Caroline

Caroline has a cheer competition on Sunday in Atlanta! She is very excited and nervous too! We can't wait to hear how she did!!! :0)

Date Night

So last night was our date night with church! We all met at the Rave movie theater in Hoover and watched the movie Fireproof with Kirk Cameron. It was written and produced by the same church that made Facing the Giants! We loved that movie and this one as well was wonderful! It came at a great time for me and Steve. We had just recently had an argument about how work was taking up so much of his time and we felt neglected here at home. :0( This movie hit home with us. I encourage all of you to go see the movie and "fireproof" your marriage. :)

After the movie, all 12 of us headed to the Summit to eat at the famous Cheesecake Factory! Every one's food was wonderful except mine, lol!! It was not terrible, but not what I was expecting! Of course, once it came time to order dessert, we told the waitress it was the pastor's 21st birthday so they would sing to him. She knew we were fibbing, but she played along! After everyone, took time to figure out what kind of cheesecake they wanted and let me tell you, that in itself is a chore! We all waited on dessert and talked about the movie and other shows we watch at home. There were some Grey's fans at the table so I was so excited to hear some hints about Thursday nights show. It is STILL recorded on my DVR and I have yet to watch it due to not having the time! So, they were happy to give me some hints here and there, just enough to keep from spoiling it! :) We finally get our cheesecake and they bring Greg's out (also known as Pastor Greg) with sprinkles and a candle. They sing him a song and I got a picture of him as he was blowing out his candle! We absolutely love Pastor Greg and we are so thankful he is in our work family and sometimes church family! His wife Wendy is precious and we just can't say enough about this Jesus loving family! :)

The second picture is Steve's cheesecake! He ordered the 30th anniversary cheesecake and they had sprinkled a chocolate powder 30th on the side of his plate. How neat is that? They go all out for an $8 piece of cheesecake! ;0)




After dinner we headed to pick Emma up from the sitter. She was sound asleep so we came home and put her to bed and of course we crawled in bed ourselves! It is hard on this old girl to stay out so late. I used to do it no problem, even make midnight trips to Wal-Mart or Taco Bell if I had a late night craving, but not anymore!

Today I am cleaning my house, it has really been neglected in the past week, so it needs to be done today so I can start next week with a clean house! :) We are planning on going to see some friends in Huntsville tonight and won't be back till tomorrow so that means packing up the family and the dogs and heading out! I still have lots to due, the girls switched bedrooms so it has been a day of switching out furniture and toys to the opposite rooms and I am still not done. Brooke is gone to her dad's this weekend so when she comes home, she will be in for a surprise! That is if I get it done in time!! ;0)

Thankful Tuesday...

My thankful posts are inspired from my friend Donna. Donna's blog inspires me in ways I can't explain and she is the reason behind my Thankful posts! :o)

1. I am thankful for my family

2. I am thankful for my sister coming to visit me this weekend and us having some "sister" time.

3. I am thankful that I am learning my way around a new town.

4. I am thankful that Brooke is feeling better! It has been a rough couple of weeks!

5. I am thankful we have found a bible study to plug into and we have a couples "date night" on Friday. :)

6. I am thankful that one day it's going to be worth it all! :0)

7. I am thankful that gas is going down slowly but surely.

8. I am thankful that my house is almost finished! We are done unpacking and settling in! :0)

My heart smiled today!

This video left me breathless........

"FireProof"

We have a date night at church Friday night with other couples to go see the new movie "Fireproof". The trailer looks absolutly amazing and I am so excited to see it! I'll have a review this weekend! :o)

I love FALL

It won't be long and our leaves will be changing and yards will be decorated with mums, scarecrows, pumpkins and bales of hay! :o) I love our trips to the pumpkin patch and pulling out sweatshirts that have been packed away since March! It's right around the corner.......... :o)

I have waited for a very long time!

and it comes out tomorrow!! I will be at Target as soon as it opens in the morning for my DVD! :)

 

 

 

 

This weekend my baby sister and her family came to see us in Birmingham. We went to the Birmingham Fair and hung out all day Sunday! We have not been able to spend lots of time together in the past and it was nice to be able to visit! She has grown so much and some of you have not seen her since my wedding, I wanted to share some pictures of how much she has changed!!

SOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo Hoo! I can't wait!!!! :0) We got our tickets to see the Reba/Kelly Clarkson tour concert!!!!! The girls want to see Kelly Clarkson and Steve wants to see Reba. I myself, can't wait to see both!! ;0) I just wish it was not so far way!! :) Maybe it will be like Christmas and be here before we know it!! :0)

Dance time!

It's that time of year again! DANCE TIME!!! I went today and got all of Emma's dance stuff at a little boutique in downtown Homewood. Homewood is such a trendy little town to me. I especially LOVE the SoHo Square community which reminds me a little of Providence back home! After recharging with my Mocha Frappuccino, I went on to browse through all the little shops in and around the area! I LOVE that Birmingham has so many eccentric little stores all over, I just wish I had a buddy to explore them all with! ;0)

I got all of Emma's dance items and now all I have to do is find her dance bag! I started to toss it when we moved here because it has been a couple of years since she took dance but it had her name monogrammed on it and still had lots of life left so I decided to hang on to it! Most everyone knows, including my best friend Jess and cousin Lisa, that I CANNOT let go of hardly anything so now and again, I have to purge to get rid of stuff I have accumalated! Now if I can just find the bag, I will be in good shape!! :0)

We still have to get Brooke's dance stuff this weekend. She will not start until next week's class because she has been so sick. I need her to try on all of her shoes and stuff so she will have to be with me when we get hers!

Brooke is feeling better! Thank all of you for your phone calls and prayers. Thanks Debbie for all the advice! I prayed at church last night that the sickness be gone from our house for a LONG time!!!

Thats really about all I have right now! Next week gets busier as some of my activities get started and we have Date night with church on Friday! I think we might have found a sitter and I am really excited about that and so are the girls!

I am off to clean my upstairs! The downstairs has stayed spotless since Monday so i am a little impressed and hope it stays that way as I get into FULL-CLEANING mode upstairs!! ;0)

Vegas here we come!!

It won't be long now... :0) Steve and I are going on a trip to Las Vegas in November and I am sooooooooo ready! This will be our 2nd mini vacation alone together this year and we are very excited!! Niether of us have ever been to Vegas so it should be a blast! :) If any of you have ever been and want to give some suggestions on things to see or do, send me an email! I would love to hear ANY ideas!! Take care!!

We made PIZZA and we COULD eat it!! :o)

The girls and I made our first meal together in the new house last night! Pepperoni Pizza. :) Mom rolled out the dough and did the sauce and the girls were in charge of toppings! We had alot of fun and I think we will be eating more homemade pizza more often!!

Relationships

Everyone is familiar with the old saying "Relationships take work". My only question is at what cost?

I have been dealing with relationships in my life for the past year and sometimes I wonder how much I have to give to make others give back. I wonder why some relationships drain so much out of me while others seem to be on a more 50/50 level. ANYONE that knows me can say without conviction that I am there for them at any level. I will drop whatever I am doing to be there for someone and I don't think of that as "work". I think that is things good friends do and being a good friend is something I think about on an almost daily basis. I want people close to me to know that if they need someone to talk to or someone to be there, I am ALWAYS going to be the one. It is a little harder now that I am far away, I can't just come over to help with things unless its planned or an emergency and I don't get to see my friends on a daily basis, but I still have weekly if not daily conversations with everyone and that keeps us close. :)

