My Saving Grace.

Happy Birthday....in the dark

Thanks for all the suggestions yesterday...I am going to use them all! I had one person email me with another great suggestion that I thought I would share with everyone. When you stop to eat, you eat and let the kids run around like madmen. Then have them eat in the car. Great idea for those places like Chick-fil-a that has those playground things (which I totally hate but for the sake of sanity, I will let my kids go in them).

Onto other things...today is Ray's Dad's birthday. Who Ray is named after. Who the girls call "Papa Mocha" (their dog is named Mocha). Who Ray and I call "The Muffin Man" as he is the Bakery Manager at a BJ's Wholesale club store. Happy Birthday Old Man!

And yes, I am in the dark. At work. Since this is the second (or third? I've lost track) of oppressive 100 degree heat (four days we have hit the record of 105, including yesterday), they have asked those of us at the hospital who are not in direct patient care to turn off lights and save energy, especially between the hours of 1:00pm and 9:00pm. So here I sit, working at my laptop with only my desk lap on. It's actually kind of nice, but also kind of sleep inducing. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me when it's time to go home.

Road Trip - I need your help

For our trip in October to Disney, we are driving. Yes, I know. And yes, I am aware how many hours I will be trapped in my beat-up van. It is about 9 hours from here to Orlando.

Ray is excited about this driving excursion. He seems to recall "fun" road trips from his younger years. I think he is delusional. I also think they he fails to remember how as kids we weren't strapped in a five point harness car seat during road trips. We had free roam of the the vehicle.

He also thinks that they kids will love it. Really? Cause I don't know any 21 month olds that love being trapped in a car seat for that long.

We are planning to stop about 6 to 7 hours into our trip on the first day. On the way back, balls to the walls, we are going to do the drive in one day.

What I need your help on is any tips/tricks/products/games/whatever that I can buy/steal/trade to keep my kids entertained. And yes, my van is fully equipped with a DVD player, but I would like to be able to break up the DVD watching with some actual activities so their brains don't turn to mush. Plus, Ray and I can only take so many Backyardigans episodes, even if their tunes are very, very catchy.

So bring it. Tell me some tricks. The planning begins.

Friday Pictures...

We are on our way to Virginia to be with Ray's brother Sean and his wife and their 5 month old son Aidan. Aidan was hospitalized on Monday with what everyone thought a bad case of bronchitis. He wasn't getting any better, in fact he was getting worse and has now been transferred to a much better hospital than the one he was in (and the hospital I used to work at). Ray's parents were actually supposed to come down to visit us this weekend, but we are making the trip instead. Please keep my nephew in your thoughts and prayers.

So with having gymnastics for Ashley last night, band practice, and having to pack myself and two kids, I still didn't have time to upload the pictures from the party. But I do have the pictures that we had done at Portrait Innovations.

So, here ya have it.

My Kids Now Have Two Ants, I Mean Aunts

All last week I was sick with some crappy head cold. By the time Saturday rolled around, I was feeling better, but producing enough snot to lubricate the entire state of North Carolina and my voice just wasn't all there. That and Ashley had a makeup class for gymnastics, I wanted to get her hair cut, and Ray had to go show houses. I also really, really needed to go to Target. My point in all of this? I wasn't feeling myself and was dragging around a very active one and half year old and a very tired from Mommy and Daddy letting her stay up late the night before almost (AAKK, she's going to be four on SATURDAY) four year old.

And my cell phone rings just as Ashley sits in the chair to get her haircut. I see it's my brother.

"Hey Mike, what's up?" Cause something had to be up for him to call me on a Saturday.

"Guess what?"

"What's up?" Note to everyone, I really, really hate guessing games. Seriously. Just ask Ray. Do not ask me to guess. I don't like it.

"Jen and I got married."

Now, I assumed from the start of the phone call this was going to be about marriage. I thought he proposed. Nope, they really did get married, but they promise to do the big ceremony (again, I have lost 60 pounds and would really like to be in some sort of really pretty dress). There was something about the immigration thingy or something with Jen. (She's Canadian, not from Mars). I am just happy he's married and it's Jen and they are happy.

