Thanksgiving Reflections

Thanksgiving has recently become my favorite holiday. There is no stress in buying gifts for each other, no stress in decorating, it's just a time to be together as a family, enjoy a wonderful meal and reflect on what you are thankful for. Unfortunately, this time of year, I also get caught up in the busyness of the season and I have been very ungrateful lately. I feel like I have been complaining a LOT, when I should be thanking God every single minute for what He has blessed me with.

I have a beautiful, smart, funny, precious baby girl that I am so honored to be her mother. I can't think about what life would be like without her because it's just not possible. I take for granted that she is healthy and strong. So many people have lost their babies, or have sick children in the hospital. My heart breaks for them and I wish Jesus would just come back right now so they wouldn't have to go through any more pain and heartache. Thank you God for a healthy daughter.

I have an amazing husband. Josh is who I want to be like the most. He is patient, kind, giving, wise and all the things I need to be more like. Thank you God for my best friend.

One of these days, I will get the courage to post about my mom, but for right now I will just say that I miss her every single day. There is a void there, and it gets better with time, but a mother and daughter are connected forever and there will always be a little piece of me missing. I wish I could hug her one more time and tell her that I love her. Lately, I have been very jealous of people that have married parents that they are close with. I can't tell you what I would give to have that. That is something that I want to give to Addi. I want to give her stability, and I don't want her to ever worry about me and Josh. I am thankful for Josh's family and how they have become my family too.

I am thankful for friends. Josh teases me all the time about my "blog friends", but some of my twitter friends, and blog friends, that I've never met before, and some I have, but I count them as close friends. It may sound silly, but I have connected with some of these ladies and I go to them for advice and encouragement. My "real life" friends are amazing too. :)

I am thankful to be able to put food on the table. This is something I take for granted, because we've never had to worry about where our next meal is coming from. I forget just how many hungry people there are in our community. It truly breaks my heart to think about a baby or child not having enough to eat. I was challenged by this blog, A Thanksgiving Dinner for Everyone, to do something. To not just sit there and feel sad, but to actually give. I am going to put in a couple calls this afternoon to various churches and see what else we can do to help out. Will you join me in helping out your community this Thanksgiving?

Deer Widow Weekend

This is going to be a DOOZY of a post. I have been MIA and I am back with a multitude of things to share. Let me start with the worst. Bahaha. Our anniversary is next week, but we aren't going to be able to celebrate next weekend, so Josh surprised with a quick little trip to Hot Springs. We stayed here our very first anniversary so I thought that was very sweet. I can't believe we've been married for 5 years!!! :) Anyways, so I haven't been feeling good the past few days, like getting sick at night, and before you jump to conclusions, I am sadly not pregnant. I wish I was, and I thought I was, but I'm not. :( Anyways, so we ate dinner at a restaurant masquerading as an Italian place. If you are going to charge me a ridiculous amount, I want the food to be good and AUTHENTIC. This place just wasn't. It was average at best, but with outrageous prices. Moving on. Our hotel room was right by the elevator and it kept me up ALL NIGHT. Josh was so SO sweet and had scheduled me a massage for the next morning. I'm going to say right now, I'm not exaggerating one bit with the story I'm about to tell you. I get to the spa and it's pretty apparent they are busy. I thought about leaving then...I should have. She hands me a wrap out of a laundry bin. Now that I think about it, I PRAY that it was clean laundry, but who honestly knows. I go change and then proceed to wait 30 minutes. Mind you, I showed up 10 minutes early, thinking I might be late. My appointment was at 11 and they didn't bring me back till 11:30. My therapist was a very very obese lady. She was out of breath from her previous client and whilst every other masseuse came out with their client's sheets in hand, she did not. Again, I should have noticed, but it just didn't click. She talked the entire time, about various topics, most notably being how she just quit smoking....I want SILENCE!!!! Once she finally got started, oh yes, did I mention she left right after she started? And just for the record, she left twice more after that for different reasons. So once she got started, she asked if I had a stressful job. Ha! Yes, yes I do. At least right now it's kinda stressful. She said I had one of the most knotted up backs she's ever seen. :( So she says, "I'm going to stretch you first." She then started throwing my limbs every which way and laying on them. Again, I should have just gotten up and left right then. She very condescendingly kept reminding me to "RELAX". Hahahahahahaha. Okay, so here is the kicker. At one point, she goes, "ARE YOU BLEEDING?!" I panicked and started checking my arms, she checked my back. No cuts...it wasn't me....there was blood on the sheets THAT WASN'T MINE. She said, "oh it might be from the person before you...or ink..." HUH?!?!?!?!?!?! Again, I was just in SHOCK. Utter and complete shock. I had no idea what to do without just totally losing my mind. At the very end, she put ALL her weight on me. And just laid on me for like 30 seconds. A 400lb. woman. I couldn't breathe and I didn't know what to do. I found Josh, and we were walking out and I was telling him all the horrible things. Once I got to the blood part, he asked if that really happened. Yes, yes it did. He was furious. He called the spa manager and told her what happened. She talked to the therapist and called us back. She was extremely rude and told us that I probably got cut from the loofah from the bath. I HAD NO BATH!!!! She told me that if I looked, I would find a cut under my arm. NOPE. We looked and she looked when I was in there!!! I was about to lose it, and she just said, "alright, we will refund you your money for your inconvience" then hung up. I plan on writing a review on every page I can. That is ridiculous and should NEVER EVER happen. Not only was the therapist EXTREMELY unprofessional, but I'm pretty sure that is a health code violation. I would NOT recommend the Arlington in Hot Springs.

