Memorial Day Weekend - 2009

After sleeping in on Saturday (since mom kept Drew while Jon and I went out to dinner the night before), I did some stuff around the house and then we headed to get Drew. We went to the "Smiley Club" cookout and they had a big bouncy house. Drew had fun playing around in it. I was afraid that I was going to loose him, though, so I didn't let him get too far out of my sight! He was a bit grouchy, so we didn't stay long. He must have been tired b/c he feel asleep shortly after we got in the car.

On Sunday, we went to our friends Bradley and Loni's house for a BBQ. They had Boston butts, ribs, and smoked chicken. Everything was wonderful and Drew had fun playing with all the kids. One thing I noticed while we were there that I thought was funny was this...

Yep, where I come from, the guys drive trucks!!

Some of the cute kiddo's...Kase, Bryden, and Raegan!

And here's Drew and Colten hugging!!


Today, we didn't do anything! We decided to lay low here at home. Jon grilled some pork chops on his new grill and we just enjoyed some family time.

Today, Drew also turned 23 months old. That means only one more month of being 1! Jon put together his water and sand table tonight (the other half of his gift from grandma and grandpa). I think it is going to be a big hit! He also enjoyed playing in his house, which still doesn't have the stickers on it yet!

His face in this one cracks me up, like he's thinking, "Can't I do anything without you following me around with that camera!"

Celebrating Graduation and Our Anniversary

On Thursday night, Whitney graduated from 8th grade. It's hard to believe that my brother and sister and now both high schoolers! Even harder to believe is that Colby will be a senior next year!!! Drew was so good during the entire graduation. I figured Jon would end up having to take him out to the commons area, but he sat there the whole time and never made a sound. Not that it lasted that long, but still, I was so proud of him!




After graduation, we went back to mom's house so Whitney could open her gifts. I brought cupcakes and couldn't wait to have one (OK, so maybe I had two...). The hardest part about our new "healthy eating plan" is staying away from sweets b/c I have a huge sweet tooth!

We were getting ready to head home when I remembered that it was our anniversary, so we had to get a quick family pick! We had to "lure" Drew into his Elmo chair for this pic b/c he wasn't really in the mood for a photo session!


Jon and I went out to eat Friday for our anniversary. We went to an Italian restaurant that we had never been to before. The diet was out the window that night too. For an appetizer, we had a cheese cover portabella mushroom. For my dinner, I had lobster ravioli and Jon had some type of veal, which he had never had before. And we of course had to have dessert -- a super yummy white chocolate, strawberry cheesecake!

Here we are after dinner. Jon was so embarrassed that I was taking his picture. He is just lucky that I forgot to get it out sooner!

~4 Wonderful Years~

Tomorrow (May 21) marks four years since I married my wonderful husband! We met in 2000, started dating in 2001, got engaged in 2004, and 9 months later made it official when we became man and wife!



At our one year anniversary, we were still living it up! I remember the night before our first anniversary, we were at a wedding reception for some friends of ours, so this was taken after a long night...


Two years later, and we were expecting a little miracle...


And at three years, we were a family!!


I can't wait to see what years 5 and beyond bring us!

I love you Jon ~ always and forever :o)

[Sept. 2006]

Weekend Update & A Busy Monday

Saturday, I went to a baby shower for my friend Candice. She is due on June 26th -- one day after Drew's birthday! Here I am with the girls! (Candice is the one in the green. Right next to her is Laurie, who is due in August!)


I've never been good at 'self portraits,' but here is my new hair. Maybe not as short as the other pic, but I like it!


After the shower (and after Drew's nap, which was only an hour and a half...) we all headed to Gabe, Laurie, and Colten's house. Colten is almost 3 months older than Drew. I guess you could say the boys had a fun time playing together, although Drew spent most of the time crying every time Colten tried to touch him or take a toy from him. I thought daycare was suppose to teach him to play with others? Oh well! Drew had better get use to Colten b/c they will be spending a lot of time together this summer!


Drew and Daddy on the motorcycle:


Gabe and Colten riding the Rhino.


