taking a look back

It's New Year's Eve, and I've decided to take a look back at the past year.  My photos are one of the few things that are actually organized in my house.  My iphoto program makes it easy to take a look back.  So, here's a look at the year through pictures.

Here's a picture of my NVP and me at the first National Meeting of the 2009 year.

In January, I was also the director of the Miss NWOSU pageant.  We had a spa day for the Stars and Contestants a week before the pageant.  This is a picture of my niece at the spa day who was one of the Stars.

Also in February, Arbonne had a road tour for the new FC5 product line.  Here I am with two of my upline NVPs in OKC before the presentation began.

Braylon had his Valentine party at school in February.  Of course, Brickman did, too, but I couldn't make it to both parties, and it was Braylon's turn for me to go to his class.  The next day, he performed Bala-Vis-X at the Wellness Center.

In March, we had the Mercedes Test Drive Day in OKC.  I took three awesome girls with me to try test drive a Mercedes.  I think that everyone picked out their favorite one.  I know that I did!  Maybe I'll get mine over the next year?!

The boys went fishing with Papa, and Brickman caught his first fish in March.

That first fish caught started an obsession with fishing.  Over Spring Break, we took the boys camping at the pond.  The boys set up their first tent (with our help, of course).  The day started out really nice but the night turned freezing cold, so they didn't even sleep in the tent.  Instead, they slept in the camper with they're Nonnie and Papa while Jerad and I slept in the very cold tent.

Also in March over spring break, we went to the zoo with cousins.  It was definitely a day well spent!  We had lots of fun spending time together.

At the end of the month, our area had a blizzard that came and went quickly.  It snowed 22 inches in a matter of a day, but because it was so late in the season, almost all of it was melted within a matter of a day.  The boys had great fun having snow ball fights, sledding, and making snow tunnels.

In April, the boys had their Easter parties at school.  I was able to make it to both of their parties.

We had Easter with the cousins, but it was too rainy to do an egg hunt outside, so we did it in the basement instead.

The Easter bunny came by Nammie and Bumpa's house before the flashlight hunt started.  It's always tradition to do a flashlight egg hunt on the evening of Easter.

It was Archer's birthday in April, and all the kids got together for a Star Wars party.  They went home with homemade light sabers and busted the Death Star and discovered it was filled with candy.

Brickman entered a poster contest and got third place.

Braylon entered his first science fair with "Will citrus juices work as invisible ink?" as his project.  He loves science, and he loves spy gear, so he mixed two of his favorite things.

I went to Las Vegas for the first time to the National Training Celebration for Arbonne.  Although I was sick much of the time, I had a blast.  It's always uplifting to spend time with like-minded people who are working toward the same goals as you.  And Arbonne always puts on a good party.  David Cook performed at the end of the celebration.

In May we went to see the Lion King in OKC with the entire family.

Afterwards, we grabbed cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.  It was packed, so we went to the mall to sit and eat.

 Hadley celebrated her fifth birthday in May with a princess party.

Then Brickman celebrated his with an American Idol party.

In June, I finished my responsibility as the Miss NWOSU director during the week of Miss Oklahoma, and Amanda took over.  I'm glad it's over for me and know that she'll do a fantastic job.

We also had season tickets for the Music Theatre Wichita for the starting in June.

In July, we celebrated Independence Day at the family pond.  The kids had an incredible time riding the sea doo around the pond.  It was the boys' first time to ride one.

It was time to change chisel points and the boys wanted to help.  It was their first time to really help out on the farm.  Braylon enjoyed the work, but I think he enjoyed the pay more.  I loved taking pictures of four generations working together.

Before the end of the summer, we went to Alabaster Caverns with cousins.  We didn't really take a vacation through the summer, but we realized that it doesn't take driving for hours to have a little get away.  The kids enjoyed it just as much as if we had driven somewhere many miles away.

The boys met their new cousin Ella on the last day of July.

August brought on the first day of school.  The summer didn't seem to last long enough, but the boys were excited to go back to school to see their friends.

Braylon's birthday was also in August.  He wanted a pool party this year for his birthday.  I'm considering doing that from now on.  I didn't have to worry about a mess to clean up or entertainment for the kids.  It's just a matter of whether or not the lifeguards show up to open up the pool.  (Ours were late.)

September took us back to the pond for a Labor Day get together with family.  The boys really enjoyed swimming in the pond.

September was also Libby's birthday.  We celebrated with a sports party.

