Living Area of New House (there is only one) 

Kitchen View Two 

Kitchen View 1 

This is the back yard of the new house we just bought in Aledo, Texas! 

This is one of the pools at the Bellagio...not that I'll be caught dead in bathing suit but I could hang out and soak up the atmosphere with a good book...Did I mention while Ray is at his conference I get cooking classes with Bellagio chefs? I think I might have died and gone to heaven...Oh no the fact that I have to go with his bosses to a dinner and wear a cocktail dress will nullify that!...Oh for my highschool body and hair! 

Happy Happy Joy Joy Ray and I get to go to the Bellagio in Las Vegas for 5 days by ourselves, expenses paid by his work! This is the lobby ceiling! 2000+ handblown glass flowers. 

Breath a sigh

Today I gave my two months notice at my work. I've never found it easy to resign (or break up for that matter) and this felt like a bad break up! Its hard enough to tell one boss you need to leave a great job but it is even harder to tell 25 board members when you are the only employee. I know they all felt like I just broke up with them and I'm having flash backs of horrible stomach aches from high school when I'd break up with a boy that liked me...(okay there weren't really that many highschool flameouts, just one that really stands out)! I need to slow the pace down around here and this is my attempt. We'll see how long it lasts, hopefully long enough for me to get back on the treadmill. I've had enough of running around all the time I need to do some running around and going nowhere. Julia, Gabe and Emma need me at home and happy about it, not home and grouchy cause I can't get my work done because they interrupt me....So today I'll a little sad. I really did have the best 25 bosses in existance and a nice job...it just didn't fit with my life at the moment. Blessings on you AFP Fort Worth Metro Chapter...I'll miss you.

Gabe and his buddy dreamin of owning a FAST car! :) Boy do they grow up fast! 

Just in case you ever wondered

I'm on a blog posting marathon and I received this information today from Mental Floss http://www.mentalfloss.com . Here in drought ridden Texas this really is useless information!

Who says size doesn't matter? It does to rain.
When precipitation takes the form of water droplets measuring half a millimeter (about 1/50ths of an inch) or less, it's called drizzle. Rain, on the other hand, is made up of drops of larger sizes. Furthermore, rain can be classified as slight (accumulations of 0.1 inches per hour or less), moderate (0.1 to 0.3 inches per hour), or heavy (0.3 inches per hour and more).

I think I have just been suckered! A friend of mine and I have been talking about who has the bigger pile of dirty laundry. This is my approximatly 6x9 closet and I swear this pile is a good foot deep. I'm afraid their might be a body underneath so I'm a little hesitant to do it all! Actually the reason I'm feeling suckered is that I noticed that all though my "friend" has blogged about her immense pile of laundry she has never actually posted a picture (guess she's not ready to come out of the closet :) ) Anyway this compition isn't quite fair my pile is bigger at least I'm assuming it is bigger because I've never actually seen her pile just read about it because I've just finished redoing the floors on 1000+ square feet of my downstairs that required first my washer and dryer to sit in my garage for a week and then over this past weekend I was just too busy painting and laying laminate. Anyway enough excuse making...this is a freakin mountain! I think I'm going to make and extra strong cup of La Vida Dulce Coffee, put on some Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music (okay not really) and start folding!
 

Bedroom pic 3 

Bedroom Pic 2 

The new bedroom look 

Looking to the kitchen from the living room 

from another angle 

This is our old dining room now the "conservatory" HA 

The girl cousins (at least on one side of the family) :) What a lovey group! 

Gabe and cousin Elizabeth 

Julia in her Easter dress 

Emma in her Easter dress 

I've probably left these kind of prints more than I want to admit!

Prints in the Sand

One night I had a wonderous dream,
One set of footprints there were seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some stranger prints appeared.
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord, they are too big for feet."

"My Child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
but you refused and made me wait."

You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt."

"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.

--Author Unknown :)

Distance

I just thought I'd post how depressingly far apart Fort Worth, Texas; SomewhereLand, Michigan; and Durham, North Carolina are: FAR FAR APART!(I'm hearing this in my head in a Shrek voice)

AAAAAAAHHHHH it almost been a month!

Okay I really haven't anything to say but I had to post something so I would be a month since I posted last! Spring break is over THANK GOD! I'm afraid if it was any longer we'd have been in the poor house from Gabe's random acts of impulsivity! We are also getting ready to tile 1,000 square feet of our downstairs and then put down 250 square feet of laminate so if I don't post in the next couple of weeks its probably because I accidently left my computer in the corner where the tile is still drying or I tiled myself into a corner and can't get out...I guess I better say if I'm not blogging and simultaneously not answering my cell phone send help!

