Happy Independence Day!

We had a great fourth of July. It was VERY hot, but we enjoyed spending time with family and friends and hanging out together. I love the Fourth of July in Granbury. It still has bits and pieces of the small town feel. In the morning, we went to the parade. Gammy and DadDad have always sat on the square, so that's where we end up almost every year. (I just made up 3 separate posts because of how out of order that blogger makes the pictures get...it's very annoying.)

Before the parade got to the square, DadDad took Reed to go get some ice cream for Gammy (a.k.a also a way for Reed to get some, too).

Dad and Hudson decided to tag along...

As I said, it was HOT. I put some water on Hudson's head to cool him down and it made the cutest mohawk. Here he is checking out his awesome American Flag.

He did not want to sit still at the parade. Luckily, we had some room for him to mill around and yet still keep him contained. Brian and Reed went down and sat on the ground by some friends, so Hudson took over his Daddy's chair.

Last year Hudson was only 5 months old, so he didn't get to enjoy all the fabulous festivities. He had a lot of fun this year, and I think we have some great pictures to prove it...

I didn't notice how many pictures that I didn't have of Reed until I started to go through them. He's getting older and wanting to do his own thing and spend time with friends instead of sit beside me and his daddy. I'm glad that he's independent, but at the same time, I'm getting a glimpse of what it will be like as he starts to grow into a boy and he's not my baby anymore! Sniff, sniff!

Swimming with the Cousins

Yesterday my mom and I took the boys and my nieces on a swim date. We swam for almost 5 hours and had the best time. The girls will be moving to Houston soon and I heard Reed tell them "I'm going to miss you two when you move." Lilly said "We'll miss you too!" I'm glad they got to enjoy such a great day together with Mimi. Here are some pictures from the day.

Reed and Lilly eating fruit for lunch - he liked the cantaloupe and she liked the strawberries...

Reed and Abi

Abi going down the slide

Lilly on the slide

All four cousins

I'm tired.  Mostly because of what has been happening here.  Evidently crawling all over the floor painting trim and bottom of the wall and crawling up the ladder then bending and twisting...I've done something to my back, my right hip and right knee.  It really hurt to get out of bed this morning!  Now as I'm sitting here, I realize that my throat feels kinda sore when I swallow.  Super.

My Husband Rocks

Brian and I are homebodies most of the time. We don't go out much and when we do, we usually have the boys with us.  At the first of last week, he asked me if I wanted to go out this weekend, and of course I said yes!  He had not only picked out a chick flick that I wanted to see (The Proposal), but he arranged for someone to watch the boys.  I didn't have to plan or take care of anything, I just got to go out on a date.  (Maybe no one else but moms will understand that, but it's a big deal!)  

Thank you Brian!

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for:

• VBS and how well it went.  I do enjoy helping lead the crafts with Cami each year and seeing how much fun the kids have making different things.
• The end of VBS.  I'm sorry, but I am tired.  :)
• Gammy & DadDad stayed at VBS tonight to let Reed see the ventriloquist so we could get Hudson home at a decent hour.
• Almost having all the paint colors picked out for the "new" house and coming close to starting work on it.
• All 3 of my boys.

My Husband Rocks

Brian is handy.  He can fix, build or make almost anything.  If something is broken, I can take it to him and he will fix it for me, usually in just a matter of minutes.  He's had a lot of different jobs and interests that have given him knowledge on many different things - from building cars to building houses. I like having a very competent husband that makes our cars, house and  life run so smoothly! 

Many of you mentioned that you'd like to start doing the My Husband Rocks posts and I want to encourage you to DO IT!  It's a great thing for a marriage to look for the good things that your mate does and brag about it! I would love to read about why all of your husbands rock, too! 

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for:

• pain pills for the dental work that I am STILL going through
• the YMCA - so I can have childcare while I work out
• a sweet group of friends who volunteer to help me with so many various things
• our new land and house (that I really need to start work on!)
• a swiftly healing hand that has more and more mobility every day

Sunscreen anyone?

Having a pool in the family is a super awesome perk.  We spent yesterday swimming at Gammy's and it was a lot of fun.  (Well, except for the part were I forgot to put sunscreen on the boys and they both burned. And the part where I thought I had enough of a base that I didn't need sunscreen.  Then there was the part where Susan said "Heather, your shoulders are looking red" and I said "Oh, I'll be fine!" and I burnt too.)  But everything else we did was fun - lunch by the pool, playing with the water hose, watching the kids play... it was a good day. Here are some of my favorite pics...

