Happy Birthday Megs!

Now, I will try to do her justice as she says so many nice things about me whenever I am mentioned in the slightest on her blog!

So, my friend, we are coming up on almost 9 years of friendship without so much as a wave in the stream. You are a compassionate woman who never ceases to amaze me. You are caring, thoughtful and genuine. I knew that as soon as the first email came to me, we were going to be friends for a long time. Just a short trip through memory lane, I promise.


Here we are at fisherman's wharf after our belly button piercing excursion.


This was on our way to Palm Springs when you decided to make out with the fish pillow. Where did he come from anyway? Might not want Kev to see this one!


We both loved Kev from the beginning. This was right before Christmas break in 2000, I think the night before we moved out of the dorms!



A couple of pre-party pictures, although, I think that last one was taken in Kev's room after the party. I can kinda tell by my face, what do you think?


You were going out, I wasn't...so I took some really random, silly pictures of you. This was the funniest one, by far!


Who could forget our "hot boy" wall that slept right above my head. Derrick, eat your heart out!!!

I will never forget the wedding, we had such a ball and it was a great excuse for us to see one another, I would have never missed it in a million years!


This was a cute picture. I loved it!

I think this is the cutest picture of us though, from Kel's wedding.


As I said before, you are great and I'm so lucky to have you in my life. Thank you for being a great friend and loving me through everything. I couldn't make it without you, I love you girl!

Visits, snow, and big girl beds!

That's right! It's been a while and so much has happened! As most of you know that read my blog (when I write in it) Kellan has been out here! Yippee!!! It was great. I don't want to go into too much of what we did because she blogged about it also. I just want to say that it was great having her here and though it's been such a long time since we've been able to spend some quality time together, it felt like we were just together the day before. It's really great when you have friends that you haven't seen in a long time and you can pick up right where you left off the last time you were together! I love you Kel!

The last day Kellan was here, we were graced with snow! It was amazing...we're entering our second year out here in Miss. and to have been able to let my children play in snow was wonderful! We woke up around 7:00am on Saturday morning to this...





An hour later, this is what my truck looked like...




Christian loved it! Here he is playing in it...





Brooklyn was a different story, I'll just let you look at the pictures.




We had a great time watching Kellan and Sheila have a snowball fight in which poor Kellan was pelted a couple times by large, wet snowballs. Sheila's a good aim for being so small (5'3") and over our divider fence!

We took a weekend trip up to Bartlett, Tennessee to visit our friends Bill and Shawna Guffey. Shawna is pregnant with their second child, Molly and little Aidan is getting so big now! Us play group Mommies were holding Shawna's baby shower for her and were even fortunate enough to get Bill to watch the kids one night so we could all make it out for dinner. Yes, he tackled watching all 8 of the kids! Our good friend Amanda even flew out for the shower, which was a surprise for all of us.


Sheila, Hollie, Kassie, Shawna, Amanda and myself! Poor Bradley wanted in the picture too!

Mommy-to-be and Amanda

Aidan on his big boy bed!

Speaking of big person beds...Brooklyn is now sleeping in her own big girl bed! Sunday night, I took the front of her crib off and transformed her crib into a toddler bed! She climbed right up into it, pulled the blankets over her and told me nigh, nigh! She's getting so big!




And some random snapshots from this morning!

I saw her!!!!

Nothing was like I thought it was going to be today. Kassie, Sheila and I got there about 8 this morning fully knowing that Oprah was not showing until noon. Yes, a full 4 hours early.

So, as I mentioned before, the whole thing for Oprah and her people coming out here is because they're starting a nation-wide weight loss program. Apparently, our Mayor here knew that Mississippi was the fattest state and last year wanted to get a petition signed for getting people fit. Oprah and her people heard about this, and so decided the "Get slim" campaign.

About noontime, Bob Greene, Oprah's personal trainer showed up and came out to talk about weight loss. She was supposed to be with him, but apparently, her flight that she was supposed to come in on was late. About 12:45 she finally came out and talked to the crowd for about 30 minutes.

