Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was very sweet, although there has been a little sadness too. One of my aunts had a stroke a few weeks ago, so the yearly celebration at my dad's family was cancelled, as she will be in the hospital for at least the rest of the month. And another aunt is at her husband's hospital bedside as he fights for his life after an unexpected episode a couple of days ago. Two of my aunts (sisters) married brothers. Around this time last year one of my uncles by marriage passed away. The one in the hospital now is the brother of the one who died last year, and we would really appreciate your prayers for his recovery.

We're coming up on our 10 year DD anniversary here in a few days. The punishment I mentioned in my last post was cancelled, and there's been one since promised but not delivered, although we've been very busy with family, and I've been trying to get some cleaning done in between celebrations and gift making, so he may have decided to postpone that one indefinitely as well. I'd love to think we might have a sweet evening to mark the anniversary with maybe some not-punishment spanking, but I'm not really holding out too much hope for that. 

I'll post more about Christmas later, but for now I need a something that doesn't require too much creativity on my part, so I'm posting this fun Christmas meme I stole from PK. :)

Wrapping Paper or Gift Bags?

I'm a shameless gift bagger. I hate to wrap with a passion, and I'm really bad at it, so gift bags it is.

Hardest person to buy for?

Well, I make most of the gifts that leave our house, but I'd say the hardest person to make/buy for is Will, Nick's sister Kate's husband. I feel like I don't know him very well, and because they're so very well off financially, he pretty much buys whatever he wants himself. I work hard every year to come up with something that he will enjoy and not be able to go out and just buy himself.

Easiest person to buy for?

All three of my kids. Jack is little enough to be happy with just about anything, and Daisy is so sweet and grateful for everything she gets. Morgan, being almost a teenager, is a little tougher, only because she wants some things I can't make, but she's also still very happy with the things that I can make. 

Do you have a nativity scene?

I do, although I just realized when reading this that we forgot to put it out this year. It's a Willow Tree set, which I collect, and I'm pretty sad now that it didn't make it out this year.

 

Mail or email Christmas Cards?

Every year I promise myself I'll get cards made and sent out, but it usually doesn't happen. At church they pass out a Christmas card list and have alphabetized bins for you to put them all in, and we did manage those this year. 

  

Worst Christmas Gift ever received?

Probably the safari themed muumuu my mom got me a couple of years ago. Yes, a muumuu. I'm not a small girl, but my mom seems to be under the impression that I'm considerably bigger than I really am, and for years she bought me clothes that were sometimes 2 or 3 sizes too big. She's done better the last couple of years, and even bought me a shirt I really like this year, but that muumuu was a doozie.

Favorite Christmas movie?

Probably Christmas Vacation, although I also love A Christmas Story.

  

When do you start shopping for Christmas?

I usually start making things in September for Daisy's birthday in early October, and Christmas gift making kicks into gear from there.

 

Have you ever recycled a present?

On occasion. Usually gift cards when we don't have anything else to give.

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

Cookies, cakes, crackers, cheese ball, candy, pie, cake…

  

White or colored lights on tree?

I like both, but we usually have a tree with white lights.

  

Favorite Christmas song?

O Holy Night

Travel or stay home at Christmas?

All of our family except for Kate and Will and their kids are local to us, so we stay in town.

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?

I can.

Angel, Star or as tree topper?

For years our tree has been kind of fishing lodge themed (although I'd love to update it to something more traditional), so we usually top it with a miniature fishing hat.

Open presents Christmas Eve or morning?

This year we went to my mom's family on the 21st, my parents' house on the 23rd, Nick's aunt and uncle's house on the 24th, our house Christmas morning, then Nick's parents' house that afternoon.

 

Favorite theme or ornament?

I personally collect Naughty ornaments, although sadly I didn't find any this year. 

Favorite for Christmas dinner?

Anything I don’t have to cook.

  

What do you want for Christmas? 

Money to pay the bills would be ideal.

Who is most likely to respond to this meme?

I think I’m one of the last

Prayer requests and possible punishments...

Hello, everyone. Not a whole lot to report, mostly just checking in. I'm working on the skirts an old classmate ordered, and I'm trying to clean house and plan Christmas gifts. The house kind of got put on the backburner while I was sewing,  and I thought I was going to get a spanking. It's possible that might still happen, although Nick hadn't decided last time he mentioned it. I'm quite sure I deserve it, but mostly I just wish he'd tell me one way or the other so my brain can move on. 

I've got some serious financial needs this week for several bills, in the next couple of days actually, and I would really appreciate you praying with me for God's timely provision. 

Nick and I do have a date night Saturday night for his company Christmas party, and I'm really looking forward to that! Anyway, that's what's shakin' around our house these days. What's up with you guys?

Just an Update

I am so, so ridiculously tired, and I should be heading up to bed, which I plan to do in just a minute, but I wanted to take a kid free moment to post really quick.

Life is lovely, super busy always it seems. I want to apologize for being so awful about replying to comments. I truly do love getting each and every one of them, and I very much appreciate it each time one of you takes the time to leave me a word or two. My biggest issue is that I usually get them via email on my phone when I'm on the go and don't have the opportunity to reply right then, and by the time I have a chance to sit down, it's slipped my very scattered mind. But I do love you all!

Since I last posted, I managed (with Nick's help) to get all the class reunion CDs made and mailed out. Our church has a couple of CD burners that burn 10 CDs at once (well, one burns 9, because one drive doesn't work, but anyway), so I brought in my own CDs, and Nick burned them for me. My mom graciously filled out my address on all the CD envelopes while she was waiting at the hospital (baby!), and we took them to the post office Friday. And a happy surprise was that it cost me quite a bit less to mail them than I thought it would.

So about that baby...Faith did indeed go into the hospital Wednesday night. They started her on the Cervidil, which started her contractions pretty hard and fast pretty quickly. She labored hard for several hours, and finally decided to have an epidural. It had been her original intention to go without one, but she just wasn't getting any break at all from the pain, and the nurse told her there were hours and hours left to go. I left the hospital around 2:30 Thursday morning with plans to be back at 7:00 AM. 

I got back around 7:30, and had just enough time to sit down and eat my breakfast when Robert sent for me to come to the room because it was time to push! Faith did so great, and little Liam (on here anyway) popped out at 9:58 AM. He weighed 6lb 6.5oz, and was 20 inches long. He is so incredibly precious, and it was such an amazing honor and such a sweet experience to get to be there to see his arrival. I took almost 1000 pictures over the whole event, and I'm trying to wade through editing them between other responsibilities.

I got home just a little while ago, because I ended up taking Morgan to the ER tonight. She'd been complaining of abdominal pain for about a day and a half, but she was on her period, so I kind of thought it was maybe just cramps. But then it moved into her lower right abdomen, and I got concerned that maybe it was her appendix. Anyway, long story short, 5 hours at the ER and a $50 copay to be billed later, it turns out she was dealing with some internal blockage, although not anything serious. Basically she just needed to poop lol. So they did what they needed to to treat that, and now we're finally home, worn out but grateful it wasn't her appendix. Daisy actually had the exact same issue a couple of months ago and we ended up taking her to the ER as well with the same result, so I'm going to do some serious reevaluating of their fiber intake!

When I got home I had to make deviled eggs for Nick's Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and work on the Etsy order I have to mail out, also tomorrow (or today, I guess). And now I'm all done, and I'm headed to bed! Good night all!

Busy November

I've not gotten to post as much as I wanted to this month - it's just been so busy! But God has still been showering us with blessings!

Nick had some side work fixing Robert and Faith's car, which really helped us out.  And the day before payday, when we were in need of some basics, he sold a couple of used tires on Craigslist for $40. I also had three photo shoots this month, although one was Faith's maternity shoot, which I didn't charge her for, and the other was Melanie's, which I only made $40 on. But the last one was Melanie's mother-in-law's class reunion, and I made a little over $250 on it, which was a big help. I also got an Etsy order yesterday, and tonight I'm supposed to go out to an old classmate's house to measure her daughter for some skirts.

This season is going to be a busy one for us, or me anyway. Right now I'm taking a break from editing the reunion pictures. I have to finish those, then make about 60 CDs, package and address them, then mail them out to the different attendees.

Then I've got to make my Etsy order, and I've got to make some things for my partner in the handmade gift exchange I'm participating in again. I've also got to finish collecting info and pictures for 8 photo calendars for Christmas gifts, put those together, and order them.

