The short and sweet of it

I should have been in bed long ago. As I type this, my husband is sleeping in a chair next to me as he tries to "stay up" so he can catch up on a (recorded) St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. He's very tired because he stayed up all night last night creating and finishing a DVD for our youth group to show at a DVD release party earlier this evening at our house.

On our couch one of our college students, Allison, is snoozing. She's very tired because today she drove to Atlanta and back for a baseball game and on her way home, she hit a deer and totaled her car. She and her passenger are okay, but her house keys are in her wrecked car.

And me? I did not stay up all night, nor did I get into an accident - I'm just tired. But, not too tired for a quick blog post. A rundown of our past few days:

We spent two days last week with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and two of my nephews while they vacationed in Grayton Beach. Addie and I went out on our own one day and Friday we went back, this time Sabian was with us. It rained some while we were there so we spent some of our time hanging out in their rental, part of the time in the pool and part of the time doing a little running around. It was really good to be with them and Addie loves being with her cousins. 


Sabian and I had a day date Saturday. We had lunch and perused some furniture stores in search of a new couch. Still looking for a deal, but the looking went soooo much faster without a two year old in tow. I am certain Addie would have loved to have jump-tested the couches in each store, but being childless for a few hours meant speedy trips in and out of the stores. It was good to have that time with Sabian. I sure do love and appreciate him!


Something - the heat? the in and out of the stores? the big lunch? - wore me out Saturday. When we got home I had about an hour and a half of gladly doing nothing on the couch before we went to another going away party for another college student leaving us. So happy for Clay, although bittersweet as we are sad to see him go, too.


Sunday, oh Sunday. Busy Sunday. As I said above, Sabian was up all night (no exaggeration) making the DVD for our annual year end DVD release party. Yes, school starts tomorrow but tonight, believe it or not, was the most convenient night to have it.  So, we had another full house until it was time for those who were able to make it to pack up and get ready for school tomorrow.


And now, two passed out in the living room, one sleeping soundly in her little bed and me, about to wake Sabian and send him to bed.


I thought I was going to have to leave this post picture-less but found a few on my iPod. Despicable, having spent time with my family and on a date with my husband and I didn't take any pictures.  I'd like to think it's because we were having so much fun I didn't think about it. Yes, that's it.

Making my famous chocolate chip cookies for my cousins!

Where are Addie & Ethan?

I think...

...I see...

THEM!

I am so thankful for the time we had with my family, so thankful for my date with Sabian and very thankful Allison and Sam came out of their scary ordeal tonight without a scratch.

Girl time

Last Friday night thirteen of us girls from our church loaded up and headed out on a little adventure. Our first stop was a dolphin cruise.

You may remember we took a dolphin cruise back in April for Sabian's birthday. It was much chillier then than it was when we set off on Friday but we still had a good time. Our evening started in a rush as we were running late to get to the boat by 5:15. While most of us made it in the nick of time, some of our group was still on their way when the boat was supposed to launch. One of the things that makes me the most uncomfortable is putting people out, so you can imagine how I felt as we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. I was so thankful that they held the boat...for 15 minutes. It was actually a little comical and the guys on the boat were really nice about it. We stayed behind and thanked the captain afterward and he had a no worries attitude about it, for which I am grateful. 

I am also grateful we saw a lot of dolphins. We kept telling ourselves, "See? If we had been here 15 minutes earlier we wouldn't have seen them!" Whether or not that is true, I was so thankful we saw them and had a beautiful sunset boat ride.

My photos of the dolphins aren't that great but we did see a lot and we saw them up close. When we went in April we spent our time on the upper deck but I realized to get a closer view it was good to be on the lower deck. It was so cool to see the dolphins right under us. Truth be told, the water looked really inviting, especially since it was so hot. I gave up my marine biology dreams a long time ago, but this trip reminded me of those days. We resisted the urge to jump in (we'd already held up the boat, what was a few more minutes?) and headed out to eat once we docked.


Waffle House. I love Waffle House and so does our youth group. When we moved here, like Chick-fil-A, it was a plus to see Waffle House restaurants everywhere. Granted, they are grungy and you come out smelling of grease, but those buttery, syrupy waffles are so good. This particular location was actually the nicest and cleanest I'd visited and the staff was great. We were the only ones in there so we enjoyed their full attention. The manager snapped the pictures of us above and asked that we send him copies so we could hang on their picture board. One day we will be famous for eating waffles.


We made it back to church (a much more leisurely drive back compared to the one on our way to catch the boat!), played Word Salad (I'll give these details later) and all headed home.


Scheduling a night like this can be tough, given that everyone is always headed in different directions. But, when it comes together like it did Friday night, it is a good time.


I am thankful for these girls!

Toes, flowers & brownies

There are clothes in the dryer that need to be put away and dishes in the sink that need to be washed. In 18 minutes when my brownies come out of the oven I am off to lay down for as long as Addie's nap will let me.

She was up at 6 this morning. Every now and then she decides to get up early but it isn't a normal practice for her. Early for her is usually around 7:30. On days like these, especially when it is gray and rainy outside, she is ready for an earlier nap and so am I.

But first, a couple of things from last week.

I stole away for a pedicure, my first in a while, and it was wonderful. I also brought some of these home when we went grocery shopping:

As often as I can I love having fresh flowers on the table. For $5, I couldn't pass them up. I know some people think flowers are a waste of money, given that they last just a few days and then die, but I love having them around. Sabian could get me fresh flowers for birthdays, Valentine's Day or just because and I'd be happy.

