Good Old-Fashioned Fun

Whoa! Easter was the last time I updated my blog??? Really?? I actually have a few unfinished posts waiting in the drafts, but the writing vibe just hasn't been flowing! I have been creating! I've been sewing like crazy! I've made tutus, outfits for my kids, and some diaper bags for a friend of mine that sells them! Okay I can't get the pictures in the order that I want them so we'll just have to deal with them in this order!

This is a set my friend Shelly, my sister April, and I did together for a little girl's first birthday! It turned out so cute!! We're going to do a pink/lime green one soon, and I really want to do a hot pink/zebra set!

These are some of the bags that I'm sewing for Shelly. She sells these on different websites and to people around here. Aren't they sooo cute?? See the zebra/polka dot one?? That one is one of my favorites, and I want one just like it with a monogrammed K and royal blue trim for a school bag! This is a tutu I did for my cousin Crystal's little girl, Haven! She is such a cutie, and she's turning 1!! And this is an outfit I made for my girls yesterday! I had found this fabric 1/2 off at Hobby Lobby, and bought all they had of it! I still have some left that I'm not sure yet what I'm going to use it for! I might make Ainslee a skirt and with an appliqued shirt to match!

So there's a recap of some of the things I've been doing lately. But that's not why I'm posting today! Today I want to document for forever in history a game that Trey and I play that I DOMINATE! It's a little game that we like to call Google! Here's what happens: Trey and I will be driving in the car or talking, and we'll disagree about something (like the origins of qwerty, or alliteration, or Forrest Gump's home town, or the lyrics to a song), and we'll say, "When we get home, we're going to Google that." Here's where Internet (I'm not sure why spell-check makes me capitalize that...maybe I should Google it!) on our phones would come in SOO handy, but we aren't in the modern cell phone age just yet so we wait like they did in Little House days until we get home to look up random things on our favorite search engine! And like I said, I ROCK THIS GAME!!! I won all of the aforementioned searches! I'm sure he's won some, but I've chosen not to recall those, and this is my blog, so I don't have to mention them! ;0)

Happy Easter, Everybody!!

Just another day...

Today is mine and Trey's 9 year anniversary! I loved every minute of our wedding day! I got up early and prayed and read my bible. I met my friends at Stoby's for breakfast. Then I spent the rest of the day getting ready for our 2:00 wedding. We got married in a small Methodist church that was exactly what I pictured. I had always said that I wanted to get married in a small, packed old wooden church instead of a big, seemingly empty modern church. We had daisies, which are my favorite flower, and the bride's maids wore yellow dresses. Trey gave me a bible with my new married name on it, and I gave him a picture of me, his mom and grandmother that I had secretly taken months before when his grandmother had started to get sick and we weren't sure if she'd make it to the wedding.

But as I sit here at the kitchen table nine years later, it feels like just any other day! Layton is laying on the couch, running a fever, and coughing. He must have come down with a virus yesterday. Ainslee and Ava are running through the house in their dress-up clothes, pretending there's a dog chasing them. Trey's at work. I'm back and forth between facebook, texting my sister, and reading my favorite blogs. Nine years ago, I had no idea that we would be the parents of three kids! Or that we would be back in Redwater. Or that I would teach in the same classroom that I went to school in. Trey had NO idea what he was getting himself into! ha! But we are absolutely content and happy with our plain ol', ordinary, nothing-special, perfectly wonderful life together!

Yesterday my Melaleuca Value Pack came in, and let me tell you! I am so excited about the products that were in it! I should have taken a picture of it because it was like Christmas! I even texted my friend, who then told me I need to get a life because it was sad that I was so excited about cleaning products! Ha! BUT I knew she was teasing me because she had experienced the same joy just a few days before and had cleaned her house from top to bottom and had texted ME about how much she loved everything!! It was 30+ of the most useful products they have!! Laundry detergent, Tub and Tile cleaner, Lotion, Dishwashing detergent, Fabric Softener, Whole-grain crackers just to name a few. So far, I've loved everything I've tried!! If you are not a Melaleuca customer yet, get with me, and I can get you set up! Exchanging harmful chemical-heavy products with all-natural, high-quality, budget-friendly Melaleuca products will be a decision you'll be glad you made now and years down the road!