Maybe a beach wedding? OOOHHHH, I got it! Get married in Disney!

Okay, back on track.

So I told Mike to call Ray and got off the phone. I may not have seemed that estatic because I was a)full of snot and my ears where clogged and HOLY CRAP Audrey just pulled an entire necklace display down and b)Ashley was in the middle of getting her hair cut.

So Mike and Jen? We are very, very happy. Congrats. No, Congrats!! We love you guys!

And we have taught Ashley that Jen is now Aunt Jen. She kept repeating it all day.

Friday Pictures - A little bit of this and that

This is what she wore to pick up pizza the other night.
Sleeping Beauty
Her Sunday Best
Audrey LOVES rides...
Yes, I made Ray ride this with them...someone had to take the pictures, right?

Friday Pictures - Family Time

My twin brother, who Ashley LOVES...
Our newest addition...
Playing in the backyard...

Friday Pictures - Beach Style

From last weekend at Myrtle Beach...

Concentrating on something...

Thank God I am FINALLY happy at the beach!
My personal pool...
"Mommy, can I live here?"
Just don't drink it...

I hope you are sitting down for this...

I have a few memories of going to church when I was young. I still have the Bible the Baptist church gave me when I was five. I remember my Grandmother doing the craft part of vacation bible school. As we got older, my Dad would take my brother and I to church. At that time we attended a non-denominational church. My parents were divorced soon after, and I never went to church with my family again.

In high school, I started dating a guy whose family were devout Catholics. They attended St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Lake Ridge, Virginia. In 1992, the priest there attracted national media attention with a stigmata on his wrist and statues of the Virgin Mary that weeped. On many occasions, I attended mass with him and his family. It was very different from the churches I had grown up in.

Fast forward a bit. Ray and I were married in a Baptist church. Once in a while, we would attend a service at a Methodist church close to home and one that friends went to. We swore when we moved to North Carolina we would find a church to call home and attend.

At the girls' school, they pray before they eat. Not a bow your head kind of praying, but they sing a song where they thank God for their food. If not for us, we wanted to attend church so that Ashley and Audrey would understand and be able to make choices on their own about church and God and religion in general.

So Sunday was it. One of the saxophone players in the band with me is a Pastor at a local Baptist church. He has asked me a few times to come to his church to check it out. So we did. It was nice, a small church with an older population. Billy, the Pastor, has told me they are trying to bring in younger families. Everyone was sweet and friendly and Ashley really liked it. Audrey, not so much. The service we attended was at 11:00am, and she normally goes down for a nap around noon, so by the time we picked her up from the nursery, she was upset and tired and cranky.

We are planning on trying out a Methodist church in the area with neighbors as well. We are happy we finally got off our butts and tried the church, and I am glad that Ashley enjoyed the experience.

Friday Pictures - Family Style

These are a few pictures I finally downloaded from Memorial Day weekend....

For anyone that knows Ray, he LOVES ice cream. Especially Carl's Ice Cream, a special ice cream place that has been open since the dawn of time in Fredericksburg, Virginia...
Ashley's first trip to the beloved ice cream place. On a normal summer evening, the line will snake around the building...
And this, my friends, is four generations of my family...my Dad holding Audrey, me, my Grandmother (Audrey's middle name is Rose named after this Grandmother), and my Stepmom Diane holding Ashley.
Every once in a while, I attempt to make Ray take a picture of me with the kids...this is the result...
And this is Ray's Mom with all of her Grandchildren. Ashley and Audrey are in the matching outfits, that's Faith in the bathing suit and the baby is Aiden, the newest addition....it was fun watching Ray's Mom juggle all the grandkids...

Stop and Smell the Roses

One of my favorite bloggers left a comment on my "Busy" post that kind of hit my like a ton of bricks. She said I needed to stop and smell the roses. It made me stop and reevaluate my life. Am I really going through life all that quickly? Am I not noticing what’s really beautiful around me? Am I going to regret the choices I have made?