Okay now that we've had our laugh you have to see her real cuteness!

Pic 1. Flowers from Uncle Keith, Watch out Lisa! Keith gave Gabe a Winnie the Pooh and the next thing I have a picture of Keith giving Gabe was cigerettes! Today it's roses tomorrow its snuff in a little silver case! :)

Pic 2. Aren't those the biggest brown eyes you've ever seen?

Pic 3. And the sweetest lips?

Gonna EAT YOU UP!

Elizabeth Lane Does the Electric Slide

This is my precious niece Elizabeth Lane, yes her mother IS a hair dresser! NO she did not purposely make her hair look like this---ALL NATURE NO NURTURE! PRICELESS!

Don't worry David, We'll catch the baton

Sunday David Phillips Pastor at Christ Chapel Bible Church died on a slick and icy Texas road. Today I went to his memorial service. It is amazing how you can know something about someone but not KNOW it. I had a couple personal experiences with David's intense love for Jesus Christ. After the service I realize I was one in a thousand...the thousands that David touched with his greatest passion...his love for God. There will be a void for a time in this world because those who have been touched by David will need sometime to stop and realize that we need to continue the race where David left off. We have rested too long on David's excellent service to Christ and his "Well Done Good and Faithful Servant" is the gun shot for the leg of our race to take off. Living this side of heaven is a continual relay of being touched by God, often through others, and then passing that life altering touch on to those around us so they can run their own race. David was a master at touching off races. I've heard my gun shot, I've picked up my baton. David, I'll see you at the finish line.

China's Secret Weapon

I'm sure that we need to have a carefully planned foreign policy to deal with China. My conviction doesn't come from their immense population, their voracious consumption of oil or their non pro USA political stance. I'm convinced that China has a large secretly trained society ready for war. My proof? Have you ever tried to open a Barbie or Barbie product? If we could just train our border security people with the people who train the workers to secure a Barbie doll in its package we'd never have a unknown terrorist cross our borders again! I just tried to open a Barbie guitar. Not only was the box taped so well that I had to literally tear the box to pieces to get it out, but once I got the box open the guitar was so tied to the piece of cardboard with twisty ties I ruined my new manicure just trying to get it undone. I must admit having a 6 year old daughter I was prepared for this, but to my surprise there was an added hurdle to cross....the twisty ties were HOTGLUED! I guess my only consolation concerning China's perceived security superiority is that their intelligence seems to be as abysmally bad as ours because they have somehow come to the conclusion that the population segment most to be feared are the 5-8 yearold Barbie loving girl population.

ISSUES

Sometimes I feel worn out from caring about the "issues" in my friends lives. I wish I could have just one friend who had no "issues", who had a perfect life, perfect children, perfect health, perfect husband and perfect money. But then of course I would hate her! So maybe I do have such a friend I just don't know it because I hate her so much for having no "issues".

Seriously though can you imagine having a friend who didn't have some sort of hardship in their life? Would that mean God wasn't working on them? Wasn't refining or purifying them? How awful to have a friend that God didn't want to make more like Himself. A friend that God wasn't using difficult situations in her life to make her more compassionate, more forgiving, more thoughtful, more just or more loving. A friend left to follow every sinful inclination of her natural born heart.

So in a away I'm glad to be tired. It means my friends around me are fighting the good fight! And being exhausted must mean I am battling shoulder to shoulder with them! Thank God we can't battle beyond that which we are able and the shoulder next to mine and my friends can't fail.

Amen Sister!

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookcases." - Ann Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," in The New York Times (Aug. 7, 1991)

Sweetness 

"Here Mom, it's for you" 

Julia with her "Pooh" and "'Lo" (Winnie the Pooh and Hello) 

I felt like supermom!

