Answered prayers.

Welp, as I've stated before, were leaving for 8 days to go on a cruise all alone! I am so, so, so, so, SO excited to spend A LOT of alone time with my honey. But.... at the same time I'll be leaving behind 3 pretty large chunks of my heart and soul, and although its a much needed/wanted/welcomed break for the both of us, I've still had to come to some pretty serious terms about leaving them for more than a week.... while we go out of the country. So I've turned to the only One who will give me the strength to do such a thing.... and as silly as this may sound, I feel like He threw a pretty hard week at us so we would be more than ready to go.

So, obviously, its been a bad week....... and strangely, I'm a bit thankful cuz I feel like I'm more than ready to head out for some mama and daddy time.

Nat's still goin hard at working sun up to sun down... and then some. The girls have been fighting constantly and have just been so unpleasant to be around. We've had a nasty yucky 24 hour virus hit us x4... and I think were finally over it. I feel like we haven't had one ounce of joy or happiness in our home this week!

.... I'd say the most exciting thing about our week would be the little somethin somethin that showed up in our back yard today.... The dogs were going BIZERK-O outside, I mean CRAZY!... they'll bark if a car drives up, or if they see a little something... but this was a deep down nasty growly bark that I heard all the way in the living room. I immediately knew something was out there that absolutely shouldn't be!! My first thought was a rattlesnake... then they kept going nuts so then I thought coyote! I was out there trying to see what they were barking at, staying close to the back door just in case it was something that might wanna eat me.... and then out walks a big white COW!

We saw a couple days ago that the cows had trampled the fence over and had come over to our pasture, which we didn't mind, except for the fact that there's no cattle guard or gate to stop them from going out our front entrance, down to the highway... but they're not our cows... so, whadya do?? This 1 little white cow has always steered closer to our house... and today she made the leap to our front yard and found Nat's lush green grass.... luckily Nat was close to the house so I called him to come home and, being the Hero that he is for me all the time, he got bessy back to her other cow buddies.

...and 4 seconds after she was re-united with her cow buddies (which was really sweet BTW... she moo-ed, they moo-ed... she moo-ed, they moo-ed, they all ran to her and had this sweet little reunion) she was back in our front yard eating the grass again... and my hero was gone back to work so I rounded up my 3 lil buckeroo's and we hopped in the suburban and ran her back over to her home... then it got dark and I haven't been out to see if she came back or not.

The End.

Watch out world

I'm pretty sure I'm the LAST person on the planet to get a smart phone.... not only did I get a smart phone, but I got an iPhone! Ya, I'm pretty cool now! :)

No, not really... I was never really to hip on the whole smart phone thing... I never really thought I needed one.... and I still don't need one but its fun anyways! My other phone was slowly but surely losing its life. So.... I for sure wanted to get something more reliable before we go on our cruise.... and I'm really enjoying it!

ANYWAYS....

My honey, baby love, sugar lips, baby daddy, lover boy turned another year older.... it was kinda stinky cuz he worked alllll day long. Like from sun up to waaaay past sun down! He did get to come home around 9 and eat his birthday dinner and some birthday cake before he went back out to work!... and I hate to say that we haven't seen him much since then! He's been so busy. Seems like with his job, when it rains, it POURS.... and POURS.... and POURS some more! I feel bad for him.... We all get the brunt of his excessive working and it takes us a bit to recover from daddy's crazy work schedule when it gets like this.

Oh look at me.... spilling a little part of my guts at the given moment when I should be saying good, happy things about the birthday boy.

I think he had a good evening when he was home. I just love him to pieces and I'm soooo grateful that he was born 24 years ago and he grew up to the great man he is today.... and that he wanted to marry me and be with me forever! I'm just thankful for him PERIOD!

... don't you just love my gift bag of choice?!?!

We only own baby and wedding gift bags in our house.

think it would have been wise of me to use a wedding/lovey gift bag??

that would be to simple for me.

...and cake balls.... ooooh cake balls. Oh lordy me, cake balls. I love them.... and I quite possibly made them more for myself than for my honey. Is that bad?!?! In all honesty, I just knew he would love the cake so much more!

and add another point for me on surprising him! I know, I say it every holiday, every birthday, every fathers day... but he's boring, and he doesn't LOVE anything so he's hard to buy anything for!

He had mentioned a long time ago that he wanted some of those Vibram 5 finger shoes. I wasn't so sure he would love them but I went with it anyways... and he really does love them!!! and they'll be perfect for the cruise... where he was having a hard time coming to terms with not being able to wear his boots.

and another pretty exciting thing for him is that he got a new work truck. Like a brand spankin new 2011 truck! You tend to feel pretty dang blessed for someone to drive up in your driveway with a new truck and hands you the keys for you to do anything you want/need to do with it other than work. Its so much roomier than his other truck so the kids' car seats fit so much better and they have so much more leg space. I had to laugh when we were checkin it out and Nathaniel got so excited that his new truck had car seat latches. :) Like seriously, who gets excited that his work truck has latches. Mmm... another reason I love him.