September also brought on a new project for our family.  The boys now have chickens to take care of.  The chicks came by mail on September 17.  It was quite a challenge the first couple of weeks to keep them alive, as they are so fragile, but we came out ahead with only losing two.

Brickman was asked to be the crownbearer for the Miss Cinderella pageant during the NWOSU homecoming festivities.  During this time he met Miss Oklahoma Taylor Treat, who he now claims as his girlfriend.

The next day he got to ride in the homecoming parade with the flower girl.

Homecoming also brings one of Jerad's favorite times of the year.  He gets to play in the alumni band with his brother and all of his buddies from the college days.  He misses playing his tuba so much.  Times like this give him the opportunity to go back in time.

For Halloween, we were a medieval family.  This was one of the most difficult family costumes to make, but it was also the most memorable and impressive so far.  Everyone loved our costumes.  But most importantly, the boys loved their costumes.  We'll have to see what we come up with next year.

Brickman performed in a Poetry Cafe at school.  He chose a poem to recite in front of all of the families who came to watch him and his classmates.  His poem was Alphabalance by Shel Silverstein.
Balancing my ABC's takes from noon to half past three.  I don't have time to grab a T or even stop to take a P.
I didn't know if it was appropriate, but his teacher approved it.  :)

Thanksgiving brought the sisters together again which meant that all of the cousins got to play together.  That is the boys' favorite time when they get to spend time with their cousins.  I never get asked if it's time to go yet.  They're always having too much fun and feel that we leave too early.  In fact, they normally want to end it with a cousin spending the night.

We went to Guthrie to spend Thanksgiving with Jerad's extended family.  We took the annual family picture for Nammie and Bumpa's Christmas card.

And here we are at Christmas!  The boys always know that they'll get a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve.  This year (because I didn't have them wrapped yet) the boys decided that we needed to have a scavenger hunt in the house for them.  So, I hid them and played the hot and cold game until they found them.  Maybe it will be a new tradition.  I guess that depends on how on top of wrapping I am.





I guess that sums up the year.  It's been a good 2009, but I'm excited for the next chapter starting in 2010!

continuing christmas

Christmas is over and the New Year is approaching, but for our family, we continue to have more celebrations of Christmas with our family.  It's always tradition that we have our family Christmas with my sisters on Christmas day, but you never know when the other celebrations will be.  We won't celebrate with Jerad's extended family until the second.  With that in mind, I'm keeping up my Christmas tree.  I've always had a hard time with Christmas being over.  It's always approached with such anticipation, but then the day comes and goes so quickly.  I hate to just immediately take down the tree.  Okay, I'll admit that I'm not the best housekeeper and part of taking down the tree has to do with procrastination and taking it down is such a chore, but I love having it up, especially since we still have another Christmas to celebrate.

On Saturday, we drove out to Walmart to check out the after Christmas sales.  They normally have everything at half price the next day, and we really wanted to get a pre-lit tree.  The tree that we have, we purchased half price on an after Christmas sale and have had it for most of our marriage.  The problem is, it takes a couple of hours to get it set up, putting each individual branch on and then wrapping the lights evenly.  We bought a new tree and tested it out as soon as we got home.  Jerad was able to set it up and plug in the lights within ten minutes.  I think we'll be setting up our tree a little earlier next year!  We also bought a tree for each of the boys to hang their ornaments.  I also bought several ornaments at half price.  I might have gone a little overboard, but I wanted to make some of those really cool ornament wreaths like this.  I made four of them so far, and I love them.  So, the question is, what am I going to do with this many ornament wreaths?  I'm really not sure.  Like I said, I went a little overboard.  Maybe I'll give them as gifts next year.  I think that this one is my favorite (although the picture isn't very good against my ugly shag carpet).

merry christmas!

I guess I'm a day late in wishing you all a Merry Christmas, but I certainly hope it was merry for you!  Ours was great!  I did stress myself out just a bit on Thursday, though.  I realized on Wednesday evening that we were missing a couple of gifts.  We didn't have anything for Jerad's grandparents.  I always have extra Arbonne in my product closet, but I didn't think that was something that his grandpa would be too crazy about.  Of course, they never want us to give them anything anyway, but I can't not give them something.  Then, I came up with the grand plan to make them something.  We were already settled in for the evening, so I waited until Thursday morning to make a run to Walmart to get some supplies.  Of course, there were multiple other things that I also needed to get finished.  One of those was making this yummy delight for the family gathering that night, which I knew was going to take a while.  I also needed to finish wrapping several gifts.  About 2:30 on Thursday, I begin the project.  I had it all organized in my mind on how I wanted to make it.  Of course, I did not schedule enough time.  I had both of my boys trying to help me at one point, but I got irritated, so they got irritated with me and quit helping.  About 5:30, my husband is telling me to stop the project.  It's obvious that I'm not going to finish it, but I keep on going like I have plenty of time.  Of course, I don't because the Christmas Eve candlelight service started at 6:00, and I still needed to wrap a few gifts.  I finally put the craft project aside, realizing what my husband already knew, I was not going to get it finished.  I hurriedly wrapped the few gifts that were still exposed.  We quickly threw the food and the gifts in the vehicle and headed to town.  Thank goodness it wasn't as icy as they were predicting it to be because if it were, we wouldn't have been on time for the service.  We had to stop to drop off the food so it wouldn't freeze during the service and got to the church just in time to get seated before it began.

