He's a P-I-M-P!

With Visions of Sugar Plums Dancing in His Head

Because I was sick in bed all weekend, Britt WOULD NOT step foot in our bedroom for fear that he'd catch whatever crud I had. Since the kids were away at their grandparent's he decided to sleep in Ashlyn's bed. I had to capture a picture of my masculine police officer husband, who IS NOT AFRAID to get dirty, just chopped down a huge tree in our front yard, works on cars, changes oil, drives tractors, does TONS of yard work..........I mean you name a manly task and he's all over it! When I saw this I had to capture the moment! A big man like that curled up in a princess bed! Can it get any better than that? I mean really? Awwwwwww!!!!!

Daddy's Boy

My sweet little curly headed blonde haired browned eyed boy is already breaking his mama's heart! As soon as his daddy walks in the room he screams and cries until he picks him up. He wants nothing to do with me. Two nights ago I had Britt warm his bottle up and bring it into his nursery for me to feed him and Brennan would not take the bottle from me. Britt said with a smirk, "I know what's wrong." as he grabbed Brennan from me and sat down in the rocker with the bottle. Well what do you know. Brennan took the whole bottle from Britt. What's the deal? I thought that a mom/son bond was supposed to be so special! So much for that at my house! I'm really starting to get a complex! Last night he screamed and cried for Britt. Once Britt had him I tried to hold my hands out to hold him and he slapped me away. =( Oh well. I guess I got my fix with Ashlyn. Now it's Britt's turn with Brennan. I really never realized how it made Britt feel, but it feels like crap! I just wonder if it's because Britt is gone so much with work, so Brennan wants to make sure that he's going to get all of the time that he can with him while he's there? I just hope that it get's better.

So Well Spoken...

This is taken from McMama, Stellan's mom's blog. She has such a way with writing. This is a subject that I have been struggling with for some time now. She's the one who has the baby in the hospital with SVT and fighting for his life and she's writing this. Such an amazing woman! It was hard for me to understand that if God has our lives planned out from start to finish, the basically what's the point of prayer? Don't get me wrong I pray everyday, but do you see what I'm saying. I've been meaning to ask my pastor about this. Her view on this is AMAZING!!!!


From McMama's Blog -

to Him be the glory
God answers prayers. Just not always in the way or in the time frame we want. God answers prayers, but the outcome we hope for, and beseech God for, is not always the outcome God has in mind.God hears our prayers. But God still does what He, in His sovereignty, is going to do. He listens to our prayers, hears us each and every time we speak to Him, think to Him, or even groan to Him. God is affected by our prayers and He wants us to pray. But God is still God and our prayers do not change God or His mind, at least not in the way we sometimes think. He knew we were going to pray before we ever prayed. He knows the past, present and future all at once. He listens to our prayers, but our prayers don't change things. God changes things. Yet nothing changes for God, per se. If God changes His mind, because of our fervent prayers (Which He very well, might, so please keep praying!!), it will be something that God already knew would happen. He knew we'd pray. He knows if Stellan is going to live a long life or die soon. We still should pray, still need to pray, but God knows what He is going to do already. And, even if we do storm Heaven on Stellan's behalf, God still may choose to take Stellan home to Heaven. It is our job to communicate with God, to love Him, and, ultimately, to trust that whatever He decides is best. Did you know that prayer can sometimes do amazing things for the one who is praying, too!? Prayer is talking with God. We are to talk to God. If we love Him, and have a relationship with God, we will want to chat with Him, and tell Him how wonderful He is, and beseech Him with our requests.And, in the end, God will do what God alone wants to do. These can be hard thoughts to swallow, and even more difficult concepts to understand fully. And it gives me peace that I cannot fully understand God, or how prayer actually works, or what His will really is.All I need to do is to know God. That is enough for me.See, God is GOD. His ways are higher than mine. I am human, mortal, made of mere flesh and blood. Sure, I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, and a very capable brain, but I am still made right now for this earth. It is impossible, literally actually honestly impossible, for me to ever (while still treading this earth that is not my ultimate home), understand God in the same way that I can understand a mathematical equation. I believe that Stellan's course has not altered. He had terrible heart problems in the womb, was born with no sign of a problem at all, and now finds himself in the PICU for the exact same heart problem again. The problem from which we were so sure he'd been fully healed. This new situation with our baby is not new for God. He knew this and had this path set in motion for Stellan. Nothing is altered in His book, although to us it can seem like things with Stellan are off course. But God is not taken by surprise that Stellan's heart is sick. God didn't try to heal Stellan completely when he was born, and then now say "Whoops, I guess My healing didn't totally take. Let's see if I can try this again..."But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep praying. That also doesn't mean that we might not want to rethink what a miracle really is. It's worth rethinking our concept of miracles performed by God. It's worth considering the idea that even my friend Angie's baby daughter Audrey and her death were miracles. More on that later, my mind is busy with thoughts about God, praying and miracles, but they are not in post format yet.

