Surprise!!!

Well, I never thought that I would be writing about MY birthday. Since usually it comes and goes like a Thursday. But thanks to my sweet friends.....this year I was actually surprised with a little party! I thought that we were going to dinner with a couple of girls.....got over to pick up Cheri and was TOTALLY surprised to find her kitchen full of beautiful girls all there to wish little old me a happy day with Carrot Cake and Barry Manilow. I am so lucky to have such darling friends! Thank you for making me feel special!

**I am thankful for friends that set such a good example for me. They continue to amaze me each time we get to spend time together.**

Happy Birthday Zane

I am so shocked that one year has already flown by! My sweet little angel Zane is 1 year old TODAY!

Zane is the light of my life! He is so happy all the time. When I see him I can't help but to smile. He just recently started walking and it is the cutest thing. He is so tiny still but he cruises around the house in the cutest little way. Zane is so special. He is the favorite of every member of the family. He is so easy to love. Zane has the most lovable eyes. The first few months of his life I waited and waited for Zane's eyes to turn bright blue like all of my other kids. They never did. Instead I find myself in love with a new eye color!

Although I want Zane to stay little FOREVER, I can't help but wonder sometimes what Zane will be like when he is older. I know that being his mom is a blessing. I am thankful every minute of every day for his sweet little spirit.

Happy Birthday my little Zane.

**I am grateful for the quiet little moments that I get to spend with Zane at the end of each day. I pick him up every night before I go to sleep and he snuggles up to me. I can't think of a better way to end each day.**

Determination

It is Spring Little League Season! What a great time of year. We have just finished WEEKS of baseball. Day after day we have been sitting at the ballpark. We have been cheering for Kyle and Isaac 4 nights a week!

Isaac likes baseball. He has lots of fun. His team was in last place for most of the season. He never gave it a second thought! His team is darling and they all had a lot of fun! And.....although they WERE in last place for a while....they made it to the semi-finals! They lost at the semi-finals but they played really well!





HOWEVER.....Kyle's team is currently UNDEFEATED! Which one would think would make Kyle sooooo happy. NOOOOOO! Kyle is on a team with some VERY talented boys. Kyle spends a lot of time on the bench! NO FUN! So for a while - HE POUTED! But.....then he decided that was not doing much good. SOOOOO.....a few phone calls later - and he was off to a personal training session with Grandpa to the batting cages! Hour after hour they have spent at the batting cage. (It is costing me a fortune - but I'm not complaining!) Kyle has now totally changed the way he bats and has started hitting. Then I had to break it to Kyle that he was not the fastest runner! NO POUTING this time! Instead I found Kyle running on my treadmill every morning at 6 a.m. DETERMINATION!!



So I have one boy learning to walk......






and one learning to run!

Next weekend is Kyle's semi-final game. Oh how I pray every day for him to get a big hit!






****I haven't forgotten*****I am grateful for my dad. For caring about Kyle enough to take hours off of work to stand in the heat at the batting cages to build his confidence.

Feeling Gratitude.....

Today as I sit here looking through e-mails and such I feel enormous gratitude. I have so many things to be thankful for. I am so blessed. Therefore, I would like my blog to now reflect how grateful I am for my many, many blessings. Little things happen to me EVERY DAY that are actually HUGE blessings in my life. More than just the very obvious (like my darling children). So......I have decided that from this point on I will always list at LEAST one thing that I am thankful for on each and every blog entry! TODAY I can think of more than one.....