The candlelight service was so moving to me.  I'm often moved to tears but taking the communion, realizing the reason for this season that we call Christmas, I was so humbled.  What an amazing gift that we've been given!  That is the reason we celebrate, and so often we forget.  We get so wrapped up in trying to find the perfect gift, or making sure that the decorations are just perfect, or worried because we've spent a bit too much, or multiple other things that may be going on in our minds.  Jesus is the reason that we celebrate this most awesome time of the year!  I love the candlelight service.  It's so pretty seeing the church lit up only by the individual candles while we sing Silent Night.


I caught a picture of Brickman before he blew out his candle at the end of the service.  He had fallen asleep during the service, but we woke him up when it was time to light the candles.  This is the boys'  favorite church service of the year.


After the service, we went to Nammie and Bumpa's house for supper.  It was delicious, as always, and we had a great time hanging out with family.  I love having such awesome in-laws!


When we got home, the boys were expecting a new pair of pajamas, which is always the one gift that I let them open at home on Christmas Eve.  I didn't have them opened yet, so they thought it would be fun if I hid them and let them try to find them.  Maybe we've started a new tradition.

Here's the boys' annual picture in front of the Christmas tree in their new pajamas.  They are getting so big!  Time goes by so quickly.


The boys enjoyed Christmas morning at home and were pleased with their gifts.  Braylon was excited about his microscope and Brickman loved his Fur Real chimpanzee.  I think my favorite part of the morning is watching them open the gifts that they bought for each other.  Braylon bought Brickman a Star Wars Transformer and a wallet, and Brickman bought Braylon a Transformer and a book light.  It's so cute to take them shopping.  They're always tempted to buy something that they would like themselves, but they always know (and buy) what the other one wants.  They played all morning with their gifts until it was time to head to my sister's house.


Christmas day was fantastic!  I feel so blessed to have the family that I have.  Unfortunately, my little sister and her family didn't make it home from being snowed in, but he continued to have a great time, knowing that they were safe at her in-laws.  We all ate way too much, and then later had fun playing a game that caused us to laugh until we cried.  The kids had fun tearing open their gifts and loved everything.  The adults played Dirty Santa.  We always joke that we each need to buy a gift for ourselves and keep it because many of us go home with our own gifts, but we know that we'd never actually do it.  So, even if we go home with our own gift, we've just bought something nice for ourselves, which we don't often do.  Jerad went home with his own gift, movie passes and a trip to the concession stand for the whole family.


Now, that I'm trying to catch up on the days past, I'm realizing that this is getting to be a bit of a long post.  I'll stop there with our Christmas stories.  We are so blessed!  I could go on and on, but I won't.  I hope that everyone's Christmas was a merry one!