I have some other financial needs this week. God knows what they are, and I would as always appreciate your prayers that He brings in the money I need.

Robert and Faith's baby is still not here, but God has really worked some miracles with his growth in the last few weeks. Faith goes in to the hospital at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon to start Cervidil (sp?), which is supposed to encourage her body to go into labor. Of her water hasn't broken on its own by midnight they will induce her, and the baby should be here Thursday. Please also be in prayer for a safe and easy delivery and a healthy baby! I've got to think of a name for him on here! :)

I've been working on Christmas gifts a bit. I mad Jack a Plex shirt since he's a huge fan of Yo Gabba Gabba. It's not perfect, but I think he will love it. I also got him a matching Plex beanie doll. I made Morgan a pillow for her soon to be redone bedroom. That's what she's getting for Christmas from just about everyone, including curtains and bedding and some new clothes storage from my parents, various accessories from me and Nick, and a new set of made-by-Papaw bunk beds from Nick's parents. I also ordered her a Rainbow Loom and extra bands that I found for a crazy good deal online. Daisy wants an Easy Bake oven with her whole heart, so that's what my parents got her, and I'm going to be packaging up some DIY mixes for her to use in it.

I've got various other gifts in the works, including handmade stockings for all the various siblings and parents and children. I think I'm looking at 35 in all. Fortunately they're a pretty quick and easy sew - I just need the space and kid free time to cut out all the  pattern pieces.

I'm loving all the Elf on the Shelf ideas on Pinterest. I've always wanted to do it with the kids, but the set is something like $35, so it will have to wait till another year.

Anyway, I'm off to bed at a relatively reasonable hour tonight. Good night, all!

Welcome, Welcome!

Happy LOL Day! This is the eighth year we've rolled out the welcome mat for all of you that read our blogs but never comment. I hate to admit it, but I'm a terrible commenter myself, so I do understand you all. BUT, that doesn't mean I don't want you to pop in and say hello! I've met some wonderful friends here over the years, and I look forward to meeting more! What you'll find here is some pretty casual posting by a girl who is blessed beyond her wildest dreams to have 3 gorgeous kids and be married to the most amazing man who fulfills my dreams of a DD marriage. I'm an awful lot like a lot of you (I know, because some of you email me!), and I sure would like to know if you read here and can relate, or find hope, or maybe a little encouragement. Speak up and let me know you're here!

Soon to arrive...

Well, it looks like Robert and Faith's sweet baby boy will likely be here on Wednesday. She's not due until the 28th, but she's dealing with some of the same things I did with Jack, like low blood flow to the placenta and a tiny little guy as a result. They think he's perfectly healthy, praise God, just small. They're estimating somewhere around 4 pounds right now, which is about what they thought Jack would be, although he turned out to be 3lb 11oz. And to tell you the truth, I can't wait to get that itty bitty baby in my arms! I really never thought I'd get my hands on another one that small, so it will be a treat to snuggle him up.

To give you an idea, this was Jack snuggled up in Morgan's American Girl sized bed when he was about 3 weeks old:

I did their maternity pictures on Monday, and I really think they turned out great! This Saturday I'll be doing Brandon and Melanie's, and I've had a couple of other people interested in shoots as well, so that's definitely something to be grateful for!

Sweet weekend

Well, I didn't post last night, because I actually put myself to bed early for once! I'm usually fighting not to doze off during the morning church service on Sundays, not because I'm not interested, but because I've not gotten enough sleep. So I decided to listen to my body for once and turn in early. I went up about 9:00 to finish my book before going to sleep. Of course Jack and Daisy stood at the door calling for me for a while before Nick heard them and called them off lol. Eventually, my book done, Daisy tried again, and I couldn't resist her "I just want to snuggle you, Mommy!" so I let her in. By the time it was all said and done it was 11:00 before I actually got to go to sleep, and even then she fell asleep in bed with me, but it was still earlier than normal for me, and with the time change I was pretty well rested this morning.

Faith's baby shower was yesterday, and they got so much stuff! I was so happy for them, and the shower was darling!

Today we finally got to go to the corn maze, and the kids had a blast! They had these big slides made out of big drainage pipes, and Jack going down them all by himself was the cutest thing ever! We ran into some friends of mine - actually James's best friend and his wife and kids, so it was nice to have some other parents to socialize with while the kids played.

Tomorrow I'm doing Faith's maternity pictures, and Saturday I'm doing Melanie's. I can't wait till these babies get here!

So many sweet blessings in my life lately!

Happy November!

Happy November, party people! We're in the month of Thanksgiving, and around here that means ratcheting up the gratitude! God is so good, all the time, but oftentimes I'm a spoiled brat who focuses on my stress and forgets what I've been blessed with. I spent a little while earlier looking back on Novembers past here on the blog, and while I've not always done a daily post, it's still humbling to see how relentlessly God had blessed and cared for us over the years. So without further ado, a few recent gifts:

We had some really big bills this week. Like Nick's average paycheck would have left us several hundred dollars short, even utilizing every available option available to us. What he brought home instead was several hundred dollars more than usual. It was just a crazy busy pay period, and while we're still stretching to cover gas and groceries, it is so incredibly much better than it could have been. The thing is, I didn't even realize until after I saw his pay stub just how many things we had to take care of this week, so God was providing before we even knew we had the need!

Next Saturday I have a photo shoot, which will bring in a little bit of money.

Nick and I really enjoyed our haunted hike date night about a week ago. It wasn't the sort of thing with people jumping out at you. Rather it was a hike along a very old trail with the park ranger telling us stories about the real families who once lived there and the reported hauntings in their history. What was really neat is that after talking to my mom it looks like the families in question are likely some of my ancestors, as my great grandmother's maiden name was the same as one family, she married someone with the same name as the second family, and she was from that area.

Faith got to put in her notice at her job today, which is directly related to another recent blessing. It has always been her and Robert's desire and conviction for her to be a stay at home mom when their baby comes (in about 4 weeks!). Unfortunately Robert was only on a part time salary as our pastor, and he just didn't make enough to support the three of them on only his income. But they've been steadily praying about it along with the rest of the family, and a couple of weeks ago, with absolutely no suggestion or input from him, her, or anyone from either family, the church voted to increase his pay by several hundred dollars a week as well as add a weekly fuel allowance for him. It was actually more than the number they'd been praying about, and it allowed Faith to go in today and put in her notice.

Tomorrow is also Faith's baby shower, and I'm very excited to be a part of it.

We had a fun and safe Halloween - Morgan, after endless angst, settled on being a black cat, the sum total of which included black pants, a black tank top, and a headband I whipped up some cat ears for out of scrap leather at the last minute. Daisy had been set on going as a "girl ghost", but I didn't have a spare white sheet to cut up. And about a week ago I made a last minute decision to go to a Trunk or Treat at our YMCA and had to come up with some quick and easy costumes. Morgan went as a One Direction fan (guys, she's obsessed!), Jack went as a farmer (long sleeve shirt, overalls, and camo ball cap), and Daisy went as a baby, in fuzzy footed pjs. She was supposed to have a pacifier too, but I couldn't find one at the time. Anyway, she went as a baby on Halloween, and we stepped it up a bit that night with a pacifier and bottle. Jack went as a cowboy in some cute cowboy costume pjs I found for $5 at Walmart earlier in the day.

Wednesday I was really sick, some sort of stomach virus, which didn't feel like much of a blessing, but I was certainly grateful that my parents were able to stop by and stay for a few hours and watch the kids while I suffered through it. They also brought by a few groceries, which is always a help.

Walgreens.com (not an affilate link) is also running a free photo collage deal through tomorrow with code BOOCOLLAGE, which I plan on taking advantage of.

And I've lost 15 pounds so far, so yay!

Anyway, those are just a few sweet things that have come into my life lately. Hope you guys will play along and take note of your own blessings - I promise it will make every day better!

Hello, hello

Well, I feel like I should've posted days ago, but I've just been so busy! Let's see...

Last Thursday was my birthday. I'm going to hang onto the fact that 36 is still considered my mid-thirties. The actual day was kind of lame (as for some reason it always is), but I had plenty of blessings surrounding the event. 

Kate sent me a $50 Visa gift card, which came a couple of weeks before my birthday and unfortunately had to be spent on groceries and (literally) a couple of gallons of gas for my car. It sucks when that happens, but it was still a blessing that it came when it did so that I could feed the family for a few days.

