One Day at a Time...: September 2009

This week has been NUTS! I'm just slowly but surely coming to the realization that we're moving in five weeks. FIVE WEEKS!! Every day the reality of it all sinks in and I become a little more excited and a little more sad. Is it possible to feel both of these at the same time? The house hasn't had many showings despite our open house last weekend. We're planning to do another one this weekend and just try to get as many people as possible to view it.

I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Vegas for my girlfriends bachelorette party. Shane's parents are coming in town today to keep the boys company while I'm gone. I've got big plans over the next few days just trying to get everything done before I leave, especially since I've had such a busy week. I'm looking forward to my girl's weekend, but know I'm going to miss Logan so much! Being away from him AND Shane for 3 nights will be hard!

I had my monthly ABLE (Animals Brighten Lives Everywhere) meeting last night and heard that one of my favorite oncology patients has been released from the hospital and is expected to pass away soon. It's just so heartbreaking...She is so beautiful and full of life, and loves the dogs and Lucy so much. There was another death recently that hit our team pretty hard....my friend Scarlett brought her dane/mastif mix Maggie to the funeral. She said it was the most difficult funeral, but that Maggie seemed to bring a lot of comfort to the family.

Posted in: on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at at 8:11 AM 2 comments

Silly me

So, I finally got my etsy shop link set up correctly and now you can click the picture to get to my shop! Woo hoo!

Posted in: on Sunday, September 20, 2009 at at 10:12 PM 0 comments

Daddy's Birthday!

On Wednesday, my sweet hubby turned 34. Happy Birthday! Since September is traditionally such a busy time of the year, it always seems like we have a million things going on around his birthday. It was nice to slow down for the evening, have a nice dinner as a family and celebrate. I have to be sentimental for a moment and say that we have been together almost 10 years (it'll be 10 in April) and that I am so, so lucky to have had him by my side for almost a decade. He is the most hardworking person (Well, second to my Granddad who farmed until he was over 80!!) that I have ever met and I always know that if he makes a promise, he will keep it. He is the most amazing father to Logan and I just love seeing them laugh and play together. He is always kind (even in discipline) and always takes time to explain things to Logan in a way that he can understand. I count my blessings everyday that I have a husband who will let me talk and talk about everything and supports me in all of my crazy ideas! We are so blessed!

Logan singing Happy Birthday to Daddy

The devils food cake with cream cheese frosting cake I made (it's a little lopsided, but, hey, I never said I was a great baker. It tastes yummy!)

Logan after he enjoyed his slice of cake =)

In other news, we are still working everyday on house stuff. We have been non-stop cleaning (of course!) and working hard to keep the house 'show ready' at all times. Shane scored a bunch of boxes from a customer and I hear we have more coming from TX (Thanks Kathy!) We have an open house planned for Sunday, so the add is in the paper for today, Fri, Sat and Sun (which cost a million dollars, I might add....) We also have the house on Craigslist and Yahoo! Real Estate so hopefully we'll start getting some traffic!! If anyone has ever sold a house by owner and has more advertising tips, I'd love to hear them!

In prayer this week....please pray for my Granddad who had a bad fall this week and had to have surgery on his leg. He is still in the hospital and we're praying that he has a good recovery and transition out of the hospital. We're sending big hugs his way.

Posted in: on Thursday, September 17, 2009 at at 8:07 AM 0 comments

A big MOVE!

So, here's the full story. A few months ago, Shane and I were sitting around having one of those heart-to-heart conversations about life in general. We were talking about how much a cancer diagnosis changes every aspect of your life and how it has changed the way we look at everything. We've always felt like we had our priorities right--but this sort of thing shakes you up a bit. As we were talking, Shane popped open his computer and saw a job posting for a property supervisor position in the Dallas area. What kind of timing is that?!? We talked some more and decided that it wouldn't hurt for him to just try for it. He hadn't been too thrilled with the way things were going in his office, and he was as high as he could go (promotion wise) without making a move. So, he talked with his boss and applied for the job. LOTS of waiting followed this. We thought for sure, he wouldn't get the chance to interview at all. Then, finally he got a call. He went to TX a week ago Friday and went through a tough interview. They told him that they had 3 other great candidates for the job, so we still were hoping and praying that he'd get it, while trying not to get our hopes too high. Last Wednesday, he got the call and he GOT IT! I'm SO proud of him!!!

We're super excited about living near family again and being close enough for Logan to see his Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles much more often. But, we are sad about leaving AR and all we have here. We love our house and our yard and we have wonderful friends. Just wonderful!!! It's been a bit of an emotional week as we've been spreading the word about our move.

We are trying to sell the house ourselves first and are really hoping that this works out. We'd really like to retain as much of our equity as we can so that we can put it all in on our new house in TX. Luckily, we have a good friend who is a realtor/broker who is helping us with the contracts and giving us insider tips. Shane starts his new job Nov 2, so we'd really, really like to have an offer by then. In the meantime, we've rented a storage unit and done a ton of cleaning out so that all of the closets are almost empty and everything looks really roomy. We've been working our butts off!! We haven't really worked out details of our move yet, and are just planning to take things a day at a time. We'll keep you posted!