BLAH

I am in such a blah mood today. I don't know what my deal is. I just can't snap out of it. I woke up this morning with a terrible migraine so I took a new medicine that my neurologist prescribed, Maxalt. It worked, but boy did it make me droggy! I have been in a daze all day at work. I really think that if I could just close my eyes for 2 minutes I'd be out like a light. On top of that I've been sick this weekend with some sort of flu type virus. I didn't leave the bed all weekend. Britt had to work so my parents kept Ashlyn and Britt's mom kept Brennan. Our kitchen looks like we're opening a pharmacy. There's motrin, zyrtec, nasonex, cough drops, maxalt, and other various medications lying on our kitchen counter. And yes, they are out of reach from the kids! Most all of them, besides the cough drops have child proof caps anyways, but still. I feel like I've been a walking zombie for over a week now. I'm just ready to get better and get rid of this junk! I'm tired of walking around looking like rudolph the red nose reindeer! I didn't know that a person could produce this much snot! Ok, enough whining. I just needed to get that out!

Please pray for baby Stellan! You can view their blog here. He is McMiracle on the side page of my blog.

Update on the Kiddos

I haven't given a full on update on my two little bundles of energy in a while, so I thought what better time to do it then while I'm supposed to be working. Ha! Nah, I'm just taking a little break since I didn't take a lunch today.

Ashlyn -
She used to be my shy little girl who wouldn't talk to anyone. She'd always hide behind my leg and give those evil eyes to any stranger who tried to speak to her. Now she's the little girl who won't stop talking. She talks non-stop 24/7 to me, to her daddy, to her brother, to her baby dolls, to ANYONE and EVERYONE who'll listen, or even those who won't! She also was such a pleasant baby and toddler. She was calm. I never had to worry about her getting into anything. Now it seems as if she's out to destroy everything she can get her little hands on. She scratched, with her fingernails, a house on our leather sofa downstairs. She scratched up our old tv upstairs with a pen. She wrote her name on the stairwell downstairs. I'm telling you that this child is more of a mess at 4, going on 5, than she was at 2! I think that alot of it is jealousy. I thought for the longest time that she was adjusting wonderfully with Brennan, but here lately I've noticed a slight change. She's been acting out more. I think that since Brennan is bigger now she doesn't understand why he can get away with certain things and she can't. I'm sure that it's just a phase that will soon pass. I sure hope so! On a more positive note, she really is a sweet and caring sister. Poor Brennan has 2 mommies instead of one. LOL! I know that I've said this before, but Ashlyn is definitely going to be a comforter. Anytime that I'm sick she's constantly checking on me and playing mommy/doctor to me. She's such a sweetie pie! I can't believe that she'll be starting kindergarten this year! It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