Nick got me a 2 TB external hard drive, which I've needed forever. In fact, the last wedding I shot completely filled up the hard drive on my computer before I even finished the editing, and I was in a little bit of a panic about it before he brought out the new one. 

My mom and dad of course bought our YMCA membership, and my mom also showed up on my birthday with homemade banana bread, a bag of Giardelli chocolate raspberry squares, and three small gifts "from the kids". There was a very pretty journal from Daisy, a canvas zipper tote and cosmetics case from Morgan, and a little stationary/organizer set from Jack. 

My in-laws took us all to Chick-Fil-A for my birthday, and they went in with Kelly and Grant on this Thirty-One purse for me.

Robert and Faith got me $20 to JoAnn's (yay!), and James got me $40 to Hobby Lobby (wheee!). I went to Hobby Lobby the same night and got a bunch of stuff - three different fabrics to make Christmas gifts with, some cool printed feathers to make earrings for Morgan and her cousins for Christmas, and three bags of leather scraps, which I use for all kinds of jewelry and bags. So, maybe not exactly anything for me, but I loved the shopping, and I'll probably make a thing or two for myself out of some of it. I went to Joann's yesterday and got some sweet soft baby blanket material for our upcoming additions (Faith's in November, Melanie's in December, and Kelly's in April) and a set of gorgeous stamps that I can just picture using in ornament and jewelry making.

Nick's grandmother got me a bottle of lotion from Bath and Body Works. 

And Nick also let me go to Belk and get some boots and much needed makeup. 

We've had a full and fun few weeks. Nick's stepmom's parents live about an hour and 1/2 from us, and we've only seen them a handful of times in the 14 years she and Nick's dad have been married. They're in their late seventies/early eighties, and they don't like to make the drive, so my in-laws usually drive up to see them. On the 12th Morgan randomly had a soccer game scheduled about 15 minutes from their house, so we decided to turn it into a family visit. (Actually, we were invited - we didn't just decide to barge in on them). This was our first visit there, and I took some pictures of them that I hope will be meaningful to my MIL for Christmas. On the way home Nick's parents took us out to eat at Cracker Barrel, which was a huge treat for us.

Last Monday I took Logan's one year pictures, and I'm almost done editing them.

I finally got all the engagement/rehearsal dinner/wedding pictures edited and turned over to the bride from the wedding a few weeks ago. She ended up getting around 2000 images, and let me tell you, I was glad to be done with them!

This past Saturday was our church picnic, which was a lot of fun. It was actually held at that groom's parent's house, so I got to sit with the bride as she saw all the pictures since she hijacked their TV to play a slide show on as soon as she could. :) She really liked them, which was a relief.

Sunday we tried to go to a local corn maze and pumpkin patch. I scored some super cheap tickets to it a few weeks ago on one of the daily deal sites, and I'd been anxiously awaiting surprising the kids with them. Unfortunately the place was crazy packed, and after 20 minutes of driving around confirming that there was not one parking space open on the whole farm we abandoned the plan for the day. We're going to try to go again this Saturday.

This Friday Nick and I are planning to go on a Haunted Hike, and I can't wait!

Anyway, that's what's up with us - how about you guys?

Floods (of blessing and otherwise)

***Fair warning, this post is a bit long, but I need to have my eyes on my blessings right now, and I've been awfully blessed!***

I've got to be honest, I'm kind of stressed right now. Within the last few hours: Jack threw up everywhere as soon as we put him to bed. Pretty sure the fact that Morgan was dipping him upside down a few minutes earlier had something to do with that. But anyway, pretty much any vomit in the house is dealt with by me, not because I have such a strong stomach (I don't), but because everyone else is worse, and I don't want to have to clean up even more. So I sent Daisy for a towel and Morgan for the baby wash, and I got him hosed down and smelling fresh, a plan he tried to derail by crying and trying to get out of the tub the whole time and finally just peeing in the tub. Once I had him clean I took him to Nick to diaper and put in fresh pajamas while I changed his bed clothes and took everything to the garage to wash.

Finally we got all three kids settled in bed and I went upstairs to change my own clothes. As soon as I got to the bedroom I could hear the water in the bathroom sink on full blast. As no one had been upstairs for about 15-20 minutes, this was alarming. Sure enough, the sink was overflowing and there was about half an inch of water covering the floor, and it was running down into the floor vent. 

That of course had to be dealt with quickly, and while I cleaned up Nick went to the girls' room to investigate. I assumed Daisy would have been the culprit, but no, when I sent Morgan upstairs to get a new sheet for Jack's bed she decided to wash her hands and somehow neglected to turn the water off at all. So now the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom is nice and soft. 

I actually did almost the exact same thing when I was 10, so I can't be too mad, but it was still frustrating. After all that we sat down and watched a movie, Parental Guidance, which was really cute, then Nick went to bed.

Then I sat down and went through the bills and realized that taking every humanly available option into account, we're going to be a couple of hundred dollars short this pay period (which just began two days ago and won't end till Friday after next). I knew we were going to be really tight because of a few different things, but it's frustrating that it's short, and that much. Of course God can provide, and He always does, but I would really appreciate your prayers that He will send the money we need. 

I also just started my period, and when I came upstairs a little while ago to take my shower I found that the water had dripped down into the cabinet under the sink and soaked most of my pads and three precious rolls of toilet paper. Fortunately it didn't get them all, but I was hoping we'd have enough to get us through this pay period, and now I'm fairly sure we won't, at least not with what we have right now. It also soaked my almost completely full box of tampons, but it just got the box itself, and the tampons all stayed dry inside their wrappers.

The great news is that I caught it when I did (before it soaked the bedroom carpet and completely destroyed the downstairs bathroom ceiling), and we didn't have any phones, Ipads, or my Kindle plugged up charging on the sink. That's where we charge them every night, usually when we go to bed, but sometimes I'll leave my Kindle there all day, or we might plug our phones up early if they're dying. Thank God they were all elsewhere. 

BUT, after all that drama, I got into a shower with running hot water and washed and conditioned my hair and dried off with a fluffy towel and generally enjoyed a standard of living 90% of the world doesn't have. First world problems indeed. So I wanted to sit down and post about all the blessings God has showered on us lately, because that's where I need to focus!

First of all, my mom showed up with a HUGE load of groceries last week, so we're in much better shape than we could be. I actually didn't have to buy very much household staple stuff at Walmart, which is always a relief. 

She also really blessed us with something else. Several weeks ago her kitchen stove stopped working. It's a really nice double oven model, but they'd had it for 12 years, so they figured maybe it had just worn out. They remodeled their kitchen last year and got mostly new appliances, so they decided to just bite the bullet and replace it as well. So they purchased the newer model of the one they had, and because my mom is a great shopper they got it for a very good deal.

The other day they delivered the new stove, and when my dad went to move out the old one, they noticed that one of the connector wires was loose. They tightened it back up and it worked perfectly! My mom called me to tell me about it, and she said that she was planning to put the old stove on Craigslist, but that if they couldn't sell it for a decent price, she was going to give it to me. I was excited about the possibility, but I also felt bad that they'd bought a new stove unnecessarily, and I assured her that I wanted her to get some money out of it and that I would pray that it would sell. 

She called me back later and told me that she and my dad had just decided that it would be a hassle to list it and that they would be unlikely to get what they wanted out of it and they would rather just give it to us! So Nick went out to get it that night, and it's sitting in our garage waiting on us to get the time to install it. :)

The funny thing is that not long before all that happened I was randomly telling Nick that if and when we move I'd love to have a house with a double oven. Isn't it awesome how God sometimes blesses us with things we haven't even asked for?

Friday we went to our local trampoline park with our church's youth group. This was a huge treat. We've been once before (actually Nick and the girls went for the first time when Kate was in town this summer, and we went once as a family after that). This is a fairly new facility in our city, and it is SO MUCH FUN, but it's kind of expensive, so it not something that's really on our regular rotation. It was a lot of fun to get to go and take not only ourselves and the kids, but also a couple of Morgan's friends, and the church paid for it all! They even bought pizza for everyone afterwards.

I also had an order for a scarf for a girl at church. I had made one for Kelly for her birthday, and the girl saw it and asked me to make her one too. I had about $4 in the material, and that was enough to make 2 scarves and a matching hair clip. She paid me $8, and I was able to use the extra scarf and the hair clip as a gift for one of Morgan's friends whose birthday party she had to go to today. 

