so happy and so sad

So my beautiful sister is getting married tomorrow! And I can't be there.  Luke is too little drive for 12 hours to Albuquerque, NM and we don't have the funds to fly.  I very much wish I could be there to share in her special day but the good thing is is that my sister is wonderful and understanding.  My sister-in-law is going to be there to take pictures so she had better do a good job! (Hear that Sarah? I am counting on you! lol)

Amy is marrying a man named Marc.  Who is a very fun and wonderful man who knows how to take care of my sister.  I pray that they will be so happy together.

I love you sister!! I miss you and good luck tomorrow!!

common what?

I remember when I found out that I was pregnant.  I was so excited.  And scared.  I was so excited to have a little bundle of joy that I would get to play with and watch grow up.  And then I became scared.  I was going to have another persons life in my hands.  I was going to be responsible for keeping this baby alive.  I was going to be responsible for raising and training this child for when he grew up and went on his own.

I may have only been a mom for 11 months now but in this short amount of time I have come to realize one thing.  It is amazing how often common sense comes into play when it comes to being a parent.  Which then makes me sad when I think about how little common sense there is left in the world.  Like you shouldn't have your baby in Walmart at 11:00 while you do your grocery shopping.  Don't take a toddler to a nice restaurant.  Make sure your child wears a coat to school when they are sick and it's 30 degrees outside.

See. Common sense.

Gushing

Right now I want to talk about my wonderful husband.

He works hard everyday so I can stay home and raise our son.

He is the most wonderful, loving, caring, selfless man I have ever met.  And for some unknown reason he decided that he want to spend the rest of his life with me.  Me.  This awful mess of a woman, who has frequent mood swings and can be crazier then a wet cat in a barrel.

I just want to tell the world how much I love him and that even though I get angry with him for some made up reason that only makes sense in my head almost every single day, I praise God that he was blessed with enough patience for the both of us.

I love you hunny!!

Ugg!

Today did not start off so good.  First off Luke woke up at 6:15 which is about 30 mins earlier then normal.  My "Time of the Month" came yesterday so I have awful cramps and bloating.  Plus, I made the bad decision of not cleaning up last night before I went to bed so i have a filthy kitchen that still needs to be cleaned up. 

So, while Luke is napping I have been attempting to make it better.  Let's see, cup of coffee..check.  Pain killers...check.  Chocolate covered strawberries...check.  Dog show on tv....check.  And dog cuddling with me, doing his best to make me feel better...check. 

I think I will survive this day!

Sock

All of us at one time or another had a favorite blanket or stuffed animal that we carried around with us when we were kids.  Whenever you were scared or hurt or lonely all you had to do was give that beloved thing a squeeze and everything was all right.  For my son, it is a sock.  It doesn't matter what sock, just one of his socks.  Strange, right? I don't get it either.  Whenever he is hurt or upset and I can't seem to get him to calm down, a sock usually does the trick. All I have to do is take a sock of his foot and hand it to him and his world is alright again. For example, today i was sitting on the floor while he was playing around and he went around the corner where i couldn't see him.  I assumed he was at the baby gate like he normally is and i just made sure to listen for any signs of trouble.  And then of course, the inevitable happened.  I heard something hit the floor and then crying so i got up and headed around the corner and what do i find? I had left the door to the upstairs open and he had crawled up a few steps and decided to head back down! So I found him face first on the floor with his body still on the steps.  I quickly ran over and picked him and rocked him in my arms to try and calm him down.  Now, this normally works when he hurts himself (which is quite often right now, considering he can now pull himself up) and after a few minutes of cuddling with mommy he is ready to get down and play some more. But for some reason this time it wasn't working.  I tried everything, rocking, singing, distraction and he was still pretty upset.  So I then used my "ace in the hole." I took one of his socks off and handed it to him.  And almost instantly he was fine.  That was about an hour ago and he has been dragging his sock around with him ever since.  At one point he had dropped it and crawled off and then when he realized he didn't have it he turned around and went back for it. 

I don't understand what it is about his socks that brings him so much comfort.  Maybe it's because they keep his feet nice and warm and he loves them for that or maybe just because they are really good at sopping up drool.  But for whatever reason, he has found his proverbial "security blanket." 

The many hats of Luke

Luke and I were bored today so I decided to have a little fun with his hats! Are you ready for this? Just beware...the cuteness just might leave you breathless.

Hat #1: I call this his Elf hat.  He would be perfect as one of santa's little helpers!

Hat #2: This is his Garden Gnome hat.  I could just plant him in my garden! (If I had a garden.)

Hat #3: Just a cute little winter hat that Grandma Reeves bought for him!

Hat #4: One of the hats that he come home from the hospital in! He is so big now.

Hat #5: A hat that was made for him by Mike's Aunt Marsha. So cute!!

So there you are!

God Bless

What's that smell?

Smells. Odors. They can bring about some of our most powerful and special memories.  For me it's the smell of a car shop.  My grandpa has been buying wrecked cars and rebuilding them since before I was born.  I remember watching him work in his shop and even helping him at times when I got older.  My dad also worked down there with him.  No matter where I am, passing a man on the street who is covered in car grease or sitting next to one at a restaurant, if I smell that smell all of those wonderful memories come back to me.

Coffee is another strong memory smell for me.  My first job was working for my dad.  My duties were to clean his office which included things like vacuuming, dusting, emptying trash cans and of course, cleaning out the coffee pot.  I hated coffee up until I graduated college but I have always loved the smell.
Smell happily!
God Bless

Words, words, words

I was listening to one of the christian radio stations (I can't remember which one) and they were talking about how they do a Word of the Year.  They challenge the listeners to pray to God to give them a word for the year.  Maybe it's something they need to work on or something to remember.  They encouraged people to email or call in with the word that God was speaking to them.  Words like, humble, encouraging, selflessness, etc. One of the DJ's was sharing her word and she said that God kept telling her the word "clean". So she decided to look up the definition just to see what it said and she had said that the first definition she found said "free from darkness." Wow.  How amazing is that.  I thought that was so cool.  I was even going to post about it here in my blog.  So I sat down and got out my dictionary and looked for what it said.  And, to my great disappointment, I couldn't find that definition anywhere.  I looked in every online dictionary I could find. So I decided to look up some other good words.  Here I think is a great word for the year:

TRANSPARENT.  First definition from Webster: "having the property of transmitting light without appreciable scattering so that bodies lying beyond are seen clearly."

"..so that bodies lying beyond are seen clearly." Hmmmmm.....chew on that for a while.

God Bless