homemade ornament attempt...and fail

Last night, not long before bedtime, I started a project that I shouldn't have started.  I saw these these cute and easy ornaments on One Pretty Thing.  Last year the boys made ornaments for their teachers (even though we do give a gift) for Christmas.  They made enough for each of their classmates and a few of the elective teachers (ex: music, gym, principal, secretary).  So, when I started the project, I thought it would be quick and easy.  Instead, it turned out to be a huge mess.  I don't know what went wrong.  Brickman wasn't in to it.  Braylon was flopping glue everywhere.  It just wasn't happening.  So, I tried a new plan.  I had some paper that I cut out into stars and painted gold.  I was going to mod podge a slip of paper on it that said merry christmas, then add some glitter.  The gold paint ran out, and I couldn't find the glitter.  What I found was glitter paint from a bottle that was almost empty.  Another flop.  By this time, I sent the boys to bed.  After they told me that it was a tradition to have ornaments for everyone (which apparently in their terms, a tradition qualifies as something that has been done once before), I told them that I would finish the project and have something for them in the morning.  So, I tried my third attempt.  I used some of the flopped stars and sewed cute red and green scrapbooking paper onto them then mod podged the merry christmas slip of paper onto that.  Success!  Except that it took so much longer than I expected.  Who knew that cutting out stars was so tedious?!  Especially when you're trying to make enough for two classrooms full of students plus all of the teachers and special people that they want to give stuff.  It didn't happen.  I needed close to 50 ornaments.  I made seven.  Not quite enough to go around.  So, I stayed up way too late getting nothing done, and I'm sure that I'll pay for it today in the form of a headache and being exhausted.  So, when the boys woke up (late, I might add, since I slept through the alarm), I had to tell them that I didn't get the ornaments finished.  Although they were slightly disappointed, I showed them the flopped messes, and they agreed that they didn't want to give those to their friends.  They were satisfied with giving just the normal gift to their classroom teachers.  Braylon did take one of the good ornaments to one of his classmates who will be moving over Christmas break.  I realize that there wasn't enough to go around to each individual, but I thought it was thoughtful of him to think of the boy who won't be coming back to the classroom.

On another note, since I was up all night, I caught up on some infomercials.  I haven't watched those in quite some time.  I've got to tell you, I'm totally addicted to them but that's another story.  I discovered that the new rage must be steam mops.  I saw three different infomercials for them, each a different type. I think I might need one.

what a weekend!

When I picked up the boys on Friday from school, I didn't have any grand plans for the weekend.  Apparently, it was a good thing.  Shortly after we got home, I found out that Brickman had carrots for lunch...not because he told me.  Rather, I saw perfect little chewed up chunks all over the carpet.  All over our shag carpet.  Now, I'm not fond of our carpet.  In fact, that's what I asked Santa to bring me for Christmas, but Santa said he couldn't afford to carpet our house right now.  The point is, I wasn't upset about the carpet being ruined or stained.  I mean, how can you ruin yellow and green shag carpet anyway? Answer:  red kool-aid.  I digress again.  My poor Brickman was sick.  While the rest of us were outside messing with the animals, Brickman stayed inside since his tummy was hurting.  To be honest, I really didn't think he was sick.  Oftentimes, he'll say that his tummy hurts to get out of doing something he doesn't want to do.  This time was not the case.  As I was coming in the door, the poor guy came out crying because he really was sick.  We got "the bucket" ready for him so he didn't have to run to the bathroom, and he continued to be sick for a good three to four hours.  He made it through the night with no problems and asked for breakfast at McDonalds when he woke up.  A good idea?  It was questionable, but I took him on a breakfast date anyway.

All was well until the night.  When Jerad got home from his dance, he was the next victim to be hit by the sickness.  I later found out that Braylon was also sick throughout the night.  The boys stayed the night at their Nonnie and Papa's house, and before I went to pick them up to take them to practice for their Christmas program in the morning, I got a call telling me that he had been sick throughout the night.    Jerad and Braylon were both crummy feeling in the morning, and although I thought I would be spared the sickness, it hit me, too.  I don't think it hit me as hard as it did everyone else though.  While it lasted hours for everyone else, I only got sick once.  When I picked up Brickman from church, he said, "I guess I'm the one that needs to take care of everyone since I'm the only one who's not sick."

So enough about sickness...
The Christmas program at church was last night.  Poor Braylon still felt bad and had a bit of a fever, so he decided to stay home.  Brickman was encouraging him to go since they had made plans to go  together to ask Santa for one big toy to share.  When he realized Braylon wasn't going to go, he told him that it was okay.  He would tell Santa his list.  (I thought that was sweet.) Brickman brought Braylon back a bag full of candy from Santa.  The Christmas program was really cute.  I'm just sad that Braylon had to miss out on it.

back at it again...

For the past several months, I've been keeping a blog on a different site.  Lately, I've noticed that several of my entries have vanished.  I have no idea what happened to them, so I decided to copy what I had and save it to my computer and start again here.  So, here I am.  I have no method to what I write about.  I really just like to keep a record of what my kiddos do, so this seems like just as good of a place as any.  That, and I enjoy scrounging the web and looking at others blogs.