Brennan-
My little man. He weights nearly 21 lbs and has a whopping 12 teeth! He just last week began full on crawling. I'm talking knees on the floor and his chest in a raised position. Before it was more of an army crawl type of thing that he had going on. He's still not walking yet. I felt SURE that at the rate he was going he'd be walking by the time he was 8 months old, but I guess I was wrong. I'm not rushing it though. He's into EVERYTHING as it is! I can't imagine the horror when he does start walking! He is that baby that does not play with one single toy of his own, but will scour the den for just one piece of lent or one sock that I have forgotten to put away in order to satisfy his playful desire. He doesn't want his expensive choo choo train, or blocks to play with. NO NO NO........He would rather have the cardborad roll left over from the toilet paper or a snot sucker.........yes a snot sucker. He's amazed with that little gadget! He's just in the past week mastered sleeping through the night. Can I get an AMEN on that one? Let me just tell you how much the little chunker eats before he goes to bed. Either one #3 baby jar of food or 2 #2 jars of food. Then he may still want a few puffs after that. Then around 7 or 8 he has 9, yes 9 ounces, of formula before calling it a night. Hey.......whatever gets him and I both through the night soundly! I can't believe that my little man will be one next month! I'm getting a little teary eyed just thinking about it! He'll be 1 and I'll be 30. What great milestones to reach on the same day together!

Thats How You Know Its Love, by DEANA CARTER

Love Love Love this song!!!! I think that every single person should have to listen to this song! It 100% describes what true love is all about!

We have a Kleptomaniac in our house

His name is RUDY! Don't let his sweet appearance fool you! He can be a real pain in rhe rear! He's been known to steal various items out of women's purses and hide them in his special hiding place.............under our chair and a half. As most of you know, Ida stays with me one night every week. Well for some unknown reason Rudy loves to dig in her purse. The first time he got in it he got a pack of chewing gum and had the plastic pack, the paper and the gum completely chewed all over my carpet! We caught him pretty quick that time, so he didn't have much time to get into anything else. The second go round he must have made 100 trips back and forth from Ida's purse to that chair. Ida, Hanna, the kids, and I were all in my bedroom looking at some clothes and as soon as we went back into the den he made a beeline underneath the chair. We knew he had done something bad. Hanna lifted up the chair while I drug him out and you wouldn't believe all of the treasures that we found. Here's the list:

*nail glue

*lotion

*eye liner

*lip gloss

*the little plastic packs of tylenol cold gelcap pills, which by the way were chewed up

*some jewelry

*maybe a few other things...........I honestly can't remember everything it was such a big pile of stuff. I'm just glad that the Tylenol cold didn't kill him!

Then Tuesday night Ida spent the night and she even put her purse up in the corner of a chair out of Rudy's way. I was giving Ashlyn a bath and Ida was in there talking to me. She went back into the den and came running back into bathroom and said,

"Mindy, you're not going to believe it. He's done it again. I just went in the den and he gave me that stare and ran under the chair like he's done something wrong. I looked at my pocket book and my stuff is strung out everywhere." Ashlyn and I both ran into the den to find out what he had stolen this time. Ashlyn didn't even care to put her clothes on. She ran in there butt naked and was laughing up a storm. This time he ran straight in his kennel. Don't ask me how he did it but he had her:

*totes umbrella

*check book

*teeth whitening tray and gel

That little theif! He is as bad if not worse than a child! Does anyone want a dog? =)

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

Complete Rambles

I have a lot of random little things that I've been meaning to blog about, so I'll just do it all in one blog. Prepare yourselves people. I'm going to be bouncing all over the place in the post!

Let me start with the Bachelor. I thought (this being the key word here) that he was such a great guy, and when he picked Melissa I was so happy for her. She seems like such a genuinely nice girl. Then comes the after the final rose show where the show didn't have a live audience of maybe 100 people to keep it as "intimate as possible out of respect for all parties involved", but yet they'll air that sorry ass break up on national television where millions of people are wacthing. GIVE ME A BREAK! Jason, if you found that you and Melissa weren't compatible then break it off in privacy and let us at least find out about it in the latest edition of People magazine or on TMZ. And shame on the producers of the Bachelor playing with peoples emotions like that for the extra publicity! Enough said about that.