Another neat thing was something Kelly told me today. One of the things I sent Will for his birthday was a paracord survival bracelet I made in the school colors and with the logo for his alma mater, of which he is a huge supporter. The strap on my camera is one I made from paracord, and he was admiring it when we were in Texas. 

I ordered the logo charm months ago off Etsy for a couple of dollars, I was kind of excited about it. He's so hard to buy or make stuff for, just because I don't really feel like I know him all that well, plus he has the money to buy really whatever he wants, but I was pretty sure this was a winner. But as I sent it off I started to doubt myself and worry that maybe he wouldn't like it after all. 

Today Kelly told me that she was talking to Kate, and that she said he was really excited about it, but when he tried to wear it, it was a little too small and that he was really disappointed that it didn't fit. Of course I hate that it was too small, but I love that he really was excited about it, and I'm having Kate mail it back to me so I can remake it to fit him. It always makes me feel so great when someone really loves a gift I make them!

And one of the biggest blessings lately was Daisy's birthday. She's such a sweet little girl, and I really wanted to make the day special for her. I stayed up late the night before (with permission) sewing up her birthday skirts. That was all she had asked me for other than  a Baby Alive doll, so a few weeks ago I let her pick out some fabric, and I think she did great! I had her 5 skirts from the material she chose, plus a birthday outfit I made with a skirt, headband, and matching birthday cake shirt, and the doll she wanted. I also found a nice stuffed bear and elephant at a thrift store. I made the bear a bow and blanket, and I made the elephant a skirt to match her birthday outfit. 

Kate had sent her $50 to The Children's Place, so a few days ago I took her shopping. The gift cards were literally all the money I had, so I had to make sure we kept it within that amount. I found a 20% off coupon in a coupon book my mother-in-law gave me a few weeks ago, and we took our time and looked for bargains. She chose three shirts, two pairs of jeans, and a pair of shoes. When the girl rang us up it came to $52 and some change. Later on I realized that one of the shirts rang up $5 too much, but at the time I thought I had just miscalculated, so I gently told her we would have to put something back. The cashier told me to hang on, and she found a 30% off coupon for us to use instead! Not only did we have enough for everything she wanted, but she also had enough then to get a necklace and two bracelets! That sweet cashier sure made my day!

The morning of her birthday (Saturday) I asked her if she wanted to wear her new jeans with the birthday shirt that was one of the three she bought that day, but she declared that she wanted to wear the shirt with a skirt. One of the skirts I had made her just happened to match it perfectly, so I stuck it in a gift bag and let her go ahead and open it. She loved it, and so out the door we went with a new outfit, complete with the sparkly new shoes that also matched perfectly.

First of all I took all three kids to McDonald's for a cheap lunch. Then we went to this tiny little cash only thrift store. I had $1.50 in cash, so I let her go through the toys and see what she wanted. She had seven things in her shopping basket, and I told her that we might have to choose her favorites depending on the price. When I put them up on the counter I told the cashier that we might have to put a few back as she was doing her birthday shopping herself and only had $1.50. The lady promptly declared that the total was $1, and Daisy very importantly handed it over.

Next we went to the Goodwill, where we had a little more leeway since they take the debit card. There she scored this awesome baby changing/feeding/bathing station for $3. 

The picture is just one I found online, but it's the same one, and it had all the parts except the mobile and the plastic bottles. The other side has more shelves behind doors that close as well as a sink and a changing area. She also found a few dolls, and we even got a few dolls for the nursery at church. 

After that we went to Froyoz, which is a frozen yogurt place that she asks to go to literally almost every time we pass it, which is about 3 times a week. We hadn't been able to take her, so I really wanted to do it as a special birthday treat. I had a buy one get one free coupon for there, so it was also really cheap. 

She wanted to go home and play with her thrift store purchases, so I dropped her, Morgan, and Jack at home while I ran to take some library books back. While I was out I stopped at the Dollar Tree and picked up some little plastic bins and mini packs of diaper wipes for her changing station, as well as a couple of birthday balloons. 

By the time I got home Nick was home from work, and we all loaded up to go out to my parents' house. My mom had balloons on the porch and a birthday banner on the front door, and she had the dining room in full on princess party decor. There was a birthday tiara and more gifts than we could have imagined. Nick's parents came, as well as Kelly, Grant, Logan, James, Robert, Faith, my aunt and my two first cousins as well as their daughters and son. She got SUCH cute clothes, as well as four pairs of shoes for winter (much needed), and several toys as well.

This morning she insisted on wearing her birthday outfit to church, complete with tiara, and I figured why not? At least she got another use from the birthday shirt. :)

Renewed

I got spanked a little while ago. I honestly wasn't thinking anything about it when Nick got up to give me my usual good night kiss before heading up to bed, so it caught me off guard when he said "Let's go upstairs for a minute."

I followed him up and went to pee, and when I came out of the bathroom he was sitting on the bed holding the Jokari paddle. There was a lot of conversation and some lecturing too, and I was surprised to hear myself say the words "I just don't want you to give up on me." And there it was, the real reason I felt so unsettled when he didn't punish me the other night. 

"I'm not giving up on you. If I was we wouldn't be having this conversation." And of course, even knowing how I would feel when it was over, I seriously didn't want to be spanked, but what it boiled down to was that I should have done what I was told the first time, and I was going to get a paddling whether I liked it or not.

It felt like it had been forever since I'd gotten a spanking, and he was intent on making his point. There were tears not very far in, and I had to be told to stay put more than once. But of course when it was over and he was holding me and telling me he was sorry he'd had to spank me, and I was telling him I was sorry I'd disobeyed, I felt immensely better, and we ended the night in sweet spirits.

Later

Well, I got the kitchen all clean. And I even had dinner ready for him when he got home. He said dinner was good, and we spent an innocuous evening in front of the TV. He fell asleep on the couch, so he was pretty out of it when I dragged him up to bed. I asked him if we were good now that the kitchen is clean, and right before he fell fast asleep again he said "We'll deal with it later." So I'm not sure what that means now.

Scattered.

I've been stretching myself a little thin lately. Last month, besides going to the gym and taking Morgan to soccer practice and games, I've had three doctor's visits for the kids, one dentist appointment, a couple of Etsy orders, some mending for a girl at church, birthday gifts to make for Robert, Kelly, and Will, Trick or Treat bags to make for Kit and Maddox, a Halloween wreath to make for Kate (I needed the last three done so early so I could mail them all together with Will's birthday gift to Texas), sewing for Daisy's birthday, mending for Nick (broken zipper on his gym bag), and three photo shoots for the same couple - one engagement, one rehearsal dinner, and one wedding, and we're talking over 2600 shots that needed to be culled, edited, and converted from RAW format. I'm still working my way through those since the rehearsal dinner and wedding were just this last weekend.

This month promises to be just as busy. Friday we have a youth event at church that Nick and I will be helping with, Saturday is Daisy's birthday (fourth!) which entails a small family party and for which I still have a few skirts to sew (her special birthday request), Sunday is our church's homecoming, the 10th is Logan's first birthday and party (have to make him a gift), the 12th I have Faith's maternity shoot, the 13th is Melanie's baby shower (for which I have yet to make a gift), the 16th is James' birthday (gotta make a gift) the 17th is my birthday, although I don't have any plans for it, the 19th is the church picnic, the 26th is Faith's baby shower (and yes, I still need to make her a gift). And of course Halloween is 5 days later, and I'm going to have to come up with 3 costumes somewhere, although Daisy is making it easy for me by insisting on going as a "girl ghost" (white sheet with eye holes and a pink bow on top, and done!).

All of that is to say that I've let some things around here go. Like everything. The house has truly gotten to an atrocious state, and my car was the same. Saturday I had to leave for the wedding earlier than Nick. He was actually running the sound system for the ceremony, but I had to get there early to start photographing the bride getting ready. I took his truck so that he could have the car to drop the kids and car seats off at his parents' house since they were going to bring them to the wedding and watch them so we could work. Many exhausting hours later we switched cars back after the wedding, and I got in mine to find it absolutely spotless. When I got home, the living room was immaculate.

Now obviously I really appreciate Nick doing all of that for me (with Morgan's help). It took a huge load off of me, but it also made me feel really, really guilty. He'd mentioned the car and the house, the living room especially a few times over the last few weeks, and I knew I was dropping the ball. So when all of a sudden something I'm supposed to do gets taken off my plate, I feel like there's bound to be a cost to that, and that maybe there should be. So when I apologized that he'd had to do it himself that night, he informed me that he was going to deal with it later, which in our house means a spanking.