Hudson is so sweet and loving.  He's quite the cuddler, hugger and as you can see from this picture, a smoocher.  What a sweetheart.

Sweet Grace in her awesome floater.  She is getting SO big!  She is already 10 months old and doing some walking - I'm looking forward to celebrating her birthday at the end of next month!

You can tell the next picture is a Blevins kid.  Gotta have that Route 44...

He even shared with his brother - how sweet is that?

Thanks for the swim day Gammy.  Looking forward to many more this summer!

My Husband Rocks

Yesterday I came across a blog post that had a really great message.  Katy Lin at The Great Adventure blogged about how in this day and time, marriage is viewed very negatively.  We so often see couples who disrespect one another, not only in everyday life, but in television or movies.  For just a second, think about how men are portrayed in sitcoms and/or commercials... if you don't know what I'm getting at, read this post.  So, back Katy Lin... she decided to brag on her hubby every week with a post about why she loves him and why he rocks.  I LOVE THAT!  I like to think that when I speak about my husband to others, they will come away with a positive opinion of Brian.  But the more I have thought about it, that may not be true.  If you know me personally, you know that I have a very sarcastic personality and joke around a lot of the time and in the past, my sarcasm has come off as negativity.  I don't mean that to be the case, but sadly, I bet it has been in some situations.  I want that to change....so not only will I try to cut out the joking and sarcastic remarks, I'm starting "My Husband Rocks Mondays". 

Reason #1 My Husband Rocks - He watches the boys for me at the last minute whenever I need a break.  No grumbling, no asking when I'll be home...and he even takes care of dinner for himself and the boys.  There are so many things that I go to in the evenings (Motherly Love, Bunco, or if I just need to get out of the house) that he has to be home and most of the time earlier than normal.  As I walk out the door, he'll say "Have fun and we'll see you later!"  The house is a wreck when I get home, but it's a small price to pay for a little "me" time and some daddy/kids time.   

Patience please!

I'm annoyed. 

It's been 7 days since I cut my hand and that's when the nurse informed that the stitches could be removed.  Up until this point, I would gain a little use of my hand almost everyday...not anything big, but at least I could hold things.   The stitches were becoming quite itchy and bothersome, so instead of making a trip to the ER for a nurse to take them out, I just decided to do it myself.  The cut is not as "healed" or "closed" as I expected it to be.  I know it's only been a week, and frankly I don't know what I expected, but I did expect for the process to be more far along.  The placement of the cut is the killer. If I move my thumb or forefinger, it opens a little.  Soooo, I'm back to almost no movement again and I'm very frustrated!  Hopefully I can survive the next week or so of one-handedness and I can start to get back to some kind of normalcy. Here are a couple of pics of the bruising on the back of my hand and the cut, post-stitch removal.  (Just for you, Sara. :))

Mindful Monday

In the last 36 or so hours, I have become very aware of how much a person uses their hands.  Of course we use our hands, that's common sense, but just how much we use them and the things we use them for is amazing.  My left hand is the one that has been affected and  I am right-handed, so I'm actually not getting the full brunt of what it would be like to have to use a non-dominant hand (thank goodness).  Since I stabbed the knife directly into my hand, I did some temporary, but painful damage inside.  My palm is super sore and swollen and that is the main reason I'm having trouble holding things.  I can use my fingers for things like typing (yay!) but when it comes to holding things in a grip...that's another story. Things that I have struggled with that I had not realized how much I did on a day-to-day basis: 

• Closing and opening things (just for a small example - a ziploc bag with a zipper, sippy cups, medicine tubes and bottles, milk jugs, etc.)
• taking showers/bathing and washing my hair
• Fixing a hairstyle that looks awful if you let it air dry
• getting dressed - especially putting on a bra that closes in back!  :)
• holding my boys
• changing diapers & dressing Hudson
• making lunch and cooking dinner
• fastening Hudson in his carseat - I still have yet to accomplish this one by myself

I think this will be my "Mindful Monday" - for me to be mindful of the many blessings I take for granted everyday!