Last night my sister and I were sitting at the table talking while she was figuring her order from her Scentsy party, and I was watching the Melaleuca webcast, and we looked in the play room and saw the funniest,sweetest thing! Again, I was wishing for a camera. I have got to replace the batteries! I'm missing so much! Anyway, Ainslee had three chairs lined up, with a baby doll in each chair. She was sitting in a chair in front of them, holding a book, pretending to be their Sunday school teacher. She was "reading" them their lesson and talking just her like her teacher does. Then she got up to give them each a piece of candy! She'll make such a good teacher one day! She already knows what kids want: a short lesson followed by a piece of candy!

Going through the Big D...

And I do mean Dallas! ha! We started out our spring break with a 3-night trip to see some of our best friends, the Ashlocks. We met them in Conway in college and have stayed close since then! We were actually only in-town friends for about a year and a half and have been long-distance friends ever since then!

In the spring we always have a Rankin/Ashlock/Kordsmeier reunion, but the Rankins couldn't make it this year so we moved the party to Dallas to help us out since we had to make a trip that way anyway!

We decided to take the kids to the airport to watch the planes and have a picnic. They had so much fun watching those planes take off!

The kids played so well together the entire time we were in Dallas. Here are Nathan, Layton, and Daniel. Surely one of those boys will be a future son-in-law! =) It was pretty windy so we moved the picnic inside the cars. The boys dined in the back of this car, and the girls took over the back of ours. They felt like sitting in the trunk instead of the actual seats while eating jelly sandwiches and BBQ chips adds some form of excitement to the whole experience.

Trey and I opted for the eating-while-standing-up-so-that-we-could-get-to-the-juice-spills-and-fetch-more-chips experience. Here's us at the airport looking a little wind-blown in our matching Razorback garb. We are definitely not that couple that plans to coordinate our clothes, but the thing is that we have enough Razorback red shirts to fill an entire large load in the washing machine! I just discovered that the other day and was saddened by the realization. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hogs, but it might be time to introduce another color into our closet! It's not the best picture of us, but we rarely get a picture of the two of us so I thought I'd include it.

Here's the whole gang! Nathan and Layton are in the back; Ava, Ainslee, and Daniel are in the front. I have to state again how well-behaved everyone was! We really have some great kids! I'm so glad they all get along so well!

They were so funny! Everytime one would take off, they would run like they were chasing it and would cheer for it as it ascended! Here's Daniel and Layton jumping up and down cheering it on.

I didn't intentionally dress the girls alike, but they both did end up in their yellow shirts and khacki capris! It's not going to be too long before they're mistaken for twins! Ava's only a few inches shorter. The baby face and baby mullet keep her noticably in the 2's, though! Notice the white bows...I'm thinking it's time to take some clothes to my sister so she can work her magic and make them some really cute bows to match!

My new business venture...

I am so excited to tell you all about this new business (ad)venture that I'm on!!! I've been looking for something for a while to supplement our income because we REALLY want to be 100% debt free and we REALLY want to buy or build a house! And soon! But we need some extra mu-llah!

Enter Ainslee's persistent eczema and my dear friend Alexi who also has a daughter who suffers from eczema. Alexi calls me one day out of the blue and starts telling me about this stuff that they've tried on Kyra and how great it's working. Skeptical me kind of put Alexi off a little and just never found time to listen to the information about the product. Well, thankfully, Alexi is more persistent than that eczema, and she caught me on a weekend when I did in fact have some time. So I sat down and watched this webcast about Melaleuca.