Onto my next TV show.......American Idol. I don't really care much about the first few weeks of the show. I used to love watching all of the horrible singers and hilarious guys and girls who HAVE to know how bad they are but go on the show just to be put in front of a camera and get their 5 seconds of fame. I'm completely over those shows. I wait for the part of the season where the singers are actually good and they are dwindling down to their final 12. I have to tell you that when Scott Macintyre made it through I was literally in tears. He's blind and and amazing singer. Not only is he an amazing singer, but he has such a wonderful outlook on life! He doesn't let his disablity get him down. He strives for the best no matter what! I have high hopes in this contest. Right now I'm pulling for him and Anoop! Go NC!

I don't know if you can see it in this picture or not, but there is Lady sitting on the wing of Dumbo. Pappaw Drum gave Ashlyn $20 for Disney World and Lady is what she bought with her money. On our last day Ashlyn was waiting with Mom and Dad in the lobby of the hotel while Britt and I did a little shopping in the gift shop. It was time for the bus to arrive so we all grabbed our belongings and hurried outside. As we were boarding the bus Ashlyn noticed that she didn't have Lady! Dad ran like a banchy (sp) back in the lobby to see if he could find her before the bus took off, but it was too late. Some other little boy or girl must have already found Lady and given her a new home. Ashlyn handled it better than expected. I honestly thought that she was going to have a HUGE meltdown on this bus that was nearly filled to capacity. I knew that the airport had to have a Disney store, so I told her that we'd try to find her another Lady there. NO LUCK! They had all kinds of characters, but no Lady's. We bought her a baby pluto for the time being, but she still wanted her Lady back. Once we got back home Mom and Dad searched the internet over and over again looking on every Disney sight and every toy store there was, but guess what.............no Lady to be found. They finally turned to Ebay and bought a gently used one off of there for $10. I was not so happy about the idea of my child sleeping with a used stuffed animal, but whatever makes her happy. The day that it arrived in the mail you would have thought that it was Christmas all over again. Her exact words were - "My Lady. I missed her so much. I'm so glad that you are back home with me!" Then she looked up at Mom and Dad and said, "Whoever had her has been feeding her well. She's got a full belly." Is that not just precious? Now Lady never leaves her sight. She sleeps with her every night. She takes her in the car everywhere that we go. That dog is glued to her!

The ups and downs of working with guys............I don't know what I did before Robin joined the group! She is my sanity. I am her sanity. LOL! I don't know what I'm going to do for the next week without her because tomorrow she leaves for Hawaii for 10 days! I'm completely jealous! Anyways back to my original topic, working with guys. I absolutely LOVE my job! If something happened and I had to work somewhere else I would be DEVASTATED! There is NEVER a DULL moment around here! I hear burping and farting throughout the day. It's such a professional work environment! LOL! My office on the other side of the wall from the shop shitters so I occasionally hear some really loud noises from in there. Some days Robin and I are have tears streaming down our face with laughter. One downside with working with all these guys is that we have to have our septic tank pumped every couple of months! And guess where the septic tank just happens to be................right outside of MY window! I'm talking the most horid smell that you've ever smelled in your life. I swear that the air turns green with odor when they come to pump those babies! That is one job that I would not do wish on my worst enemy! EWWWWWW!!!! One of the monthly highlights of our job (not really, but it's really funny) is when we get the cable bill for one of our salesreps who has a company apartment in Myrtle Beach. Boy do we get a kick out of his movie choices. Here are just a few off of the list - Hot/Sexy Daughters, Asian Babe Invasion, Gushing Wives, Alabama Slam, and our all time favorite..........Clean Shaven Beavers! We about died when we saw that one! There are pranks being pulled 24/7. It's just all around a wonderful place to work. It's not your average job. Work is FUN not boring, and I LOVE the fact that I look forward to work everyday! How many people can actually say that about their job?

On a sadder note. Please pray for Kyle Sigmon. He is the brother of a co-worker of mine. He was out this weekend when some guys jumped him and beat him unconscious. Once he was already down one of the guys began to kick him over and over again in the head. He was airlifted to Carolina's Medical Center where he is in a coma. Here is a link to the article out of the Lincoln Times. http://www.lincolntimesnews.com/current.asp?Story=18586&Sect=20&Y=2009&M=3&D=9

A Little Laughter for your Monday

This would SOOOO happen to me!

SNOW FUN!!!