I'm also about to place an order for some labels for Addie from Kiddo Tags. Maybe it is because they could fall into the school supply category (and I LOVE school supply shopping!), but I'm pretty excited about this order, especially since I purchased a deal to get $30 worth of labels for $15. I know Addie isn't in school yet so right now there are just a few things I'll use them for, but now I'll have a stash and Addie should be set as far as labeling her stuff for a while.

Six minutes until the brownies are done. I suppose I could fold that laundry while I am waiting. Sabian is starting a 30 day challenge for kids in our youth group who are willing to participate. We're meeting with them for the first time tonight, which is the excuse behind the brownies. I'm vowing to just eat one and to make sure the rest are either eaten or taken to other homes tonight. My willpower has been zilch lately.

I am thankful for a rainy day.

Dog days of August

Sheesh, it is hot...betcha haven't heard that lately.

We've spent the sweltering days of the last week simultaneously resting and keeping busy. Is that possible? It's been a slower kind of busy, more moving at our own pace type of busy. Some time spent at home, some time spent out and about.

In the midst of the busyness we've dealt with (sigh) some more sickness. Rewind to this post in June when Addie had yet another ear infection. About three weeks after that appointment we had a follow up with the doctor. I don't normally schedule follow ups but the doctor was wanting to see her again to see if, when prescribed antibiotics, Addie's ear infections were actually getting better. If not, then we'd start to explore other options for taking care of her ears. It was a good thing we had the follow up scheduled. 

The night before her appointment Addie and I visited Sabian and the kids at youth camp. During the service Addie started acting a little strange and I realized she was burning up. We had the camp nurse take a look at her and her temp at the time was 103-104. When we went to the doctor the next day her ears looked great (was so thankful!) but the doctor told us it looked like Addie's fever was due to parvovirus, a common viral infection kids can get. Since she had a slight rash as well we knew she was no longer contagious and we were sent home to treat and watch her fever. The next couple of days were fine and she was back to her old self.

Fast forward to this week. After a full week last week of VBS, Sunday I realized that Addie was feeling a bit warm again. She was running a slight fever but acting totally normal, so I figured I would keep an eye on it the next couple of days. For a couple of days her temp was slightly raised but she continued to act normal - until Wednesday. That morning she woke up really early and was really hot. She was very subdued and spent the morning on the couch, something she has never done. I got us an appointment with the doctor that afternoon and in my mind, thought this was just a continuation of what we'd experienced a couple of weeks before.

Long story short, the doctor wanted to get some lab work done quickly so we'd know what was going on with Addie, so she sent us to the hospital for blood work. Addie was a brave little girl when they drew blood, crying, but not for long. I will say, I think it helped that the doctor told us to request going to the pediatric floor to her her blood drawn. The nurses up there were wonderful. After we got home that evening she perked up and by morning was back to her old self. We heard from the doctor last night and all of her test results have come back normal, which means whatever was causing her fever was likely viral.

The one time she moved to eat some yogurt, which she didn't touch.

This was all good news as some of our plans this week included seeing some of our close friends from home. In that group of friends there are Kevin and Judy, parents of Jay, Jeff and Joel. Jay and Jeff are married and between them have kids ages 7, 4, 2, 1 and 9 months. Since Addie was feeling better and had no fever we were safe to visit them a couple of nights ago and really enjoyed our time with them. The McCulloughs are friends I have known for as long as I can remember. Now that we all have kids the catching up consists more of snatches of conversation in between refereeing, but we had a great time. Sabian was sweet to entertain a few of the kids for a bit so that we could actually sit and talk and we had some more time to focus more on conversation when the kids (sans Addie!) went to bed.

Alexis (pictured above) and Addie are two peas in a pod. Her mom, Joy, and I always compare stories and joke when we talk long distance about how much it sounds like these two are alike. They've only really been with one another once before this week, but both are two fisted pacifier aficionados, each girl sports a head full of blonde curls and both are busy. They are climbers, runners, yellers and into everything. When together, this likeness works both for and against them. But, either way, it was fun to have all of our kids (six) together.

It was sad to leave but we'll be headed out that direction again this week to see my sister, brother-in-law, niece and two nephews!

There's more to our adventures of the past week but soon we are leaving to attend a goodbye party for one of our college students heading to his freshman year in the next couple of weeks. Sad to see him go but excited for his opportunity.

I am thankful that Addie is well and I am thankful for our visit with friends this week.

Whoa...August?

I was thinking, probably like most of you, how crazy it is that it is August already. As I was thinking about it I went back to last year's August posts and read this one I wrote early in the month.

Seems that this time last year I was thinking some of the same things. It was still hot and it was still crazy that it was already August.

I also wrote about how Addie's vocabulary was growing, which it still is, in leaps and bounds. Almost every day she'll string new words together to form a new sentence that I didn't know she knew. Sabian and I exchange that, "Did she just say what I think she said?" look and marvel at how she is growing so quickly.

What's different about that post from last year and this one is that last year she was still refusing to say "Mommy." Now I hear it about a million times a day. When I've heard it for the 999,999 time and I get to the point when I think I just can't hear it one more time that day, I am reminded of what a sweet sound it is, even when it's said over and over and over...and over again.


Time is passing by fast. Not only are the days on the calendar a blur but Addie's little moments are passing by, too. I love where she is right now, even on those tough days, but I see how fast she is growing up. Sunday night as she was up with the kids on stage, dancing during the last VBS service I could feel myself smiling - big - as I tried to capture it on video. I realized, as I was taking the video, that there was no way it would match the real thing as I was watching it take place. 


Addie knew where I was the whole time she was up there. Even though she stayed on stage and jumped and clapped and tried some of the other motions, because she could see me, every now and then I would see her lips move and they were saying, "Mommy." I was proud of her that she stayed where she was, but even prouder to be that sweet girl's Mommy.


I am so thankful for Addie.