And I was...relieved. Not that I wanted to get spanked, just that I felt like I probably deserved to, and that the universe would be back in balance so to speak once it happened. The truth is, I've not been handling my time wisely, and when I let things get too crazy, I really do need him to come down hard on me. I hate it at the time, but it refocuses me, and it reminds me that there are consequences to my actions. 

Even with the kids in bed at a reasonable hour these days, it's rare for a punishment to happen the same night it's brought up, so I wasn't surprised that he went to bed without handling it that night. But the next day I was fairly sure he was going to do it after the kids were in bed. To my surprise, he went to be without mentioning it again, and by that point I had reached the stage where I genuinely dread and fear what's coming, so I decided that was a positive thing. When I went up a couple of hours later and he snuggled up behind me with sweeter things on his mind I was pleasantly surprised and more than willing. 

"This is a nice surprise," I murmured. "I though I was getting a spanking tonight."

"Mmm..you need one," he answered. But then he wasn't interested in talking anymore, and by the time we were done he had decided to let it go. 

The next morning he told me he wanted me to work on the house and concentrate on the kitchen. But the day was crazy, and I spent it editing pictures, chasing kids, and keeping the living room as clean as he'd had it, and somehow the kitchen didn't get done.

Today he came home early from work, sick to his stomach and battling a headache. I gave him something for the pain and put him to bed, and he slept a good 4 or 5 hours. I worked on the kitchen some, but I also did a lot of child wrangling and picture editing, and it still isn't done. Tonight when he went to bed he told me that he wants me to have it done tomorrow, and I plan to do just that. But I feel like I've gotten away with something I shouldn't have, like I ran over him by not focusing on what he asked me to do, and I don't like it. 

Sunny Days and Blessings

How have you guys been? Our scholarship application for the Y finally got looked at. Unfortunately they didn't approve us for the level of scholarship we were hoping, but they did give us a little off each month, which was good. What was great was that my dad decided to have my mom go ahead and pay for 6 whole months for us, including Nick! 

I mentioned that Nick has a membership to a little gym near his work that only costs us $15 a month. We're going to keep that for now, mainly because he goes on his lunch break to work out, and the closest Y to his work is too far away to make that an option. But he's gone to the Y with me a number of times already, and he really likes it. Yesterday evening we took the kids to the pool there, which we all really enjoyed.

Other than Sunday and today, I've not missed a day. Today I missed because Morgan had a soccer game this morning during the time I usually go (they won 6-0!), and afterwards we went and got lunch, then took the kids hiking on a trail in a state park near us. We did about 3 miles, which is a little more than I would have probably done at the Y, so I still got my exercise in, and we really needed a family day together. It was gorgeous weather, and other than the $5 or so worth of gas we used, it was completely free!

Monday Morgan and I have our fitness evaluations so that we can get in the system for a routine, and Nick's evaluation is a week after that. I've been trying to make healthier choices at home as well. The biggest thing I have to conquer is cutting out sweet tea. Here in the South it's truly a staple, and I generally make a pitcher every day. Besides being just plain cheap to make, every last one of us really loves it, but I know it will do us all good to cut it out. My main problem is that well, I hate plain water! Nick says nobody can hate water because it doesn't taste like anything, but that's just not true! I have to have some sort of flavor, or I just don't like to drink it. I've bought a couple of different sugar free, calorie free "water add-ins", but I've not really been happy with the taste of those either, so we'll have to see. I'd really prefer something with no calories, so I don't really want to go the Gatorade route. I guess maybe it will just have to be something I acquire a taste for.

God has really been blessing us lately. Money is crazy tight, but He's been providing day by day. Nick was able to sell some scrap metal today, which gave us enough extra gas money to drive us to the hiking trail as well as get lunch. And I got a small mending job from a lady at church that will yield a few dollars. And at the end of the month I'll be shooting a wedding for a couple at church, which will really help with bills. I won't make as much as I would if I were doing it for anyone else, but I was just glad they committed to hiring me because they're really on a budget, and even the discounted rate I quoted was kind of a stretch for them.

I'd really appreciate your prayers for the upcoming week. I've got a couple of bills that are due before Nick gets paid again, one of which is our water bill. I know God has it in His power to send the money for both, and I'm praying He does just that!

Life Changing

Gosh, it has been BUSY around here! Morgan has started soccer, which is taking up some of our time. She has practice on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and games on Saturdays. This past Saturday was her first game, and she did great! They won 4-1, which is a nice change from the last season she played. This time around her team is older and more experienced, and it shows.

I've also had some sewing to do. Daisy's birthday is coming up on October 5th, and she has requested a special birthday skirt. I finished it today, and I'm kind of in love with it. The main part of the skirt is made from this sweet pink nursery rhyme toile, and the bottom band is a coordinating solid pink. I plan on getting her a plain white t-shirt and embellishing it with some of the toile, maybe a rosette or two.

Here in a few minutes I need to sew up a skirt for an Etsy order. And guys, Christmas is only 15 weeks away! I should have started on Christmas gifts last month! I've already been forewarned that I'm not to turn our house into Santa's workshop again this year, and  I've promised to try not to.

But the biggest thing that has been taking up my time is my (early) birthday gift from my mom. This is seriously the best thing she's ever given me (besides you know, life). She's paying for me and the kids to have a membership to our local YMCA for a few months! We're waiting on the Y to review our application for scholarship to see if maybe we can get the membership at a discount (I'd really appreciate you're prayers on this!), so that maybe they can pay for it long enough for us to get our income tax back and pay for a year up front. 

This has been life changing for me, just in the week since I've been going. I'll be really honest here, I've known for a while now that I really needed to do something to get in shape and lose weight. Diabetes runs in my family, and it hit my mom when she was just a little older than I am now. I think that's the main reason she's doing this for me. Nick has been working out and losing weight for the last year and 1/2, and it's made a huge difference in his life. 

My biggest problem was just not having an opportunity to work out on a consistent basis, which made it seem like it wasn't worth doing really at all. There for a while I tried walking around our neighborhood with Daisy and Jack in the stroller, but then it was too hot, then it was too rainy, then it was too cold, then they got to where they just fussed and tried to climb out the whole time, and it just wasn't worth it. But the Y has child care, and they will watch the kids for up to two hours a day, included with my membership. 

The kids LOVE it there. They have this big plastic playhouse shaped randomly enough like a tomato. Daisy calls it "the bamato house" and I just want to freeze time every time she says it. She's getting old enough now that she doesn't have very many childish mispronunciations anymore, and I cherish them all. 

Right now we're going on a free pass because they're still reviewing my application. The free pass counts for everyone in our household, so that means Nick has gotten to join us a few times. He has his own gym membership at a gym close to where he works, but it was really great having him come show me how all the machines work. Once the membership is active Morgan and I will get to meet with a personal trainer to do a fitness test and get set up on a routine. Then every time we come in we'll log into a computer system that will give us a tailored workout plan for the day. For now I've just been doing the treadmill and some weight room routines Nick showed me. 

It's been hard, but so very good to have the chance to push myself, and I've lost 7 pounds so far. :) Anyway, that's what I've been up to, how about you guys?

A Friendly Reminder

So how are you guys doing? I'm doing well. Money is tight this week, but God has been blessing us. I should get paid tomorrow for a group of toddler skirts I made for a lady at church, and I have orders for a couple more from people I went to high school with. And my parents stopped by today with a HUGE load of groceries, which was AWESOME. 

Also in the awesome category (well, not so awesome at the time, but in the long run - and yeah, kind of awesome even at the time), I got spanked on Monday night. I wasn't expecting it. Nick went up to take a shower, and I went up with my laptop with the intention of showing him something funny I'd found when he got out. I was lying across the bed on my stomach when he came out, and he smacked my bottom hard with both hands. I squealed, and he pulled me back onto my feet and pulled down my jeans and panties. To be honest, I was expecting things to go in a different direction, so I was a bit surprised when he started spanking me, rather hard, with his hand. And then he started lecturing me on slacking off a little with some of the housework. And he asked me what happens when I do that. And that's where I made my mistake. 

See, during an actual, serious discipline spanking I have a very hard time with articulating just what's happening. During sex, it's a huge turn-on, but during a punishment not so much. It's embarrassing, and it also pushes hard on that little core of rebellion inside of me, and he knows this. When Morgan is defiant with me, I sometimes make her do jumping jacks. Not like a bunch of them, usually something like 10-15, certainly less than the average public school gym teacher demands in P.E. It doesn't hurt her, it doesn't impose a physical strain on her, but it brings home to her that she is the child and I am the parent, and at the end of the day, I'm in charge and she has to do what I say. And she HATES it, but it gets the message across, and it generally brings her back in line pretty quickly.