I have had some strained relationships in the past since I got married to a man who to some people, I will never be good enough for. We all know how silly that is! ;0) Even after us being together for almost 9 years and having a little girl, there is still so much hatred for me, its not even funny. Now don't get me wrong, there were times, in which people "acted" like they accepted us, but missed calls on birthdays, never a call before the 1st day of school to wish a great day, or a call after to see how it went, never an Easter shared and other things show what its truly about. Keep in mind, that all those incidents were before the move so we were within a 15 mile radius of everyone then. Emma sometimes asks about them and I tell her they are busy or working or whatever. Anything to keep her from knowing the truth! I know that this can only be done for a short time longer and there is nothing i can do to hide it. The only thing I can do is make her see that they are the ones missing out, not us. I once heard from an old friend, the quanity of people in your life don't matter, its the quality. Wow, how true is that! I have gotten over the feeling of "needing acceptance" from those people now I just have to show her that it is not needed.

I have really seen lately who will be there for you no matter what you would do for them. That doesn't matter to some people, what matters is how convienent does your life and life issues fit to thier schedule? I have made plans with friends only to have them "forget" or just choose not to be there. That has hurt tremendously and i just can't allow people to get to me anymore. We only live once and the things we miss out on or the people we hurt, or that hurt us will stay with us forever no matter what. I guess it just boils down to relationships can be exhausting and deplete your strength like no other BUT if the relationship is worked at by everyone thats involved, those things don't matter.

If past relationships are no longer, I have to remember its out of my control and thats ok too. :)

.

Look who is going green!!!!

Yep, so its not much but I have been using the Green Works cleaners and we started recycling now that we moved here!! :) We have also started using those cloth bags and somewhat boycotted the plastic ones from Wal-Mart and Target!! :0) They are only a $1 a piece and I bought over $250 worth of groceries and other stuff at Wal-mart and it fit in 5 bags! That is so much better than 15 of those flimsy plastic ones!! It makes you feel good about doing something to make a difference and I benefit to when I don't have as much to carry in!!

an UPDATE :)

Sooooooooo.. I thought I would update here with some of the happenings since we moved to Birmingham!! So many little things have went on and it is hard to always to blog about all of it with how busy we stay here! I am not sure that this post will be in chronological order! lol! We have been here 6 weeks and like I said so many things have happened, I forget the order in the events. :)

On to it then, The girls are loving thier school. Brooke was picked for Broadcast the 1st 4 weeks of school. Broadcast is a morning "show" they do every morning with the weather, interviews with other students, and upcoming events. The entire school watches broadcast every morning, so Emma was really excited to see her sister and be able to tell all her friends. :) Brooke was also intervied with along with another student, (1 new and 1 veteran student) as to how they liked Green Valley. It was published in the 5th grades newspaper. :) Most everyone knows how much she is like her momma and will talk to anyone and loves everyone without judgement. I am so happy she has picked up on that! :) (Emma on the other hand is another story, haha) Brooke has already had a sleepover in the first month we were here! It started out with some girls from school coming over to watch Cheetah Girls and ended up with everyone having the best time with makeup, making up dance routines and of course all the pizza and popcorn they could eat. We all had a good time and I was happy to see them settling in with thier new friends. :)

Emma is doing really well too. She likes her teacher and has certain friends that she comes home and talks about every day! :) She takes a snack and a water bottle to school every day and here lately, that water bottle has been giving us FITS! LOL! I called it the WATER BOTTLE WAR! To give you some insight, Emma is one of the most clumsy children I know. She spills things on almost a daily basis and just has that sort of luck! Well, for a week straight she had her water bottle taken away EVERY day because she spilt it, or dropped it whatever. I know this causes a distraction to the class and I know she has to be more careful, but it's water folks! Cmon! lol! We finally found her a spill proof water bottle (which was NO easy task, let me tell you! They all look like sippy's if they are spill proof) So we are hoping for better days with our new WATER BOTTLE! :) Other than that, she has not had a single problem, she loves her school and friends and HATES to miss. I checked them both out a couple of weeks ago just as a treat. They had less than an hour left of school and I thought why not? Plus, I had groceries in the car, so I did not want our ice cream to melt why I waited on car rider! So YES, I did have an alterior motive, but they did not know that! Well, when they both get to the office, Brooke is so dang excited, she can hardly stand it and Emma is crying, YES CRYING! "But I wanted to stay at school" she wailed for an hour! Note to self, no more check-outs unless its an emergency! lol!!