Last night I had one of those rare moments when I KNEW why I'm not a career woman and more of a housewife/mom than a professional. I'm not saying that if I was a full time working professional that this conversation wouldn't have happened but for me to have the time to "hang out" with my kids builds the relationships that makes my kids comfortable with having these kinds of conversations. Gabe had had a hard day at school. He was tired and his blood sugar probably wasn't at the right level and he was really feeling down. Gabe freaks out at night if I don't pray with him before he goes to sleep and last night he needed to "talk" before we prayed. We talked about how we as Christians can react when people are mean to us. He asked me if I had ever had friends be mean to me. I told him that as a child I had grown up in a very strict religious organization that meant my only friends to the age of 14 were contained in this exclusive religious group. At 14 my family left the organization and all my friends except one that had already left refused to speak to or have any contact with me. I told him that I had learned a couple of things. One that Jesus is always with you and always your friend. I told him that Jesus says that he loves us and that he says we are worthwhile people therefore what others say although hurtful isn't the truth. I told him that he needed to remember that his friends weren't perfect and he needed to forgive them. I said you know, "God promises that once you've asked Him into your heart he will work on you for your entire life to make you more like Him." I said, "God is not going to let your friends continue to do mean things like call you names for their entire lives. He will be faithful to show them that their actions are wrong and they will someday be sorry they treated you that way. But you also need to remember that God forgave you your sins and hurtful actions before you ever asked him to so you should forgive your friends now even if they don't tell you they are sorry." There is nothing like being able to be there and speak truth and character building lessons into your child at the exact moment when they are open and vunerable to such lessons. I pray that he will remember this things later when the hurts from friends can go much deeper than name calling and athletic ablility put downs. I want my children to be sensative to others but have a strenght of self confidence that comes from their value in God not a false puffed up self importance or a bad self image that comes from the lies of this world. I realize that most of the times that I feel like I'm doing something right isn't when "I" have got it right it is the rare times I'm really allowing God to speak through me and not letting "ME" get in the way.

I'm feelin hip, I'm feelin' cool

I've got my new coffee mug! BRUGO to be exact! "The perfect degree of taste" I ordered these three weeks before Christmas, due to them being featured on Good Morning America I didn't get it till today! Now I'm hip, now I'm cool! I don't need a New Year's Resolution, I've got BRUGO! HA
http://www.brugomug.com/

Bloggers are annoying!

I almost deleted my blog yesterday...I still might do it! When I log on to www.blogger.com and before I put in my username and password there is a randomly scrolling list of the most recently updated blogs. You can click on any of them and see what other people are posting...OH MY GOSH DO PEOPLE GET ANNOYING! Blogs seem to be the soap boxes of people that you would run like crazy from if you saw them anywhere within 100 yards! I guess it's easy to be bigoted and closed minded with an audience that you assume agrees with you. I guess only my friends are reading my blog, but who knows? All that to say, I LOVE my friends blogs, I check them a couple of times a day, makes me wish they'd post more (Carrie, Kellie, Kyrstin, Julie, anyone else out there? Marie under an assumed name? HA) they aren't remotely annoying. So if anyone out there thinks I'm starting to get too one sided in my posting let me know! (maybe for the first notice discreetly in an email instead of posted as a comment on my blog, if I don't listen then have at it) By the way that invitation was for friends only. If you are randomly reading this blog and don't like it....GO SOME WHERE ELSE!

PsychoBaby here! Julia tried to kill herself three times today by: 1. opening the car door as we went down the highway, 2.falling down the stairs (she's been doing stairs forever this is a freak thing), and 3. falling over a pillow as she tried to bring me a jar of peanut butter and a steak knife pointed up! AHHHH Here goes my hope of having one calm child! 

Just because

I'm posting today out of a sense of obligation...or maybe its just avoiding other stuff I need to be doing. I'm tired today, didn't sleep good last night, had lots of weird dreams and kept waking up worried I was oversleeping cause Gabe and Emma went back to school today. They were so excited and bouncing off the walls, bad mix with an over tired grouchy mom! I threatened 'em within an inch of their lives (or so they thought, no friends over and no PS2) if they came home with reports that they were not well behaved today! Julia just finally went down for a nap and I'm trying to decide between competing priorities 1. TAKE A NAP, 2. DO some not urgent but necessary work for my job, 3.Wash my hair. I'm leaning very hard towards #1!-Maybe just 30 minutes. Then I can still do 2 and 3.

Gee what a boring post!

Pssst...its a secret....

I worked out today....FOR AN HOUR! I'm sure this is the surefire way to kill any hope of a good New Years resolution! 1. Tell someone what your resolution is...garrenteed way to make sure you don't keep it up for more than a week; 2. Keep it on January 1st!...probably means I won't work out again for another 365 days! I pretty much make it a habit NOT to make any New Years Resolutions cause I'm not too good at sticking with anything...except Ray, and I still consider that a major miracle...the longest I'd dated anyone before Ray was 3 months...now I've been married 12 years!!!!...ooops I hope I didn't just jinx myself! Anyway I'm not sure what my resolution is but working out on January 1st sure looks suspicious! Anyone out there care to share their Resolutions or Nonresolutions? I promise not to hold it against you if you never keep it!