And it's with the same reasoning that Nick sometimes makes me admit out loud that I've done something wrong and I'm getting spanked for it. And I hate it just as much as Morgan hates those jumping jacks. So when he asked me what happens when I don't do my chores, my answer was a very noncommittal "Mmmm..." A couple more very hard swats and the question repeated prompted me to say "That!" To which he answered, "I can see that you're not taking me seriously. This was supposed to be a friendly reminder, but I can see that's not working."

By that point he was rummaging in the toy chest, and I was starting to panic. He pulled out the Cane-iac Jr. with holes, and I went into full on begging and apology mode. To no avail, though, because he bent me right back over the bed and began to paddle me. I'll admit that it wasn't a very hard paddling, but, and I think most of you know what I mean, slick, hard maple, especially with holes in it is very painful on a bare bottom at any force, just for the stinging alone. 

Before long I couldn't hold still at all, and I asked if I could please lay on the bed. He let me do so, and the paddling continued for a bit. When he asked me again what happens when I don't do my chores I wasted no time at all in answering loudly enough for him to hear, "I get spanked!" He gave me a few more swats, then put down the paddle and held me. 

It wasn't very long before I was eager to show him just how sweet and submissive I could be, and we moved on to the awesome part of the evening, which is best left in my memories. :)

Busy days

Coming back from vacation I always feel like there's so much catching up to do. That's not actually the truth in this case, even if it feels that way. Almost all of our vacation laundry was done before we left Texas, and we unloaded the car as soon as we got home, so it was just a matter of putting it all away. The dishes were done and the trash taken off before we left, and even most of the laundry that didn't go with us was clean (although maybe not folded).

But here it is less than 2 weeks later and the laundry is piled up (despite the fact that I do it constantly), the sink is full (also doing the dishes all the time), and the bedrooms are in chaos (despite the fact that I've worked on ours all week).

Part of it has to do with the fact that Jack has been crazy clingy since we got back, and Daisy has been an unusual handful. I think she picked up some attitude from Maddox, because she has definitely not been her usual sweet and compliant self since we got back. The other night she pitched an honest to goodness temper tantrum, something that has only happened once before in her life, and that was when she was about 20 months old.

The last couple of weeks have been full of errands, between back to school shopping, dentist appointments, a birthday party, a wedding, an order for a skirt for a lady at church, signing Morgan up for soccer, paying bills, taking the dog for a rabies vaccine, mailing back Morgan's old ipad, and getting the new one to log onto our wifi, a process that turned out to be a ridiculous hassle.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me kind of a crazy story. All my life my parents have loved to sit on the front porch during a thunderstorm. (No lectures please). They have two porch swings and several rockers, and my mom has a big fluffy recliner out there. So when a storm blew up that afternoon they sat out on the porch to enjoy the show. Then it started to get pretty bad, so they decided to go inside.

About two minutes later my mom was looking out the window at the deluge when suddenly lightning struck one of the trees in the front yard their hammock hangs from. The hammock is secured with a thick chain, and the lightning jumped from the chain to a shrub at the corner of the porch. The whole house shook, and the blast hurt their ears even with them inside. My mom had a ceramic frog shaped planter at the base of the tree that was struck, and it was blown apart. The surge fried their whole phone system, one of their TVs, the wiring to their cable and internet, and their well pump.

Once they got their nerves settled and the storm died down, they went out to check the damage. All of the bark on the tree had been blown off in long thick strips, and the recliner where my mom was sitting just a couple of minutes before the strike was filled with bark and sharp shards of shrapnel from the broken planter. If they had still been on the porch when it happened they would have doubtless been injured, quite probably seriously so. Thank God they had gone in!

They were without water until today when they were able to get the well pump replaced, but it will be another week or so before they get their phone and internet back.

We also got some family news last night - Grant and Kelly are (quite unexpectedly) expecting again! They're happy, but also more than a little scared, because Logan is only 10 1/2 months old. When the new baby comes he'll be just a little younger than Jack is now. All day today I tried to imagine bringing a newborn home right now and trying to juggle him/her and Jack. Honestly, Kelly struggled quite a bit with postpartum depression, so we're praying that she handles it well.

We are looking a bit forward to watching the new parent smugness fall away, lol. It's just within the last week that Logan has started to even army crawl, so they've not had to do any baby proofing as of yet, and they always seemed a bit exasperated with us and with Kate when Daisy, Jack, or Maddox got into something at their house. We knew that as soon as Logan started getting into everything they would understand, but now it looks like they're going to really be baptized into it with fire.

They've also had plenty of date nights, something that comes very rarely for me and Nick, simply because they have one (immobile) grandchild to watch, where we have 3 very active ones. Nick said several weeks ago that he had the feeling that once Logan was up and into everything that the baby sitting offers would dry up pretty quickly.

Kelly called me today to talk to me about getting the same maternity coverage I had with Jack since their policy doesn't have maternity benefits. I think they should qualify, which would be great, so she can keep her same doctor. Dr. E delivered all three of mine, as well as Logan, and she will deliver Faith's baby in November, our friend Melanie's in December, and Kate used to see her when she lived here. She also was Faith's doctor during her pregnancy last year that ended in miscarriage. She's really an awesome OBGYN, and I was a little sad when I went back for my six week visit after Jack was born because I knew she'd seen me through my last pregnancy.

I've been doing a bit of crafting lately, which is always good for me. I made Daisy nine little skirts to take to Texas with us, and a 10th one a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I made the one for the lady at church. It's actually for her granddaughter who lives out  of state. Her family will be coming in for a visit this weekend, and she'll try it on her then to see if the fit needs to be adjusted, and then she wants four more. My mother-in-law's birthday was last week, and I made her a necklace, bracelet, and earring set, as well as a couple of leather brooches. I also made a taggie blanket for my friend Elizabeth's neighbor, and I had a pillow cover order last week. My friend Denise just started an Etsy shop selling handmade earrings, and her birthday is coming up, so I've made her a bunch of earring cards in zebra print (her shop theme) to mail off to her. And Elizabeth's birthday was this week, and she's requested a couple of hair accessories, so that's next.

I'm missing Nick a lot. It seems like it's been ages since we've had any alone time, and if I'm honest I'm feeling the need to feel some boundaries. I'm at that too familiar place where I think the best thing for me would be a hard spanking, but I don't really have a way to make that happen short of purposefully doing something to make him mad, and I'm not willing to do that. There are surely things he could pick to deal with me about, but he's been really busy himself, and I'm trying to stay aware of that.

Anyway, it's time for me to head to bed, so I'll say goodnight.

Vacation

You guys, we had SUCH a great vacation! 

The original plan was to leave early Friday morning and take turns driving straight through to Texas. It's easily 15+ hours of driving, with the inevitable stops for meals and potty breaks, but we'd done it before. Then it turned out that we wouldn't be able to leave as early as we'd hoped. Morgan started 7th grade yesterday, and she had to have a couple of immunizations before she could start. I'd tried several different offices of the pediatric practice we use, but the only appointment available before we left was at 8:45 Friday morning. 

So I got all of my and the kids stuff packed, along with the snacks for the road, and once Nick threw his stuff together late Thursday night I loaded it all up in the car. Nick usually packs the car, but I was anxious to get on the road ASAP, and I knew he was tired and would have a few things to do while I had Morgan at the doctor, so I went ahead and loaded up, and I did a great job if I do say so myself!

Early Friday morning I loaded Morgan and Jack up and headed to the doctor while Nick and Daisy took off the trash and straightened up a few last things around the house. Morgan and I hit Chick-Fil-A for breakfast for us all on the way home, and I walked in the door ready to leave. When I got home Nick was on the phone with Kate. It turned out that she and Will had decided to meet us halfway in New Orleans to spend the weekend. They had already made hotel reservations for us. 

We got to the hotel at about 10:15, where they valeted our car for us. This is something Kate had told us would be happening, but we got a little lost getting to the hotel, spotted it about 5 seconds before we had to turn in, and were completely unprepared for the flock of valets that descended on us as soon as Nick stopped the car. They were incredibly polite and helpful, but it was a little embarrassing to open the back hatch to get out the luggage. Morgan had spent the whole trip in the back by the bags and had shifted stuff around looking for things over the course of the drive, not to mention scattered various snack wrappers about, so we felt a little like the Beverly Hillbillies when various bags and debris tumbled out, lol. 