We have met all of the neighbors that live in our cul-de-sac, which is nice. :) To our left, is an older couple that we LOVE so much! Jim is retired and piddles around in thier immaculate yard all day and Flo works for her daughter who is an attorney here in downtown Birmingham. They always talk to the girls when they are out and if they are outside when we get home from school, Brooke and Emma are always going ove to see what kind of things Jim is doing in the yard. We went over to take them something the other day and before I knew it, Brooke and Jim were watching something on TV, and Flo and Emma were sitting in the recliner reading a book together! I have made mention that my girls don't really have grandparents. Brooke does and they see her when they can but its hard since they live so far away! Flo told us right then that they could be thier grandparents and would they do love on them like they are!! They have grandchildren of thier own, but mostly boys so this is right up thier alley! :)

A few weeks after we moved in, we noticed water leaking out of our hot water heater! I called the owner of the house and told him and he told me, that the hot water heater had probably busted and I could either go ahead and take care of it and take it off our rent or he would do it, what ever was easiest! We decided to go to Home Depot and buy the water heater and have them install it. They come out the next day and install the new water heater only to find out the "pressure regulator" is bad as well and they can't finish installing the water heater until that is replaced!!! oh and guess what, they don't keep the regulators on the truck so you know what that means!!!! It will be monday before you have water again!!! UGH!!!!!!!!! We went for a day and a half with NO WATER! You never know how much you need water until you don't have any! It's rough! I cooked with bottled water and we made do, but it is not something I went through with a positive attitude. I was quite cranky that weekend! lol

So the dealership is up and running and it is so awesome to see the place coming together! :) WoW is all I can say! I feel like we have such an awesome team in place and though it does not have the familiar faces that we LOVE in Huntsville, these people will become our family too and I am so excited!! :) I usually go in a couple of days a week and Steve and I go to lunch or do whatever! It is nice for him to have more freedom! :) He is home every night for supper and that is something that in almost 9 years we have not had! I know this is just the beginning and so I am so ready to see where we are in just a few months. We have shot our first couple of commercials. The 1st one started on my birthday! :) They were only open a little over a week in August and they outsold the other Kia store thats about 25 miles away in that little bit of time. :) The new commercial that was shot this week was alot of fun. I have fallen in love with Abby and really all the people from the Auto Ad company that does the commercials. They are a great group of people!! I love to be able to see them every month and be there when they all act so crazy for these commercials! As good as it is on TV, they are even better in the making! :) I only wish all of our family and friends back home could see Steve on TV and hear him on the radio! What can I say, I am sooooooooo proud of my hubby! :0) Here are some pics from the commercial we did this week..

Heading outside to start shooting..


Everyone ready to go!


My hubby getting ready to do his part!


Steve and Abby doing the intro and exit to the commercial.. Do you see Lilly? ;0)


Thats really about all right now! Emma has a loose tooth and Brooke is coming off of a yucky ear infection and cold. I am hoping Emma's tooth wiggles on out soon because eating is hard for her right now! :(

I hope everyone is having a great week and love you all!! :0)

PS: Thanks for all the emails about my plant. It was elephant ears but it had to go since I caught Lilly chewing on its leaves the other day! It has a new home in the showroom at the dealership! ;0) I knew I would win! :0)

Icky weekend!

Soooo..this weekend was kinda low-key for us. Friday night, we stayed home and watched TV and the girls played in thier CLEAN rooms. (I spent ALL day cleaning them and I am just waiting to see how long that will last) They also caught up on some reading since they have books coming out there ears that need to be read and then gave away.