• I am thankful for my Husband, who is such a hard worker. He is currently mowing our lawn in the dark because it is 9:15 at night!
• I am thankful for whoever it was that rented out our vacant house today.
• I am thankful for Ellie's cute friend who had a birthday party this morning. Ellie talked about it all day and carried around her little "goodies" from the party everywhere she went.
• I am thankful for Andy Perkins. He is our faithful A/C guy who came out and fixed the A/C unit at one of our rental properties today for only $60! GO ANDY! (I thought it was going to be hundreds).
• I am thankful for Kyle and Isaac's baseball coaches! They spend a ton of their own valuable time teaching my boys to LOVE baseball.
• I am thankful for my friends. Especially the ones who come visit me while sitting in the hospital and bring me treats!
• I am thankful for my sisters. I love talking to them on the phone. They are sooooo funny! They always make me smile and inspire me to be better. I love hanging out with them. I have the bestest sisters.

To be continued..............................
(on each and every post from here on out!)

Po Baby Zane

Baby Zane has been sick. He threw up, then he threw up more, then after 6 whole days of throwing up every 3 hours, we went to the hospital to get some fluids! I missed baby Zanes cute little smile. I worried about his little body. I prayed for him to be OK.



Thankfully, after a couple days of fluid (and so many prayers) baby Zane is OK. He even smiled at me a few times today. I had great visitors in the hospital. It was so nice when people would stop by to keep me company because it can get to be really long and boring in there.

The greatest part about Zane being in the hospital was that I never had to worry about my other 3 munchkins! Off Ellie went with Grandma on day one....not missing me AT ALL! Then on day two, Becky not only packed a lunch for Kyle and Isaac, but she picked up Ellie first thing in the morning and fixed her interesting hair-doo from Loyd and she then picked up all the kids from school and took them home and fed them. I was never worried because I knew that the kids were so happy. In fact, Ellie woke up the next morning crying that she "wanted her Becky". I am so lucky to have a great family.

Baby Zane is now home where he belongs! He is a couple of pounds lighter but still as sweet as ever.

This Post is for the Cricket Living in my Bathroom

There is a cricket living SOMEWHERE in my bathroom. The other night I listened to him all night long! Why is he in the bathroom when it is so lovely outside right now? I look for him - and look - and look - and whenever I think I am close he stops chirping! (Really Funny) I am sooooooo tired! So - I write this post NOT so that whoever is reading it can think that I am NUTS - but to the CRICKET --

Dear Mr. Cricket,

Just wanted to let you know that soon I will find you. You will not be so happy and chirpy when this happens. I have a GEKO living down the hall, in the other room, who is VERY hungry. When I find you - you will become his dinner. I kindly suggest that you HOP on your way.

Sincerely,

The Sleepy, Grumpy Home Owner

P.S. I have posted a photo below of the GEKO eating one of your buddies - just in case you do not believe me!

Play Group

Every Monday Ellie has Play Group! She loves it! It is the high point of her week! This week Play Group was at our house! We had a great time.

We had nutritious snacks! (OK - they weren't nutritious!)

Then we all dressed up like princesses!

Time for a wardrobe change!!

Then the girls gathered around the only boy they could find in the house and batted their eyelashes!! (Too bad he is only 7 months old!!)

We even went on horse rides!

Ellie LOVES play group and can't wait until next week!

Hero For The Day!!

This is my sis Lisa. She is the BEST! The other morning looked rather GLOOMY (putting it mildly). OK .... truthfully I was a mess! After a battling late night and Ellie throwing up I realized that I would have to call Lisa and cancel my hair appointment with her. I was sad for many reasons:

1. Lisa has the funnest hair Salon. It is called Habit! Sooooo cute!
2. My hair was really looking SAD!
3. I needed a break!

So I call Lisa -- and with a heavy heart I cancel my appointment. Next thing I know, Lisa packs up all of her stuff (hair stuff) and comes riding in on her white horse (well, her white car) and does my hair right here at my house for me! I was like a movie star!! We had a lovely time and my hair looks MARVELOUS! And she SAVED THE DAY! Thank you Lisa! You are great!

Pinewood Derby.....is this fun or what?!

OK. So we just had the Pinewood Derby. This year we had two cars to make because Isaac is now 8 - and therefore in scouts. So, after bugging Loyd and the Boys for days and days they FINALLY started their cars!