And then we had one of those wonderful Friday nights, were we take the kids to the pool and play and play and eat pizza and play and laugh and splash and giggle until the kids are so exhausted and cold their lips are blue and their teeth are chattering. It’s those evenings that I sit back and say this is what it’s like to smell the roses, this is what life is all about.

Yes, we lead crazy lives. Work, school, kids’ activities, friends, family - all that stuff rolls up into one pretty crazy and hectic life. But I truly feel I am making the most of it. I know what it takes to make my kids smile. I know Audrey loves raspberries on her belly. I know Ashley is really a sucker for ice cream. I know that the dishes can wait, the bills will get paid just as soon as the kids fall asleep. I may not smell the roses every minute of every day, but there are times in my day, everyday that I look at my family and smile. And it’s those times I smell the roses.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

My Dad is 52 today. Yes, I know. He's young. Very young to have two children who are going to be 32 this October. And to Ashley and Audrey, he is known as Grandpa Fuzzy. The week Ashley turned two, we joined my Dad and my Stepmom and her family in the Outer Banks. Ashley got a first hand look at why I have to wax my eyebrows and lip and hence the name Grandpa Fuzzy. You know the men you see on the beach with the hairy backs? Totally my Dad.

From that week at the beach (sorry, I couldn't find a picture documenting the hairy back)...he's the one next to me holding the dog...

I don't remember much from my childhood specifically. But I do remember how hard my Dad worked. When he and my Mom were married, he worked a full time job with the Federal Government, worked part time at various places (Pizza Hut and a Best Western just to name a few) and went to school part time. After my parents were divorced when I was ten, my Dad had my brother and I every other weekend. It's those weekends I remember. We took trips to DC, went hiking, and visited our Grandmother every weekend he had us. Those memories will stay with me forever.

My Dad has many, many years ahead of him. My Grandmother, his Mom, is still going strong. And my Dad and my Stepmom are building their dream house right now. And they definitely deserve it.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Don't you love updates?

First off, Aiden and his parents are going home today. Thanks for all the well wishes. His lungs are doing great and hopefully he will thrive at home. I am hoping Ray's brother will email us a picture so I can post it here...

Ashley is doing much better. She had a sinus infection that drugs are helping. The only other concerning thing I found out when I took her to the pediatrician on Tuesday was that she might be asthmatic. We are planning to have her allergy tested soon (Ray is allergic to nuts, pineapples, coconuts, and I can't remember what else) and then we will go from there. And no, Ashley has never had peanut butter, poor kid.

Audrey is a different child since her surgery to put in tubes. Seriously. She isn't cranky in the evenings anymore, she's talking more (if I have to do Row, Row, Row Your Boat with her one more time....), and she is cruising everywhere. We are hoping for our backs sake that she will be walking any day.

Me? Well, school is keeping me busy at night. I have started my classroom observations. I am also studying for the PRAXIS II, a test teachers have to take. I am taking that on April 28. I will need all the support and prayers, I am not a good test taker.

Ray is crazy busy selling houses which is a good thing. And if anyone wants to buy a house in Virginia (Great Location! Close to a Target! It just might take you an hour to go the three miles to get there...) just let us know. We would love to get that monkey off our backs...

Newest Addition to the Family

Sorry, I keep editing this entry...

I have many balls up in the air right now - family, friends, school, work, blogging, band, weight loss, scrapbooking...just to name a few. But the constant ball that has been next to me for the past 10 years is Ray. He's more like a bowling ball...hurts like hell if I drop him on my foot, but he rolls a strike every time with me and my kids. Happy Valentine's Day Ray!

And...

Welcome into the world Aiden Michael, my nephew!
5 pounds, 9 ounces
17.5 inches long

He's visiting the NICU right now because of fluid on his lungs, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Mom and Dad (Ray's brother) are doing well. Crazy woman did it without drugs. I guess every family needs one crazy person...