The first fun surprise came when they took us up to our room. Will and Kate had booked us a double room, but the hotel had somehow messed up and didn't have the reservation. They had Kate and Will's and Grant and Kelly's, but not ours. So to make up for it, they put us in the penthouse suite! It was on the 30th floor of the JW Marriott, and it had an AMAZING view of New Orleans! It was far and away the nicest hotel accommodations we've ever had, even nicer than the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, although the cottage we stayed in last year at Sea Island probably had it beat (check out photos 7 and 8 of the link up there to see an example of our suite). But it was a two story suite, with a ginormous master bathroom (it even had a bidet, which tickled Morgan and Daisy lol), a gorgeous master bedroom, and equally gorgeous double bedroom with it's own very nice bathroom, and an area with a game table. That was just the upstairs. Downstairs was a living room, dining room, coffee bar area, desk area, and another bathroom. The suite even had a doorbell! Here are a few strategically blurred photos, but they were taken late at night with my phone, so please excuse the quality:

When we got there Will told us to just order room service on him for dinner since it was so late. Dinner was delicious, and we headed to bed since we had to get up early for a delicious breakfast and the swamp tour Will had booked for all of us! That was a blast, something we really enjoyed. It was a company in Slidell, and a very nice man took us out on a boat through the swamp. We got to hold a snake (er, everybody else got to hold a snake - I wanted no part of that!), and we got to see and feed tons of alligators! What was so funny was that they feed them marshmallows! Who would have thought?

Anyway, after the swamp tour, we headed back to New Orleans, where we freshened up, then Will took us all to lunch at Huck Finn's, where we all tried fried alligator. Not bad, but awfully chewy. After lunch we went to the New Orleans Aquarium, which was honestly kind of a let down. We've got a couple of aquariums in our state that are much nicer, and the huge crowds of people we had to fight through didn't help matters much. But it was Shark Week, and we got to see an IMAX 3D movie about them, so that was neat. And Nick got to add to his collection of souvenir golf balls. :)

After the aquarium we went back to the hotel and napped for a little while, then Kate watched all three of our kids while Nick and I went out to dinner with Grant, Kelly, and Logan to a little barbecue restaurant called The Joint.

Quick funny story about that huge tub up there: It had whirlpool jets, and after Nick and the kids went to sleep I decided I was going to soak for a bit. The control for the jets was up high on the wall to keep it out of the reach of children. So I ran hot water, sitting in it until it came up above the level of the jets, per the instruction. Then I got out to turn on the jets. Obviously when you get out of a tub the water level goes down, so getting out dropped it just below the top line of jets, but no big deal, I was going to just turn it on and hop back in real quick, right? So I set the automatic timer for 10 minutes and hit start. Well, for some reason, (probably Maddox and Daisy when they were taking their bath earlier), all of the jets were pointed UP, so as soon as they came on they shot hot water all over the bathroom! So, in a panic, I jump back in to get the water level back above the jets. And I can't get the jets to point back down, I'm staring at all this puddled water everywhere, not at all relaxed, and the water must have been too hot, because I start getting kind of weak and lightheaded. But I can't get back out till the timer stops, because if I do it will spray water everywhere for the rest of the time. Finally, I decide to risk it, and I jump out again, and the water goes everywhere, but the timer lets me turn it to zero, so I got it stopped. But I spent the next little while using almost all of our towels to mop up the bathroom. So much for a relaxing soak in the jacuzzi!

The next morning we had another terrific breakfast at the hotel, then Kate, Will, and Maddox had to leave. Kate's daughter Kit had spent the previous week out of state with her father and grandparents, and they had to pick her up at the airport. The rest of us checked out a few hours later and spent the afternoon visiting the French Market. That was okay, although the kids were hot and tired, and Jack had a completely out of character meltdown. Nothing would calm him down until we happened upon a fresh fruit vendor and got him some watermelon, which he loves. That did the trick, so I think he was maybe just needing water, but too hot and upset to be patient enough to drink it from his water bottle. He usually drinks from a baby bottle, but it had gone missing (we later found it in the car), so we had purchased a kid's sports bottle to fill with water, and he wasn't used to drinking from such a hard spout, so that may have been part of what was frustrating him.

After we had seen all we wanted to see of New Orleans we got on the road to Texas. It was a long drive, and we arrived a little after 1AM Monday morning. Monday we just kind of hung out at the house, and everybody played in the pool. Jack is not a big fan of being in the water, but he loved the water table they had there for him and Logan to play with. Now Maddox is four, and pretty mischievous, and we had to watch him around Jack. Not that he was malicious, but he was used to playing with bigger kids, and he could be a little rough. Anyway, I think it was either that day or the next that he pushed Jack into the pool. Kate and I were inside, but all of the other adults were out there either in or beside the pool (or none of the kids would have been out there in the first place), so Nick scooped him up just as soon as he hit the water, but it was still scary. Kelly grabbed Maddox and spanked him for it, and he got it again when Kate came out and found out what had happened, so hopefully he'll never do such a thing again!

Tuesday we went to the mall, where Kate took Morgan, Daisy, Maddox, and Kit to see the movie Turbo. We decided not to put Jack or Logan through the movie experience, so Nick, Kelly, Grant and I walked around the mall with the babies. I got Daisy a few pairs of sandals and a sweater, and Jack a couple of shirts. After the mall we headed back to the house to get ready for the Houston Astros game Will had gotten us all tickets for. It was the first time Nick, the kids and I had been to a MLB game, so it was really neat, even though we ended up leaving early because Will had to work early the next day and the little ones were getting restless.

Wednesday we went to the Houston Zoo, which was a lot of fun, but it was HOT! The kids got to feed the giraffes, which was really neat. :) That night we had dinner at Mooyah's.

The zoo kind of wore us out, so Thursday we just hung out at the house till Will got home from work, then we all went to Rudy's for barbecue. Rudy's is a Texas tradition for us, and Nick has been looking forward to it all year. :) Afterwards we stopped at Academy, and Will bought Morgan some stuff for soccer (cleats, shorts, socks).

Friday we just hung out by the pool again till Will got home, then he took us to dinner at this terrific Mexican restaurant, Pappasita's, I think it was. Afterwards we stopped by the man made lake their neighborhood is built around and did a quick photo shoot with all of the kids. Kate had bought matching outfits for Jack, Logan, and Maddox, and a coordinating dress for Daisy, and we wanted to get some shots to give the grandparents for Christmas. Then we stopped for frozen yogurt, then went back to the house.

Kelly, Grant, and Logan left early Saturday morning, but Nick and the kids and I stayed till about 1:30 that afternoon. After we said our goodbyes, we loaded up and hit the road, but I talked Nick into letting me visit both the Goodwill and Hobby Lobby before we left Houston. :) He thinks it's silly that I always want to do that on vacation, since we have both stores at home, but you get a better level of donated merchandise at the Goodwill in the rich part of Houston than you do where we live, and every Hobby Lobby has different stuff in their clearance aisle - my main interest! I got a few things at both places, and we were on our way.

The trip home went okay until we reached Louisiana. We were just a mile or two onto the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, which is 18.2 miles long, when traffic came to a standstill. At this point my parents' borrowed GPS unit was telling us we were still 10 1/2 hours from home. There was a wreck up ahead somewhere, and in 2 hours time we moved about half a mile. After about 15 minutes of us being stuck there, Jack got a piece of a fruit roll up stuck in his throat and started projectile vomiting, which seemed to go on for several minutes. I was driving (or sitting behind the wheel rather), so I couldn't do anything, but Nick was completely awesome. He made sure his airway was clear, and cleaned him up as best he could with baby wipes, even while he was still throwing up. Of course this all meant that both Jack and the car smelled super awesome for the next 12 hours, but what are you going to do?

It was seriously the slowest trip home ever. Even taking into account the traffic jam, it just seemed like we were making terrible time, despite the speed limit being 70 MPH most of the way, and us doing every bit of that. Sunday morning we rolled into Chattanooga, tired and hungry, and Nick declared that we were going to take the opportunity to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel and visit the Chattanooga Aquarium. Nick and I went to it once probably 15 years ago, and we were really impressed, so we wanted to take the kids. It was even better than I remembered. The trip really caught up with Nick about halfway through the exhibits though, so I got in the driver's seat when we finished up. I drove until I couldn't stay awake anymore, then we switched out.