Posted in: on Monday, September 14, 2009 at at 9:22 PM 4 comments

Work in progress...

I'd like to unofficially officially announce that my Etsy shop is up and running! I only have a few things listed right now--some of you will recognize them--but more to come ASAP.

My woven tags (to stitch onto things) are in and I'm just waiting on my business cards and hang tags. Then, I'll really be all set! I'm planning on building my shop over time, but will hopefully have more up by the end of the week. Smoke is billowing out of my sewing machine!!

Please check it out!
http://www.kalamitykids.etsy.com/

Shameless plug...if anyone needs or wants to purchase anything custom, I'm open for business! I like to have a customer for the things that I make--especially the girl stuff that we can't use--instead of making things for the sole purpose of photographing them for my shop. So, I'm looking for pre-shoppers that I can make orders for to photograph and use as an examples. I can do any fabrics or colors. Just let me know what you're looking for and I'll put it together for you. =)

PS-It's just a coincidence that both personalized items in my shop have C's on them. I made them for different kiddos, and both these names happened to start with the same letter.

PPS-I welcome feedback! If you have a suggestion for me about my shop-please tell me! Most of you reading this are friends and family and I value your opinion. Thanks for the support! =)

Posted in: on Monday, September 7, 2009 at at 10:28 PM 2 comments

More Texas Pics...

My Mom just sent these to me and I thought that they were pretty good too. They were taken at my Dad's office when we drove to Ft. Worth to celebrate his birthday!

Posted in: on Friday, September 4, 2009 at at 9:15 PM 0 comments

A Simple Day

This morning started off kind of hectic because I had my volunteering with Lucy in the Oncology clinic at the Children's Hospital today. I have to be there at 10am which means, I have to get Logan over to a friends house (Thanks, Tracy!!!) to watch him by 9:15am. Plus, get all of his stuff, my stuff and Lucy's stuff all together and out the door. (Okay, I'm sure you working Moms are calling me a whiney baby right now....) Anways, Logan did great going to play with Connor and Lucy and I had a wonderful visit. Afterwards, we headed home to eat lunch and I put him down for a nap and got the first of the month bills paid. (Am I the only one who keeps crazy budget spreadsheets that take forever to input everything into? I'm soooo glad to have them but, whew, that sucked up his entire nap! But, it feels wonderful to get it done.) After naptime, we were off to the park to meet our playgroup for some fun.

Logan loves to drive the little cars on the playground. He can climb in and

almost out of these all by himself!

At the top of the slide

Getting ready to slide down....

Weeeee!!!!

Okay, these next set of pictures need some explaining. After the park, we had one of the funniest Kroger experiences ever. First off, Logan was talking. A LOT. To EVERYONE. And, singing. Loud. As in, singing his ABC's to every old lady who would listen. And, telling everyone that was two. And, cheering. As in, "Yeah! Milk!" "YEAH!! We got some milk!!!" Then, we get to the checkout, and the bagger asked him if he wanted a sticker. Of course, he said yes. Well, the bagger gave him about 5 stickers and folded up 15 more and stuck them in the little pocket on his shirt. By the time we got out to the car, this is what Logan looked like:

He wouldn't even look up at me or smile because he was so busy peeling all the stickers off and sticking them everywhere! (And, yes. I'm the crazy Mommy that takes my child's picture in the parking lot at Kroger.)

Then, we go to put the cart back and I lifted him out. He's holding his banana (which he was super excited about because we had been out for a day and it's one of his favorite things to eat.) He started yelling, "I'm Superman!!!!" Where in the world does he come up with this stuff?!? By this point, I'm laughing my rear end off and couldn't resist snapping another picture of him in his carseat eating his banana.

I was thinking the other day that I never posted pictures of Logan in his new toddler bed. Here you go! I took these tonight after we read our books. We had such a simple and fun day. He just lights up my life!!

Goodnight!!

Posted in: on Thursday, September 3, 2009 at at 9:32 PM 1 comments

Texas Pictures

Oh, man. This is picture overload! These are all from our latest trip to Texas to visit our families. We just got back on Sat, so I'm not toooo overdue getting them on here =) While we were there, my Dad turned SIXTY! Happy Birthday Dad!! These are from the celebrations...

Logan 'helping' open Granddad's presents

Granddad and Logan being silly

Me and my Dad (excuse my appearance-we'd been in the pool all afternoon!)

Logan checking out pictures of Aunt Jill and Uncle Marty's dogs on his iphone

Who knows what he is doing here but this picture cracks me up!!

These next pictures are taken over at Shane's parents house. We're SO lucky to have both of our families just a few minutes away from each other. Shane's Dad also celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday Steve!!

Here's Logan sitting on Grandpa's motorcycle bike (as he calls them)