Sunday was church and then while Drew took his nap, I headed to the mall to get Whitney a gift for her 8th grade graduation. While Drew slept (another hour and a half nap...) Jon worked on putting together one of Drew's early birthday presents from his grandma and grandpa. Toys-R-Us was running a special a few weeks ago where if you spent a certain amount, you got a FREE sand and water table. Can't beat free so mom decided to go ahead and buy it. Plus, might as well let him have the whole summer to play with it! Jon hasn't gotten the stickers on it yet, but I think it's pretty neat!


As for today, we got up, had breakfast, went to the library, Drew had speech, ate lunch, Drew took a nap, went to a local gift shop to finish up Whit's gift, stopped by the office so Drew could visit, then I headed to step aerobics, which kicked my butt again!! While I was at aerobics, Jon treated Drew to a Micky D's cheeseburger and then took him to Ely's baseball game! It was a non-stop day!

At the library:


Enjoying a burger (although it looks to me more like he's playing instead of eating!):


One other thing, our anniversary is Thursday and I gave Jon his present early...a Big Green Egg. I don't know much about it, but according to Jon, it is suppose to be awesome!

Haircut

I am getting my hair cut tomorrow. I ran across this picture of Kelly when I was looking back and some of her old posts...

...and realized that it looks a lot like mine did in this picture from 2003.


I think I'll try to replicate that cut again! (And yes, I was a bit blonde back then!)

My step-aerobics class starts in about 45 minutes -- I hope I survive!!

One More Month!

On June 13th, we will be heading to Florida and I can't wait!! The last time I was there was in 2004 with Mom, Bobby, Colby, and Whitney. We were busy the entire time doing the theme park stuff, so we are all looking forward to just doing a lot of relaxing this time around.

Hello Ocean! (That's Whitney back in 2004.)


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Last Thursday I was so excited about getting my first pedicure of the season. Unfortunately, this is what happened...


Yep, the guy exfoliated my foot until it was raw! I was wondering why it hurt so bad. Guess I won't be returning to "Fancy Nails" anytime soon...

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I was super excited for last night's Biggest Loser finale. But not so excited when I saw who won. I was rooting for Mike, but I also liked Tara. Of course, neither of my favs won; Helen did. She did look great though -- she went form 257 lbs to 117 -- WOW!


Me and one of my co-workers are starting a step aerobics class tomorrow night and are going to start going every Monday and Thursday. I'm excited about it!! Hopefully it will make me feel better about the bathing suit I'll be sporting in one short month...Yay for vacation!!!

Does anyone else have any fun summer vacations planned??

Mother's Day 2009

I had a great second mother's day yesterday and I hope everyone else did too!! I am very lucky to be blessed with a great mom, two wonderful grandma's, and a very special great-grandma!

Here's me, Mom, and Drew:


Here's my mom, with her mom, all of her kids, and her one and only grandson Drew!


And here's me and Whitney with our great-grandma, Mama Lorene (who will turn 89 this July!!)!


We went to church Sunday morning and then had lunch at my mom's house. After Drew's nap and a 4-wheeler ride, we were off to Jon's mom's house.

I thought these pics of me and Drew turned out pretty cute! Especially considering how hard it is to get him to hold still for a picture these days!



And last but not least, here's a shot from last year!

Awwww...Movie Star Crushes...

So, when I got to work this morning, Alicia had the funniest post up about the 80's and guess who she mentioned in it...Ralph Macchio (aka the Karate Kid)! Just to show how much I too was "in love" with him, check out this picture of me and my best friend that I had on my MySpace page (see all of the posters on my wall?). And go ahead and have a good laugh at me too :o)

Who was your movie star crush when you were younger?

Happy Birthday Blog!

Today is my blog's 1 year birthday! I can't believe I've officially been blogging for a year now!