By the time we got home it was 5:30 Sunday evening, about 30 hours after we left Will and Kate's house. We started unloading the car, and the heavens opened up on us. Within less than a minute it was pointless to try to stay dry, so we just gave into the rain, and by the time we were done we looked like drowned rats. Nick went and got us some pizza for dinner, and my parents stopped by after church to drop off our mail. Then we went to bed, and the next morning Nick went back to work and Morgan started school.

Just a few of the ways Kate and Will (and God through them!) blessed us on this trip:
*Paid for valet parking and awesome hotel accommodations in New Orleans
*Dinner twice in New Orleans
*Aquarium and movie in New Orleans
*Swamp tour in Slidell
*Watched the kids while Nick and I went out for dinner in New Orleans
*Had (all on their own) new pajamas for Jack and Daisy, swimmie diapers for Jack, diaper wipes, and lotion and body wash purchased specifically to treat Jack's excema waiting on us at their house.
*Purchased (without any input from us) sensitive teeth toothpaste for Daisy because Kate noticed she was showing sensitivity to cold drinks
*Purchased sandals and a dress for Daisy, and a swim suit for Morgan
*Tickets for a Houston Astros vs Boston Red Sox game
*Tickets to the Houston Zoo
*Paid for Morgan and Daisy to feed the giraffes.
*Will bought Daisy a Barbie doll and a Disney princess Play-Do castle, and some extra Play-Do
*Bought soccer cleats, socks, and shorts for Morgan
*Took us to a very nice dinner in Houston
*Stocked their house with all our favorite foods and sent us home with loads of snacks and cold drinks
*Paid for everybody's frozen yogurt
*Sent us home with some chalkboard paint and magnetic primer. Before we went on vacation, I had told Nick that I wanted to paint the bottom half of a short section of our hallway between doors with chalkboard paint. I've wanted to do this for a while, and had finally settled on the place I wanted it. When we got to Texas I noticed that the closet door in their playroom was chalkboard, and I complemented them on it and mentioned my plans for our hallway. Will immediately said that they had leftover paint that we could have, and the next day he got it out for me.
*Sent us home with an extra bottle of Rudy's barbecue sauce that they had because they knew how much Nick loves it.
*Paid to have Morgan's iPad (which they bought her) fixed. Several months ago she was getting out of the car and it slipped out of her hand. It was in its cover, but it landed face down, and the screen basically shattered. It still worked for a little while, but eventually the touch screen quit working at all, and we hadn't had the money to get it fixed. Will dropped and cracked his a couple of weeks ago, so he told her that he would take hers in with his to get it fixed. Hers was damaged badly enough that they just had to replace it (with us sending her old one back in), so they sent a new one to the house and it came today.
*Kate did almost all of our laundry all week. This was not my intention, and several times I went to the laundry room to do a load and found that she had already done it. The girl straight up loves to do laundry!
*Sent us home with a $1,000 check and several hundred dollars in cash.

That last one was really such a God thing. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Nick took out a loan from his 401K so that we could take this trip and pay off a few bills. There was a bit of a misunderstanding between us, because the amount I had mentioned us needing for bills was $1000, and he thought I had said $500. So when I paid $1000 worth of bills with it, he got pretty upset, which led to me getting upset, because I was only doing what I thought I was supposed to. Anyway, we still had enough left for the trip, but not as much as Nick thought we would have. So before we left, I prayed that God would somehow let us come home with money in our pocket. They obviously paid for a lot of stuff, but it was a lot of gas to get there, a lot of gas driving around Houston (not a small town!), not to mention meals on the road, and a few little souvenirs for the kids.

By Wednesday we were down to less than we needed to get home. That wasn't quite the panicky realization you might think, because I knew Nick would be getting paid Friday, and his vacation pay would make it a larger than normal check, so we could use that. Then Friday morning rolled around, and his check showed up in the bank - minus his vacation pay. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th time they've done this to us, and it makes me want to scream every time. Nick always does everything he's supposed to to insure that they turn his vacation in, but it never seems to help. In fact, they would have done it back in June when he took a week off for camp if he hadn't called from camp and had the guy double check that he had submitted it on his end. Worse news - they said they would make the correction on his next check - in two weeks!

As far as I know Kate didn't know any of this when she handed Nick several hundred dollars on either Friday or Saturday. She just told him that she wanted to help us out with gas since Grant, Kelly, and Logan had ridden everywhere with her and Will while Nick and I had had to drive our own car since there wasn't room for us too.

Just before we left on Saturday she handed Nick an envelope and told him to open it after we left. When we did, there was a $1,000 check signed by Will inside. Until then I had no idea how we were going to get home and still pay the bills that needed to be paid before they got around to fixing his missing vacation pay. God is so very good to us, and he has blessed us so much with family who love us so much!

Quick Check In

This will probably be a quick post, but I wanted to check in. Kate and her kids came in last week, and it was a very nice time. She took us out to eat a couple of times, and Morgan spent the whole week with them, mostly at Nick's parents' house, but 2 days up at the lake cabin with Nick's grandmother. Daisy and Maddox were inseparable, and they can't wait to see each other again. 

Speaking of seeing each other again, we leave for Texas Friday morning. We ended up doing a loan from his 401K to pay off a few bills and make the trip. Everyone always says, "Oh - that's such a bad idea!" But the way it works with his company is that we pay it back via his paycheck and pay interest on it (to ourselves), so nothing is lost, and it goes right back into the 401K.

It will be a long trip, around 14 hours of driving, so we appreciate your prayers for safe travels and no potty training accidents. About potty training - Daisy has completely mastered it now (knock on wood). It was back and forth and really sporadic for a while, but spending so much time with Maddox has really seemed to have done the trick. She's not had an accident in days now!

Anyway, I'm off to bed - lots to do tomorrow! Good night!

The Joy of Role Play

Seven years ago I was a reviewer for a now defunct adult toy company called South Coast Pleasure. During that time I wrote a few articles for their blogger section, including one titled "The Joy of Role Play". I was searching for something completely unrelated in my email archives and was surprised to come across it. I had completely forgotten I ever wrote it, but I sure enjoyed reading it again (and remembering some of the things that inspired it), so I thought I'd post it here:

                   The Joy of Role Play

 

I looked anxiously over my shoulder at the man raising a paddle high above my upthrust bottom. I lay bent over the end of the bed, my white panties tugged down to my upper thighs and my short plaid skirt ruched up onto my back. I'd brought home a very disappointing note from school, and now I was facing a sound spanking. I arched my back as the paddle met it's target, whimpering as I took my punishment.

Ah, role play...

Nothing quite takes me to the edge like imagining myself a naughty schoolgirl...or a truculent cowgirl...or perhaps just a rebellious wife (which I sometimes really am!). Role play is the icing on the cake of spanko play, the theater in which I can be as bad as I wanna be without the damaging consequences such actions would have in real life.

It allows me to be a captured English lass on a pirate ship, the wicked captain (who in my mind always looks suspiciously like my husband) strapping me for my tart tongue. It takes me through a day as the secretary for a stern architect who graciously agrees to forgo firing me when I shred the wrong set of plans, blistering my lace-pantied bottom instead.

I imagine myself a driving a sexy little sports car at crazy speeds, only to be pulled over and caught without my license. I can almost feel the handcuffs click shut as I'm bent over the smooth hood and spanked until my cheeks match the cherry red of the car, the stern officer waiving the ticket for a more traditional form of correction. Some days I'm a naughty nurse, caught napping in an empty room. It's not too far into my fantasy that the angry resident storms in and pulls me over his knee for a thorough lesson on the virtues of hard work. Sometimes there's even a bit of humiliation to the punishment as he pulls on a rubber glove and probes that most forbidden aperture.

Other days I'm a sassy 18-year old, learning a civil tongue at the hand of my fiance, or a defiant 19th century school marm, learning her own lesson by the sheriff's razor strop. The best part of role play for me is that it allows me to experience my husband in many incarnations, ever new and yet always intimately familiar. So why not whip up a less than stellar report card and bring it home for inspection, or don a naughty French maid outfit and confess to neglecting the dusting? You can be anyone you like!

Sad News

I just wanted to let you guys know that mthc, a long time reader of and commenter on many of our blogs lost her dear husband Thursday evening. Please keep her and her family in your prayers during this difficult time.