Oh my gosh, y'all! I'm so glad I watched that video! Long story short, we are in the process of totally converting our home to all-natural, zero-chemical Melaleuca products and Ainslee's skin is looking and feeling great! I'm so totally, over-the-top, excited about this company and can't believe I hadn't heard of it before. (Well actually someone had casually mentioned it before, but I didn't get what they were saying so I blew them off too!...I think that may be something I need to work on..I'll put it on my to-do list!)

So anyway...the point of this post is that I want to tell all of my friends and family about this wonderful company, and I would love to share it with you too! If I haven't already talked to you, email me, call me, stop me at church, and I will set you up to watch this video! You'll be so glad you did!

Has it really been 5 years??

This is me 5 years ago! I was 25 years old, had just had my first baby, and had not even imagined how wonderful my life was about to become! Oh sure! We had prayed for a baby, we had longed for a baby, we had ached for a baby, we had lost a baby. But none of that had prepared me for how truly wonderful motherhood would be. None of that prepared for the emptiness I would feel when I was away from him. Or for the pure joy when I see him smile. Or for the rage the fills me when I hear of someone who has hurt a child.

Becoming a mother completely intensifies every emotion I've ever felt. I've loved before...but not in the complex way that mothers love. I'd hurt before....but not like I do when he hurts. I'd cried before...but not like I do when he hurts and I can't fix it. I'd felt anxiety before...but not like I do thinking of all the things that I could do wrong. I'd laughed before...but not like I do when he says things that are so funny, and I wonder where he gets his sense of humor. Oh how I love that boy!

There are no words adequate enough to completely describe how I feel about being a mother. It's everything I've ever wanted. And more. Much. Much. More.

Snow day in NE Texas

Yesterday morning it started snowing!! The kids in my class went crazy! I tried to figure out how many times in their 10 or so years on this earth they've seen snow. I think this might be the 2nd or 3rd time! You wouldn't believe how many pencils needed to be sharpened, noses needed to be blown, hands needed to be sanitized, bathroom emergencies that just couldn't wait for the bell, and things that needed to be thrown away just so they could get to the window to sneak a peek! Well we aren't heartless, mean teachers so we let the kids out to play in the quarter inch of snow, and they had the best time! We took pictures, and I wish I could post some of them here! I loved how excited they were. Of course, my Texas, post-civil war class discussion that I had planned didn't hold a candlestick to what was happening outside the window so I had to adjust my lesson plans slightly! Oh well! They can learn about Reconstruction any day, but here in Northeast Texas, they may not see snow again for a few years! Seize the moment!

My own kids were even more excited than my 4th graders!! None of them had ever touched, tasted, or played in the snow! When Layton got off the bus at the middle school yesterday, the first thing he wanted to do was see what it felt like. "Oh, soft..." was his reaction. I think he was built for colder climates, though, because later he crawled, rolled, and plopped himself down in it without a flinch. A few years ago, when I first became a mother, my friend gave me a helpful tip. She said when taking my kids out to play in the snow, to put one pair of socks one their hands and feet, then cover it with a plastic bag, then cover that with mittens on their hands and another pair of socks on their feet. That way they can stay out much longer because their hands and feet won't get cold and wet! It worked!! Dry hands and feet make for much longer playtime!

Ainslee looked like a little snow princess. She laughed and giggled and threw snow everywhere! She made lots and lots of snow angels. She didn't last quite as long as Layton would have, but she really had fun while we were out there!

Ava wanted nothing to do with the snow. Even while I was bundling them up, she told me she didn't want to go because it was too cold! I thought I could convince her once we got out there, but it was no use! I held her for a little while and then put her inside the play house where snow hadn't gotten. She lasted in there for a few mintues. Eventually, I just took her next door to my mom's house and she happily watched from the window!

Well now the sun is trying to poke through the clouds, and this year's snow will soon be gone! It was fun while it lasted, but spring is just around the corner! We can't wait for t-ball and Easter and day lasting until 8:00!!!