Happy Birthday Baby Love!!

Go bubba, Go!

His determination is paying off!!

Looky, looky.

Blogging twice today! Here I was hurriedly trying to finish up the post about Stetson cuz I didn't know when I would have the time to sit down again...

...and....

Nat's out working, I'm finished with my stuff I needed to finish up for the Birthday boy and I gotta tell you all about our new obsession.

Well.... mine and Madelynn's anyway.

Nat and I have talked and talked and talked about getting a pool and we decided we would wait and see if we could get one on sale after summers over.... but we just couldn't resist!!!

and I'm oh so glad!! I just LOVE to swim. I would probably stay in a pool all day if I could!

Stetson is not a huge fan as if yet.... BUT all the times we've tried to let him swim, its been nap time. So I'm thinking he'll love it when he's not tired.

and Payton... well she HATES it! She is extremely unsure and panicky... If something's not sturdy, and she has no control over it she goes into freak out mode. I think it will be a lot easier when Nat and I can get in with her and 1 of us can focus solely on her.

Miss Priss is a WATER BUG if I ever seen one! She could seriously stay in the pool all day with me! She does fantastic with her floaties on.... but she is still so so without them on.

Its here

Well, actually its here and passed... and the countdown starts a tickin!

My little dude turned 11 months!!

I feel like we've been going a million miles an hour and I don't even know whats gone on in our life cuz its all a blur!

and there's not much sign of it slowin down!! Guess thats how our summer is gonna be...

and I'm OK with that!!!

I've been busy, busy, busy with planning, buying, doing, making, baking cuz were fixin to kick it in high gear!!! Tomorrow starts our month and a half long Rose Birthday celebration.... and were merely less than 2 weeks away from going on our cruise! I feel like my head is spinning... and our bank account is spinning even faster! Blach.... 4 birthdays, 1 BIG Birthday Party and 1 loooong cruise.

Guess this is why I've been a bad blogger/picture taker lately??

Anyways.... back to the fact of the matter.

All I can report for the little mister is:

-He is O-fficially off formula! (Wahooo!!!) and on cow's milk.

-He is about 2 seconds away from being a full time walker. I know I've said it before, but I have never in my life seen someone with such determination! Half his problem is he thinks he needs to get a running start right off the bat. Its hilarious cuz he like literally runs a few steps and just crashes... then he's up again, trying it all over again!

-He still eats like there is no tomorrow... and I've not quite figured out a good way to deal with this. The second he takes his last bite of food on his tray he is screaming and growling for more food... and if you've ever been fortunate enough to hear his poor, starving cries for food.... you'll know its rather un pleasant. Therefore eating out is embarrassing.

-Has 4 teeth... and If I had to take a wild guess by his fussiness and poop... there are some more on the way in! Haven't checked yet tho.

-I love, love, love him... and he's still the cutest little baby boy I ever saw!

.... oh and he LOVES me too. :)

Sweet summertime.

Hello?!?! Can it just be summer for-e-ver??? My whole entire family with nothing to do all summer.... I'll take it! My sisters came and stayed with us for 8 days.... this was after my parents came and visited for a few days. I'm gonna have a big 'ol reality check when August rolls around. Me and the kids headed to TX for Jedd's 2nd birthday and we had a really good time!

Although I really missed the man in my life.

Its always nice to escape reality and have some of moms good cooking and have help everywhere I turn. The girls stayed back with their nana and papa for a couple days and I know they're having a blast! They really didn't care that I was walking out the door and gonna drive 4 hours away from them. Me, on the other hand... well lets just say i've gotten used to living 4 hours away from help and grandparents... so I've gotten used to having my babies around me 24/7... so I'm not used to leaving them for any amount of time.

Oh well, good practice for the cruise.... when I'll leave them for 8 days...... 16 days till I walk out the door and leave them for 8 days.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I'm sure everyone is sick of me talking about leaving my kids for 8 days... and I'm sure my poor in-laws will get sick of me talking about missing my kids those 8 days.

I just love them so dearly.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!! I got the privilege of trying to watch fireworks while I drove home. Ever tried to watch fireworks while you drive??? I wouldn't advise it.

Almost there!

Blah! I can't even hardly stand it!! I LOVE it.. and I HATE it. Bubba has been trying his hardest to walk I don't think I've ever seen such a precious little thing have so much persistance, I kinda feel bad for him that he hasn't got it yet. If he is going from 1 point to another he tries to walk... takes about 5 steps, falls and crawls to his destination.

But holy moly isn't he adorable?!?!

I sooo can't wait till he can get around with the girls!! He already tries sooo hard to keep up with him but he just can't!

My babies growin up!!!