She was awesome...she just let us know how real she was. She's been having trouble with her thyroid, so has gained some weight, she hates working out and is a nazi about not eating past 7:30 at night. Kassie and Sheila were lucky enough to be right in front where they could see her close up. The best part about the whole thing and how real she was-her zipper was down, so she had to pull it up in front of our 500+ crowd.

They had people signing contracts to help motivate themselves toward losing weight. They were having cooking demonstrations, a dietitian and also a nutritionist were there. Bob's new book about eating healthy was there for sale. We thought there was going to be a book signing where he would actually talk with you, but it didn't happen. To be honest, I was a little bummed about that, but in all, it was a very good day!

So, Monday is when this show is going to air, be on the lookout for me!!! I just might be there in the crowd! Black Pea Coat, jeans and white flower in my hair!

P.S.

I'm going to see Oprah in the morning!!! So excited. Apparently, she's doing a fitness show sometime and because Mississippi is the fattest state, weight-wise, she's kicking it off out here. On Wednesday when I found out from my friend Kassie, it was just going to be Oprah's trainer, but now she's acutally coming! Cool, can't wait. I will let you know how it goes!!!

By the way...

We're coming to California!!! Feb. 19 through March 4 and I wanted to have a small little birthday party for Brooklyn while we're there. I'm not sure what day it will be or where it will be, but that's the plan. We'll see what happens and I'll be sure to keep you updated.

I found this great fare from Southwest to fly into Sacramento from here for $99 each way and per person, so it was really inexpensive to fly this time. Wooo hooo!!!


Brooklyn's mean face...doesn't she look rough?

Christian and his foam soap boobies!

Christmas and New Years Recaps! Sorry...

I know, I know...I've really been slacking. I'm sorry. I know I always say that I feel like I've been so busy but when I come right out and think of what I've been doing, there's never really anything going on. Such is the story tonight. For a little recap on our little family's holidays, here is our story.

Christmas, we woke up early and opened presents from family and Santa. The children were quite spoiled.


This was our tree prior to opening.

Presents from Santa.

After opening presents and getting dressed, we hopped into Sheila and DJ's Envoy along with their two children, Justin and Emily where we drove to Sheila's parents' house. We love Granny and PawPaw, by the way, they are new extended family! After eating a "shrimp bowl" (how Sheila pronounces it, it's really shrimp boil), the kids opened more presents and we visited for a couple of hours.

Then, we made the hour and a half trek to DJ's father's house. We visited a bit, the kids opened more presents (yes, they had some for all four of the kids) and the kids ate again!

After about 2 hours, we drove another hour down the road to DJ and Sheila's condo down along the Alabama coastline. The next morning we got up and Sheila and I did some after-Christmas shopping and found some great prices on things...a brand new VSmile-normally $60- was $30. It's even the one with the writing pad on it...it's cool! Anyway, there were hardly any people there because the next day was a work day for most people, so...no crowd! After eating some lunch we did our three hour drive home. It was a tiring 2 days, but well worth it.

Here are some pictures of the kids opening their presents!










And so we come to New Years Eve, where we walked all of 10 feet to DJ and Sheila's house for their party with the playgroup families. We had a nice BBQ and watched the kids play for a while. After the kids were in bed...Hollie and I had a margarita while Chris and Kassie enjoyed their Bailey's and coffee. Us Mom's played a round of our favorite game "Phase 10" while the Dad's watched the motocross tricksters perform on the tele.

Here are my friends here!

Jonell, Kassie, me, Hollie, Chris and Sheila (left to right around the table)

Well, so long for now...Happy belated Holidays!

Happy Birthday Christian!!!

You're 4 now little Man!!! Happy Birthday to the sweetest, most handsome little boy that I know. I love you and you are my heart! You never seem to amaze me with the wonderful things you say and do. You are definitely one of a kind mister. I love you!!! I have finally realized just how big you have gotten when you made your own birthday cake. I am so very proud of you, I can't believe how fast you have grown up.





Love you little man!