My First Stitches

Brian and I just got back from the ER.  I was trying to get a pit out of an avocado and ended up stabbing myself in my hand.  I called out to Brian and I guess he could tell something by my tone, because he instantly hung up the phone to see what was wrong.   Initially it didn't hurt too bad, but I could tell by looking that it was deep.  It started bleeding like crazy and pretty quickly I started to feel dizzy and everything started going dark and I knew I was about to pass out.  I made it to the couch and my dizziness passed in a few minutes.  Susan came over to watch the boys and Brian and I headed to the hospital.  It started to get a little more painful and it would shoot up my arm periodically which felt like I had hit my funny bone super hard.  We got to the ER, got a tetanus shot, litacane injections in my palm and three stitches...good as new.  All except my pride. :)

One funny thing - when the doctor came in to look at it, he said I needed 2 or 3 stitches and after he left, Brian said "You should get three.  That sounds better than just two."  It was hilarious...I love my husband's sense of humor.  He made the wait time anything but boring.  He knows exactly when I need calm, when I need sweetness and when I need a good joke. I love that guy!

Update: Here's a pic for those interested (I know you're out there). :)  This is 24 hours after it happened...you can see the beginnings of a pretty wicked bruise from the cut down to the bottom of my palm.  Too bad the picture doesn't show the swelling.  Not only is my palm swollen, but I have a huge lump on the backside of my hand.  And for all of those who know my disgust with lumps and swelling, you know I'm just lovin' it.

Taking it Easy

After being in the car all day Monday driving back from the beach, the boys and I spent most of yesterday in the car running various necessary but tedious errands.  I knew they needed a break (I know I did), so we went swimming at Gammy's house today.  Gammy got out her camera to take a picture of the three of us and here's what she ended up with:

Okay, Reed - not what we were going for...let's try that again...

MUCH better.  

Bring on the summer!!

Beach Pictures

Here are a few of the pictures I snapped last week.  A few of them are dark and I was going to try to fix them before posting, but I realized that it may not happen for a while, so here they are.  Not in any particular order, thanks to blogger.  :)  Enjoy!

Hudson with his seashells...

Our rented beach house.  It was getting dark and I didn't have a tripod, so the picture's blurry.  But I like the effect of the lights reflecting in the water.

Pelicans on the "legs" of what used to be a pier.

I love Hudson's reflection in the water in this one....

This is what Reed spent the majority of his time on the beach doing...

and this is what Hudson spent the majority of his time of the beach doing...

Sweet boys

Watermelon...YUM!

Beach "Vacation"

Whew.

I now understand when people say that a trip is when you go away with your family and a vacation is when you go without kids.  I'm exhausted. This last week has been fun, but I'm glad to be home.  The boys were not only a handful, but Brian ended up not coming down on the weekend because rain was in the forecast (and I thought it ridiculous to drive 6 hours to sit in the house).  The fun started on Tuesday with a 6 hour drive with a 5 year old and 1 year old who didn't understand why he had to stay in his car seat so long.  Good times.  Throw in a nauseated grandpa (I'm sure from my driving) and bad directions and we were all just downright chipper.  :)  When we finally made it to the beach house, we were all too tired to go back into town to get groceries for an actual dinner, so we ate rice krispie treats and other various snacks.  We got the groceries out of the way on Wednesday and started out to test out the sand and waves.  Neither of the boys had ever been to the ocean, so I was anxious to see how they would react.  Reed wasn't too excited about the water (it wasn't clear and he was afraid of the "fish" which I think meant sharks - he watches too much Discovery channel with his daddy).  However, he LOVED the sand.  He spent the majority of the trip digging, making sand castles and just plain getting dirty.  Hudson didn't care for the sand, but loved the water.  He would kick his little chubby legs like crazy when the waves hit him - so cute.  He loved low tide when he could run around and splash without falling down.  One funny thing about Hudson - when we would take him down to the beach in the middle of the day and he hadn't had a nap, he would get whiny and want us to hold him, then he would promptly fall asleep!   As the week progressed, Hudson got whinier (I believe for a lack of toys and his familiar surroundings) and by our last night, he was crying out a lot and I only slept about 4 1/2 hours. Follow that with 7 hours in the car (yes, it took longer to get home than the trip down - we missed a turn), and I am beat.  It might take me a few days to get the pictures posted, but at least we made it back home in one piece.  Gotta love "vacation".  :)