With just a few days before Christmas, I've been trying to stay on top of things.  With less than a week, I have almost everything bought and wrapped.  I still need to wrap most of the boys' gifts, but I've got all of the niece's and nephews gifts ready to go.  Tonight I've been home alone (hubby has a dj event and kiddos are at grandma's house), so I've taken over the space and have been cutting material.  I found a scarf pattern that I loved!  When I was at Wal-Mart the other day, I picked up some material to experiment.  To be honest, I was a bit skeptic, but it was super easy!  Check out the pattern here.  I found the material on the reduced rack for $1.50 and bought four yards in white and pink, which were the only colors in the jersey knit that I needed.  I bought eight yards total for $12 and will make seven or eight scarves.  That's only 75 cents each!  What a cheap gift!  For the white material, I think I might use some left over dye that I have so they aren't so plain.  I'm excited to give them away.  I hope everyone else thinks they're as cute as I do.

Tomorrow is the boys' Christmas program at church.  It should be really cute!

Oh, and check out my layout!  Isn't it cute?  You can get a really cute one, too, at My Style Backgrounds.

expressing gratitude...

I've been attending a Bible study on Mondays with a group of ladies.  I really enjoy spending time with them.  This last week, our subject was gratitude.  I think that so many times we take things for granted and forget about the little things that we're thankful for...or should be thankful for.  In talking about this subject, I decided to start a gratitude journal.  I have an obsession for notebooks and journals and tend to pick up a few anytime I see any cute ones at a decent price.  Last weekend I found a few and decided this would be the perfect way to use one of them.  For the past few days, I've been writing in it.  It's been fun to think of all the things, little and big, that I'm grateful for.  I hope to continue it.  I think that it's a great thing to have when I'm having a down day, too.  That way, I can take a look at it and remember how many things that I have to be grateful for.

The boys have their class Easter parties tomorrow.  They both have egg hunts.  Unfortunately, the parties are at the same time at different buildings, so I have to choose which one that I'm going to.  I guess I really don't have to choose.  I went to the youngest one's parties in the fall, so the oldest one expects me to come to his parties in the spring.  There's two in each semester, so I guess it works out evenly.  We'll have several egg hunts over the weekend.  We'll have the church hunt on Saturday morning and the city hunt an hour later.  The city hunt is always mass chaos, but the boys have fun at it.  Then we got an invitation to go to a hunt at a classmate's house.  There's a couple from our church that always leave eggs in our yard on Easter morning.  Then we go to my sister's house for dinner and then an egg hunt for the kids in the afternoon.  A few years ago we started a flashlight egg hunt at the hubby's grandparents house, and the boys have a lot of fun with that.  There will be plenty of photo opportunities even though I won't be able to make it to his class party.  Am I trying to justify this to myself?  I think so.

The boys don't have school on Friday, so I think we might dye some Easter eggs.  I haven't told them yet, but that's my plan.  It should be an event filled weekend full of lots of family, friends, and fun!

signs of spring or signs of winter...

I love spring.  The trees are budding.  The flowers are blooming.  The wheat is growing.  Everything is slowly but surely turning green, giving a bit of color to the earth again.  I love it.  However, this last weekend, there was nothing spring about spring.  In fact, it looked like we were in mid-winter.   We had a blizzard.  That's right.  A blizzard at the end of March.  It began raining on Thursday night, sleeting (a lot) on Friday morning and into the late afternoon when it began to snow.  This wasn't normal snow.  It was unlike any that I had ever seen.  It wasn't just snowflakes.  It was clumps of snow...small little snowballs falling from the sky.  Perhaps if I lived in Alaska, Colorado, or up north somewhere, I wouldn't be so surprised by this.  However, I am in Oklahoma.  The news channels encouraged people to stay at home and not venture out.  Did we listen?  Certainly not!  We actually had a commitment to be at the college, and the event was not going to be cancelled or postponed under any circumstances.  It was the Regional Speech Tournament.  The teams were already at the hotel, so the only problem was getting them to the college.  That's where my husband came in to play.  He, his dad, and his grandpa went around to the hotels and various houses throughout the community to pick up people and take them to the college in their four-wheel drive vehicles.  Our highway to get into town was actually closed, and all of the streets in town were completely full of snow.  By the end of the tournament on Saturday, it finally stopped snowing with a total accumulation of 24 inches of snow on the ground.  And just as quickly as it all came down, it began melting almost immediately.  The boys had a great time playing in it while it lasted. They played in it Saturday and Sunday and then after school on Monday.  There's still traces of snow on the ground where there were four foot drifts, but it will probably all be gone by the time they're out of school today.  If this had actually happened in December, I'm sure we'd have snow for quite some time.  I'm hoping that after that snow, winter is actually over and we're headed into spring...for real this time.

back to the daily grind...