Okay, so sorry that was a long and horrible story. The rest of our weekend was so much fun. Josh went hunting when we got back and so me and Addi built a fort in our living room and got a pizza and camped out watching movies for the night. It was SO much fun.



I was a work horse Friday and Saturday night.

Today, we went to Lucia's first birthday party!!!




It was a blast and Addi had so much fun.

Hope y'all had a great weekend!!!

Playdate at Sara's

Yesterday, we had a fun playdate at our friend, Sara's house! It was a joint birthday playdate for Rylan and Lily! There were fun times had by all. Sara made delicious chili, there were cupcakes and outdoor play. Addi was pumped until she saw a spider looking toy ball. Sister FLIPPED out!!! Bless her heart, she was terrified. :( I hate to see her so scared like that, but it was kinda funny just because it was a really silly looking spider. But, of course, I didn't laugh at her. :)

Sweet Lily!
Her Dad was there to throw her super high up!

LOVE these boys.
She was amazed at the little ball popper!
Leaves!

Addi was unsure at first what was so funny.
She then caught on and her and Harper laughed for a long time. :)
Finally, it was time for cupcakes.
Birthday pals!
Night night time!
Lily joins in on the fun.

Thank you Sara for having us over and Happy Birthday Rylan and Lily!!!

Our Weekend!

We had a great weekend! I'm sad it has come to an end. Saturday, we went to lunch at Milford Track! We have either been out of town or Arkansas has played at 11 the past few weeks, so we haven't been in awhile. So good as always! And Saturday was just GORGEOUS!!!


Addi has been "scaring" things lately. Me, Josh, Dixie, Belle, her toys, and here she was scaring the flowers. Haha!

Josh had to do some work Saturday afternoon, so Addi and I had some fun with the camera! Haha, I look AWFUL in these pictures, but I LOVE them!!! Addi was cracking me up with her expressions!

Addi decided Dixie needed a hug. Poor Dixie!

I also attempted to put Addi in big girl panties. I thought this might help her with the potty training, so I explained that it wasn't a diaper and she needed to tell me when she needed to go pee pee. I asked if she understood and she smiled and said, "no." :) Let's just say it got VERY messy and I think I'm scared to put her back in them! Haha!

That night, we went to Embassy Suites to watch the Arkansas game and the LSU/Alabama game! It was fun, because both games were on huge screens so we didn't miss out. Addi had a ball! She loved when everyone cheered and called the hogs!



Addi was so excited about Daylight Savings Time she woke up at 5:45 this morning! And that was after going to bed at 10. She was a cranky bear and went back down at 10 for a long nap. I was sad to miss church, but it was best she got some sleep. We made it a lazy day and got some cleaning done. :)

Hope y'all had a great weekend!!!

Addi might be smarter than me.

My kid is smart. Like scary smart sometimes. And I'm worried that she might be smarter than me. Yep. I said it. Here are some things that Addi has done this week that have shocked us.

1. She saves her most favorite pictures she "colors" onto my photo album. I had to GOOGLE how to take a screenshot of my phone. And can we talk about her use of color? Totally cool.




2. Again, another Iphone thing. I have a matching game on my phone called Matching Zoo. Addi can do it by herself in under 2 minutes. My time is 1 minute. I give her another few months and she might have beaten me.

3. Last night, Addi used our living room remote to turn off the TV. When she couldn't get it to turn back on, she went to our room, got our TV's remote, came back into the living room and turned the TV on.

4. Belle has a bad habit of chewing up Addi's paci's. Tonight, she chewed the last one. Addi walked into the kitchen asking where her paci was and I told her that Belle ate it. Addi walked into where Belle was sitting and spanked her and said "No Belle, no eat pacis!" It's blowing my mind how much she understands.

5. Yes, I am THAT mom. Bahahahaha.

Hope y'all have a great weekend!!!!!

GO HOGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Little Girl

Here are some Addi pictures from this week. She is such a joy and certainly keeps me on my toes! :)




Hope y'all are having a great week!

Halloween!!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!!! I hope you all had a great and safe holiday! We had our playgroup Halloween party today at the house and a fun time was had by all. Addi dressed up as Snow White. She originally was going to be a bumblebee, but I saw the Snow White costume last week at the Disney Store in Memphis and loved it. :)


All of the kids were dressed up SO cute!
Easton!
Little Brilie!
Special birthday girl, Lily!
Kinley and Dixie! Haha look at Dixie's face!
We were having so much fun just sitting and talking that we didn't realize it was pretty late. WAYYY past nap times, so we were laughing so hard when Rylan came out in this get up. SO funny!
Sweet precious Miles made an appearance too.

Of course, we had delicious food!

Once Addi had a good nap and we ate dinner, we headed out to Trick or Treat! Let me say my thoughts on this, because I know some people don't like this. I would NEVER EVER under any circumstances let my child go by themselves. It is a creepy sort of idea, going up to random strangers and asking for candy, but it's what we did as kids and it was SO much fun. I think if you are safe and responsible about it, it can be a fun time. Anyways, so here are some pictures from our night! :)


This picture cracks me up! Noah's dad had on the CREEPIEST mask and that is a grade A photo bomb right there.
Addi LOVED trick or treating! She ate about 4 suckers while we were out.
Ugh, terrible picture of me, but I couldn't keep my eyes open with the flash! Haha! Addi looks presh though!


My BFF, Treece! We both couldn't keep our eyes open.

I hope you all had a great Halloween! I can't believe it's already November!!! This season is just flying by! I guess I should get to bed, but I watched this stupid show that had the 13 scariest movie clips ever. Mistake!!! I turned it off after two, but I keep thinking about it and freaking myself out!!! When will I learn?? :)