This would be Isaac blow drying his car with my blow dryer!

This would be Kyle sanding. Where are his protective glasses? OHHH - Uncle Nate would be so disappointed!

And here is Ellie. Painting in her BRAND NEW OUTFIT!!! WHAT!!?!?!

FINALLY AT THE PINEWOOD DERBY....

We had lots of Race Fans here to support our racers! Including Uncle Wes....who flew in from Houston just for the occasion (and a meeting for work)! Grandad, Grandma and Grandpa Bird came also!

Kyle won a few....lost a few!

Isaac won more than a few!

But Isaac was mostly happy to be there. He has watched Kyle race the Pinewood for 2 years now with great anticipation of this day for himself.

I have many more years of Pinewood Derby to come....

I wonder what Zane's car will look like!

How to Stop Time.....or Do I Want To?

Today we celebrated Kyle's birthday (although his birthday was a few days ago). I remember so well the day that Kyle was born, which is weird because I can't remember 2 days ago? When Kyle was born he was perfect in every way except that nobody could get him to cry! So they (the nurses) wisked him off to the nursery to be "examined" and "watched". Loyd followed him - at my request - because I was SURE that someone would surely try to switch my cute baby with their ugly one!! Anyway......after SEVERAL reports from Loyd that Kyle was fine and 5 hours had gone by.... my HORMONES kicked into OVERDRIVE and I decided I would like to see my NEW BABY!! I called the nursery SCREAMING and CRYING! (Not really my best moment!) Soon I had Kyle in my arms and I held him until we left the hospital.....and most of the next MONTH!! Yes, I admit that I have been known to HOG my children! I let people hold them BRIEFLY!!

But a very vivid memory is when Kyle was about one week old and I was sitting in bed in the middle of the night feeding him and Loyd woke up and I said "I want him to stay like this forever". Of course, he didn't. But then, every stage that he came to I remember thinking- Oh, this is fun......I want him to stay like THIS forever!! Kyle is now 10 years old! And I don't know how it can get any better. He is such a wonderful, talented, smart, sweet, amazing boy. He is a wonderful brother to Isaac.....they don't know it but they actually are best friends. They hang out perfectly together, laughing and having the best of times! He is so sweet to Ellie. If you figure Ellie out she can be so easy to get along with.....Kyle figured this out not to long ago and she LOVES him so much! And Kyle is such a big help with Zane. I am so glad that Zane will have such an amazing example to look up to.

Happy Birthday Kyle. I love you more than you will ever know.

Dancing in the Rain

Last sunday we had a lesson and I think this was the title of it but I guess I don't know for sure....either way up on the board in big letters was this...."Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass......It is about learning to dance in the rain". I had to think and think about this because I started to wonder if I had learned to "dance in the rain" this past year. I have been waiting to close the door on 2008 since it began because I knew it was going to be very hard from the beginning. It was hard for me to see all of the things I had to look forward to this year because I mostly looked forward to December 31st. As I look back on the past year (and listen to my Relief Society Lesson) I realize that I need to fix a few little things about myself. No.....I am not looking for a compliment here.....I just thought about the amazing year that I just had. To begin with.....I had the sweetest baby known to man. That in itself should have just made my year. But many other wonderful things have happened along the way and I have learned so many things about me and my family. I have learned to be positive and find good things around me even when it seems bad things are smothering you. But I don't know for sure that I "learned to dance".

So......2009.......bring on the rain. I am ready. By the end of this year I will be dancing come rain or shine! I am going to overlook the imperfections of those around me because I have so many myself. I am going to focus on what is important. I am going to be positive and find the good in each day and in others. I am going to loose myself in the service of others, and instead of "learning to deal with my situation" I am going to make my situation better. I am going to find the silver lining in whatever this year brings. At the end of this year I will be sorry to see it go (instead of happy) and proud of what I have accomplished.

So here's to 2009 (and lots of dancing)!