Yesterday the boys went back to school from a nice ten day break. I really enjoyed the time that we were able to spend. We had a great time at the zoo, had a great time camping, and fun hanging out around the house. I think that our camping experience will be one that is repeated. It's amazing how we can just go a few miles away and feel like we're no where near home...and spend very little money while we're at it. Well, I say spend little money. We did spend quite a bit this time, but I don't think it will happen again. We bought a new tent the first day we went out. After the first night, we went and bought a few more things. I just about left in the middle of the night because I was so cold, so I bought a new sleeping bag that was supposed to withstand 40 degree weather. We also bought an air mattress so we didn't have to sleep on the ground. It really hurt the hubby's back. It was much warmer the second night with those things and a heater in the tent. The boys loved camping and fishing. They had a great time and it made for great memories. Being back in the swing of things, we've been having our typical morning struggles. We're going to have to change something so things will be smoother. The youngest couldn't find his shoes because the oldest threw them in their room somewhere which is a total pit. They're supposed to clean it tonight. I've already warned them that if it's not cleaned tonight that I'll come in tomorrow and get rid of some things. That's normally incentive enough for them to get it done. 

On another note, I was watching tv on Sunday afternoon and was totally sold by an infomercial. This happens often, but I can normally resist the temptation of buying. So, what did I buy? I bought the 10 minute trainer. It's supposed to be a pretty good system. I've already been exercising, so it should be a supplement to that. I'm glad that I'm finally feeling motivated to do something. I really want to get this weight off and get toned. I can definitely tell a difference in how I feel and I actually want to exercise now. It feels good after doing it. I want to see myself in the mirror and like what I see. I was thinking about writing a blog about my experience with the 10 minute trainer program. I've really wanted to see something like that. You know, those real people with real results. I'm ready for it to come in so I can see it work for myself. They say you can lose a pant size in 10 days. We'll see...

the end of break...

It's the end of spring break which is a bittersweet time. I don't feel near as emotional now that I'm not working in a full-time job. I used to get to the point of tears having to go back to work and leaving my kids. Now, the boys will be getting back into a schedule which is good for all of us. I've really enjoyed the last week with them. We really had a great time camping Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It was a first time for us as a family...the first of many times I'm sure. The boys were supposed to get their room cleaned by the end of break, but they got a bit distracted by the Wii and their new Batman game that my hubby got them when we went to the city. I'm sure I'll be working on that throughout the week. Tonight we went to a bluegrass concert at the church. It was great to see my oldest son so excited about music. He had a huge smile as soon as they started playing. Of course, he wanted to leave within twenty minutes, but he temporarily enjoyed it. He definitely enjoyed the upbeat ones more. It was some great music. It intrigued me to look into going to a bluegrass festival. We'll see.

spring break...

This week is spring break and the boys have been so excited.  They actually have a total of ten days off.  They got the Friday before spring break off because of the parent-teacher conferences in the evenings that week.  Friday they were off the walls with hyperactivity!  We finally had a talk about calming down a bit so that we could have an enjoyable week.

In my last post, I talked about the box tops  competition.  The second graders won, so my son was so excited.  It was super cold the day that they got to have their popsicle party, though, so it was a little bittersweet.

We went to the zoo with one of my sisters and her family yesterday.  The kids all had a lot of fun.  There is an animatronic dinosaur exhibit there that just opened, so they got to see that, too.  My five year old is afraid of dinosaurs so he immediately began crying before seeing anything.  The dinosaurs were supposed to be life-sized, but they definitely were not completely realistic.  They had sounds and they moved, but it was all a little too much for him.  We finally got him to calm down and take a look at everything.  We were all extremely tired by the end of the day, but it was great to spend so much time with family.

Today we are going camping.  We went to Wal-Mart this afternoon to buy a new tent.  The boys are planning on staying in the trailer with their grandparents but we won't all fit in there, so we got a tent.  We went to the pond to set it up just a bit ago.  The boys were really proud of themselves after it was all set up since it was the first time to do that.  They're very excited to go camping and fishing.  I'm glad that they're actually interested in something outside now and not completely obsessed with staying inside and playing video games.  In fact, I think that I'm the one that may have the problem.  I'm so dependent upon my computer and electronics.  I think I may have a problem.

follow-up

In my last blog, I talked about giving up procrastination for lent.  I'm not sure how well I've done.  It's much harder than I had anticipated.  A lot of things happen in daily life that make it difficult.  Of course, it's all about powering through, I guess.  One thing that I haven't fallen on is the workout that I've started.  I'm in the fourth week of exercising, and it seems to be going well.  I haven't lost massive amounts of weight, but I'm starting to tone up.  My brother-in-law who gave me the workout said that it often takes him 3 weeks before he sees a difference.  I'm hoping to see changes soon.  I can lift more than I could when I initially started, and I feel so much better after I go.  It's the getting there that's the hard part.  I've had to force myself to go the past couple of days.  I really haven't felt like it because of sickness coming on, but I went anyway.  We're doing well in our challenge, too.  Our team has exercised the most minutes, and we've won one of the team challenges.  It's fun to be a part of the team.  Now, we're in it to win it, so we're trying to bump up the points.