So how did my blog come about? Well, as you can see from my first post, I was using MySpace to document some of the stuff going on in our lives, but I decided I could do it better with a full-out blog. The first blog I ever read was Kinome's. Her cute little Lily was also born with a clef lip. I met her on MySpace (although I can't remember how I found her...probably through another cleft-mommy on there). I remember being on Lily's blog one day and seeing a comment from Shannon. When I clicked over to Shannon's blog (who also has a daughter with a cleft) I couldn't believe how many "cleft friends" she had! To find so many mom's who were going through what I was was simply amazing to me. (Just wish I had found them sooner.)

So I decided to start blogging...to document our wonderful life with Drew...to keep friends and family updated on what was going on with us...to become a part of a wonderful circle of cleft mommy's...and just because it was fun!

And I am so glad I did! Not only have I been able to discuss cleft related issues with other mom's experiencing the same things as me, but I have also truly made a lot of new friends that I feel like I know. I love hearing about their weekends, their kids, their jobs...basically their lives! And I love seeing the pictures that go along with the stories! Stories that sometimes make me laugh while others make me cry...I'm really attached to all of you-ha!

I'll close just by saying "Thank You!" to everyone who reads my blog and "cares" about us!

Happy birthday blog...may you have many, many more!!

Weekend Re-cap

I am just now getting around to doing a weekend update. And with so much excitement this weekend, it was hard to narrow down what was the most exciting.

Let's see, was it mine and Drew's first adventure to our local library where I got my first ever library card? No. (Only pic is from cell phone...)

Was it the get-together we went to Saturday night at one of our friend's house where Drew got to play with all of our friends' kids? Nope. (Sorry, no pics.)

Maybe it was the birthday party we went to on Sunday for my cousin at a local park? Not that either.


The most exciting (while not "good" exciting) thing that happened this weekend had to be our our 3 hour visit to the ER on Sunday night. Yep, you guessed it. Drew is sick...again!

Around 6:00 Sunday evening, I thought Drew felt a little warm and since we don't have a thermometer that I trust, I just went ahead and gave him some Tylenol (his teeth have been driving him nuts anyway so I figured it wouldn't hurt). Then, while Jon was giving him his bath, I ran to the grocery store. When I got back, Jon said that he didn't think Drew felt good. And not too much longer after that, Drew threw up. I was holding him in the rocking chair and he just still felt warm so I had Jon go to Wal-Mart to get one of those thermometers that you swipe across your forehead. When he got back and we took Drew's temperature, it showed 103. We tried it on us too and we were both normal, so I told Jon that I thought we should head to the ER.

To make this more interesting (and even though it isn't Monday), I thought I would finish this in "Not Me Monday" style!

It was not Drew who threw up two more times while we sat in the ER waiting room.

It was not me that chose to get thrown up on v. letting Drew get sick in the {germy} ER waiting room trash can.

It was then not me that had to change out of my shirt and into my hoodie -- thank goodness Jon grabbed it on the way out!

It was not me asking, "Are you almost done?" when they had to draw blood from poor little Drew's arm.

And finally, it was not Jon and I who were laughing at the other visitors to the ER. Especially the young girl who said she had hit herself in the head with a hammer and her husband thought she had a concussion (CT scan) and also stepped on a nail (tetanus shot). And also the mother who seemed convinced that her son had the swine flu. Even in the waiting room she was telling me about the confirmed cases in our state. I even heard the doctor telling her (after her little boy's blood work came back) that if he had the swine flu, then the results would have shown X.

Anyway, Drew's temp ended up being around 100 at the ER. They tested him for strep throat again and it was negative, but some of his blood work showed elevated levels of something so they opted to put him an antibiotic...again! So, Friday, it's back to the pediatrician.

Why does it seem like Drew has been sick all winter???? Sigh... Although he looks like he is doing pretty good here!!

I {heart} Faces - Hat Week!

When Drew was little, I always loved buying him outfits that had matching hats. And guess what? Jon hated them! So this pic was for him...he loves duck hunting! It was taken in February of 2008, so Drew was about 7 months old.

Enjoy and check out all of the other hat-wearing cuties here. (Oh, and please don't tell Drew that I posted a pic for the whole internet to see of his cute little bum!)