Saturday morning, we got up and spent some time with Steve before he headed into work. It is so nice for him to be able to sleep in with us on Sat mornings. :) We started to go eat breakfast, but no one wanted to have to wait on Mom to shower and get ready so we did breakfast here instead. :)

After breakfast and getting Steve off to work, we all got showers and decided to go to the McWane center here in downtown Bham. It is kinda like Sci-Quest back home, except alot bigger and there is even an aquarium in the same musuem. :) They also have an IMAX dome to watch movies! We found the movie we wanted to see and started getting ready to go. About that time, Brooke comes in and says she doesn't feel good and she is shivering. I know right then that something is not right. I did not have anything to take her temp so I felt her head and she felt fine. I told her we would check it later and just to let me know if she started feeling worse. She perked up after a little while and off we went. We watched "Fly to the moon" at the IMAX which was really cute, but NOTE to self, next time, get there early so you don't have to sit at the bottom of the theater. The seats at the top are MUCH better but we go there just a few minutes before the show started and all the good seats were taken.. :( We watched the movie & ate good movie popcorn :), then we were off to see the musuem. The girls had alot of fun and I was sure whatever was wrong with Brooke was long gone. After an hour or so in the museum, Brooke got this look on her face and I knew we had not escaped the SICKNESS!! :( We finished up in the area we were in and let Emma to ONE last thing and we headed for the car. We got in the car and Brooke looked terrible. I stopped at Rite-Aid and got a thermometer and took her temp as soon as we got home. 102 DEGREES!!! UGH!! I gave her some motrin and send her to bed. I then had to call our good friends in Huntsville and tell them we would not be able to make it to thier house that night! :( We were all bummed but you know stuff happens and thats just life! Brooke layed around the rest of the day Saturday and slept that night the whole way through!

Sunday morning, we thought it was all over, she seemed to feel better so we were excited. Steve and I cleaned out the garage and put all of our extra JUNK in the storage building behind the house. It was alot of work, but it is sooo nice to have somewhere to put your stuff that is normally taking up all my room in the garage! After that, we came in and all had showers then we decided to go to a flea market! We drove to one in Bessemer and realized it was not what we were looking for. :( Then we set off for one in Leeds,which is on the way to Gadsten. It was not what I was looking for either, but we made do! I am ready for a craft show or something to come to Bham. I went to my first one this year and I LOVE them!! That is the kinda things I LOVE about flea markets and of course being able to talk to some of the vendors who are usually the sweetest people you will EVER meet!

After traveling all over looking for flea markets, we stopped and got dinner and headed home. After a little while at home, i checked Brooke's temp again and what do you know?? 101!!! GEEZ!!! I gave her something for her fever and tucked her in bed. I knew then, that whatever this was, she had to see a dr because she was going to have to miss school with it!

We have an appt today so maybe we will know soon what she has and when it will start getting better!!

What is this?

 

Sooooooo...Can anyone tell me what this plant is?? We got this from one of the advertising companies for the dealership and I am about as lost as to what it is or how to take care of it! It looks like Elephant ears but I thought those were outside plants?? I am not sure it will live in our house, (Even if its ok to be inside, I am terrible with plants) I am not sure if I should be finding a place outside for it to live or just water it and let it take up residence in my foyer?

I will have to let you know the fate of this plant after a month or so.. Thats about all I usually take to kill one dead! ugh!

:)

 

 

Steve brought this home to me last night as a late birthday present! :) We had tickets to go see Martina McBride in concert on the 28th at the Verizon center and the show was cancelled. I was kinda bummed because we were supposed to do a meet and greet backstage before the concert! :( He called me and told me had something for me and I was never expecting this!! Those of us that had the backstage passes got autographed guitars from Martina instead!!! I LOVE IT! Now I have to figure out a way to display it in my office without 2 little girls that LOVE to jam on guitars and play Hannah Montana to NOT touch it!!!!! :)

Roll Tide!

This is too darn cute! I had to share it!!