My business is going well, but I haven't done as much as I should be.  I need to be calling more people daily.  I don't know why it's so difficult for me to do it.  I feel stupid for waiting so long once I finally do call someone.  I've got to do it.  It's just a matter of picking up the phone.

This morning was eventful.  My second grader has a box top challenge at school to see who can bring the most box tops between the second and third grades.  His class was just 60 away yesterday, and the challenge ended today.  Last night we called his grandmas to gather box tops and had to get up early enough to go by and get them before school.  We are not morning people, and the youngest son made it extremely difficult this morning.  He had more than just an attitude.  It was really frustrating.  We finally got out the door and picked up the box tops.  He ended up bringing 54 box tops.  I thought that was pretty good for just one person.  If a few other people brought some, they might have done it.  I'm anxious to find out.  It's so funny.  They're so excited over a popsicle party.  It's great that they're so excited over little things.

Speaking of being excited over little things...the hubby took the boys fishing this weekend.  They had such a great time.  It's the first time that my five year old has really done any fishing by himself.  He caught the biggest fish and was so proud of himself.  He comes home and says, "Well, congratulations to me because I caught the biggest fish."  I thought it was so funny.  He was very cute about it.  This was the first time that the older one did everything for himself.  He put the worm on the hook and took the fish off the hook when he caught them.  We're planning to go camping over spring break at the pond.  It seems more like a daddy and boys time.  Or maybe, I just don't want to camp out with the possibility of snakes being around.  Maybe I can go out for a little while and come home to sleep.  The pond is just a few miles away from the house.  The boys are excited about it, so it should be fun.

i'm giving up procrastination for lent

That's right.  I'm giving up procrastination for lent.  Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of lent, and I've decided to give up procrastination...today...not tomorrow...today.  :)

I never practiced lent growing up in the Baptist church.  In fact, I didn't know what lent was until I went to college.  I participated in the Wesley House, and that's when I learned about it.  Marrying my husband, we decided to go to the Methodist church, which is the church where he grew up.  Within the last few years, we've become a lot more active.  It feels good to be active in a church again.  Back to lent, when I was in college, a lot of my friends and I gave up things like chocolate...usually unsuccessfully.  This is supposed to be a time of repentance...a time to make things good with God...a time to look to Him in struggles.  As trivial as chocolate may sound, it's a big thing to give it up completely for 40 days.  I heard something last year that I really liked, though.  Someone said instead of giving up chocolate or a food, which so many people do, it's a good thought to give up a behavior that needs to be fixed.  For me, that behavior is procrastination.  I've been thinking a lot about it today, and I realized that if I hadn't procrastinated in a lot of situations, I would have accomplished a lot more.  Making phone calls in my business, asking for help with the pageant, cleaning the house at the last minute before company comes over...the list could go on and on.

So, it's my goal to stop procrastination.  By this, I have to be proactive and act on something when I think of it.  Now, I won't be able to immediately act on things sometimes because of where I am or what I'm doing, but I'm not going to continue to put things off time and time again.  I'm going to do it!  Get things done!  This time, it's more than being accountable to myself.  I have to be accountable to God...which is really who I'm accountable all the time.  After 40 days of no procrastination, things should change in my life, and I'm thinking for the better.

I want to document this and the things that I no longer wait to do but take action and do.  I'll do the best that I can on that.

I've got lots of things to do!

catching up...

I always say that I'm going to be good about writing...that I want to record things so that I can remember them, and then I get busy and a month goes by and I haven't written anything.  I guess this is my time to get caught up with the last month.

The pageant is over.  Praise the Lord!  I survived it, and I won't do it again.  I'm not organized enough to do that kind of thing.  I love pageants, and I love helping with pageants, but as for running the entire pageant...it's not for me.  Thankfully, one of my good friends (who is very together and on top of things) is going to take over the pageant for next year.  My heart just isn't in it.  Although it's a decent paycheck, it's not worth it for all the stress.  I couldn't wait for it to be over.  I had a horrible problem with judges backing out at the last minute the week of the pageant, but we got it all taken care of and it's over.  A great girl won, although any of them would have been great to work with going to the state pageant.  I just have to help get her ready for the state pageant now...and do massive amounts of paperwork.  It will all be over in June, and I don't have to do it again!

Now, I'm trying really hard to focus on my business.  I know that I have to or I'm going to have to go back to get a traditional job, and I really don't want to have to do that.  I think because I'm still bringing in some money, my husband has been okay with me staying home.  At least he hasn't said anything about it, but if I don't have a paycheck coming in, he may verbalize what he's thinking.  I've got to get it done.  I'm trying to stay on top of things.  I wish so much that I wasn't a procrastinator.  I don't know why I do that to myself.  It should be easy just to get over it, right?  I wish!  I've got lots of calls to make this week if I want to get the promotion that I need.  I can do it!!

The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy.  I started a workout, and it's kicking my butt!  I'm on a team challenge through the local gym, and I feel like I'm the dead weight.  I hadn't worked out the first week because I was totally overwhelmed by going in there.  There's so much equipment, I didn't know where to start.  I finally took the initiative and asked someone to help me.  I'm now on a workout schedule, lifting weights with 20 minutes of cardio on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and working in an hour of cardio on Tuesday and Thursday.  I think I'll start swimming on the weekends.  Every muscle in my body hurt so bad last week, but I worked out all five days.  Hopefully, it won't hurt when I go today and the hard part will be over.  I keep trying to talk my hubby into joining me, but he hasn't been convinced yet.  I really wish he would.  It might be fun to work out together.  I'm ready to see the results of the workouts!  Hopefully, it won't take too long.  I know that muscle weighs more than fat, so I may gain at first, but muscle helps burn fat, so I should lose it more quickly by doing this.  We'll see!  I'm ready to see the skinny me again!!

There's more that's happened over the past month, but I'll write them another time.  I've got many things to do today that I need to get ready for.  A workout, a Bible study, some phone calls, and a class for my biz tonight.  Lots to do!  Lots to do!

breaking old habits...

I'm really trying in this new year to stay on top of things.  Turning over a new leaf, as they say.  I've always had a problem with organization and time management.  Maybe not always, but since I've had kids, definitely.  I have grand plans to stay organized and on top of it, but I tend to be a bit scattered.  I'm really trying, though.  I've got a long way to go, and I know that it won't happen over night.

One thing that I'm really trying hard to stay on top of is the pageant.  I'm the director of a local pageant which is a state qualifier.  It's the first year for me to do it by myself.  There's a lot that goes into this that I really didn't realize.  And along with my poor organization and time management, I'm also a procrastinator.  Last week I really worked hard at getting stuff done.  And then, I had a lightbulb go off in my head.  It wasn't the great idea lightbulb.  It was the "Oh, no, I forgot something!" lightbulb.  One of the most important things.  The judges.  It's not that I never thought of it.  It was that I thought of it right before Christmas and then got busy and now re-remembered it.  Anyway, it's totally been haunting me this last week.  But, I was able to find four of the five judges on Sunday.  Praise the Lord!  Thank goodness there's such a great committee.  They've really been a big help and would have been an even  bigger help if I had been more organized to begin with.  I've felt bad asking them for help because I feel that I'm dumping on them because of my procrastination.  I'll be glad when it's all over, and it will be soon.

I'm beginning to watch one of my friends' kiddos for a few hours during the day for a couple days a week starting tomorrow.  I'm hoping that works out well.  I'm sure it will be fine.  They're good kids, and I'll be able to make a little extra money during the month.  I'll be able to go over there after I drop off the boys at school.

My weight loss efforts are going well.  I've lost 6 pounds over the last week.  It may be water weight, but every little bit counts.  I've always told myself that I'll never get back to where I was before I got married.  (I got happy and fat after I got married.)  However, I just told my sister that looking at the pictures of the biggest losers from the show gives me hope.  Knowing that these people were much bigger than me and have gotten to below a weight that I'd like to be, I know that I can do it.  I tend to have that attitude....If they can do it, I can do it!

That's the way that I am in my business, also.  I see other people succeed, and I'm thinking that if they can get there, so can I!  That's a big thing that I'm working on, too.  Getting into momentum and building it strong.  I'm going to earn the trip this year, and look good while I'm doing it from all this weight that I'm going to lose.  I'm determined!  Old habits die hard, but every action counts.  I'm putting my mind in a place that it needs to be in order to make things happen!