Special Night

Last night, my hubby & I had our families over for a Pre-Christmas dinner. It’s so hard to spend much time with everyone when we’re trying to make our rounds on Christmas Eve & Christmas so we decided that since we have our house now…we can invite our family over and spend a little more quality time with everyone. We’re so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Another reason why last night was a special night is because it marked our one year anniversary since we’ve moved into our house. I can’t believe we’ve lived in our house for one year…time is flying by.

I hope you all have a wonderful and very Merry Christmas!!!

Will I ever be smart?

Well, I’ve made a big decision….I’ve decided to go back to college. I’m going back to get my MS in Curriculum & Instruction, concentrating in reading.

I’ve had some circumstances happen this year (at work) that have opened my eyes to the fact that I might not want to be a classroom teacher for the rest of my life. I want to have options and I know I need to do something now before I have kids.

So, I go back to school this spring and will hopefully be finished next spring. I’m taking 9 hours this spring so start praying for me now!

I can’t believe……

..that I’ve been married for 3 years!!! That’s right, today is our 3rd anniversary. Three years ago I stood up in front of my closest friends and family and promised to love Steven for the rest of my life. I seriously can’t believe it’s been 3 years already!

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful and loving husband. I did a really good job of picking Mr. Right. He’s sweet, loving, caring and treats me like the queen I am (most of the time). haha Of course, we have our moments…but we always work through our disagreements and come out stronger than before.

The past 3 years have been fun and full of changes. We started our married life out in a small duplex and quickly found out that we needed more space. We have taken some fun trips, Steven got sick…that was a pretty tough time, but he finally pulled through....we both have changed jobs and we built our first home. I’m really excited to see what this next year has in store for us.

I have a picture hanging in my house that says: once in a while, in the middle of an ordinary life, love comes along and brings you a Fairy Tale…. It doesn’t get much better than that! My prayer is that God will continue to bless our marriage for many, many, many more years to come.

Christmas Time!!!

I finally got my Christmas tree up and decorated this past weekend. I love Christmas time, but I was determined to not put up my tree and decorations until after Thanksgiving.

My Christmas tree is so special…it tells our love story…of all the exciting places my hubby & I have traveled to… Every vacation we go on I always pick up a Christmas ornament.

We also got married a week before Christmas (almost 3 years ago) so of course we had a beautiful Christmas wedding. Some of my closest friends gave us an ornament shower and I just love putting all those beautiful ornaments on my tree every year that our beloved friends and family gave us… It’s so special.

Steven gave me this ornament the day we got married.

We went to the Bahamas for our honeymoon and swam with the dolphins. We stayed at a Sandals Resort...it was beautiful. I wish we were there now!

We went to Vegas for our 1st anniversary (Dec. '07)

This ornament was giving to us by Paula & Dave when we moved into our new home last year!

My dream is to someday go back to NYC during Christmas time!

Happy Thanksgiving

This was our first Thanksgiving in our new house. My hubby decided to cook prime rib so we decided to invite all our family over for Thanksgiving dinner. We entertained 20 people!

I love Thanksgiving…it’s such a wonderful holiday. I’m so thankful for all the many blessings that I enjoy every day of my life. I’m thankful for my family and friends, my home, my health, my country, my church & church family…I’m especially thankful and blessed to have such a wonderful hubby and most of all I’m thankful for Jesus and his great sacrifice for me and for the forgiveness of my sins.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my bloggy friends!

49 & Holding!

Yesterday was my mother-in-laws 49th birthday! We celebrated by going to Roadhouse (Teresa’s most favorite place to eat) then had birthday cake with the whole family.

Gavin was our entertainment for the evening…he was loving all the attention. Happy Birthday Teresa!!!

Our Backyard

I love fall! I love when the leaves start turning colors. Take a look at the view my hubby & I enjoy from our back patio. It’s so beautiful… the pictures don’t do it justice.

Weekend Getaway

Last weekend my hubby & I went to Dallas for a weekend getaway. We stayed with our Dallas family, Dave & Paula. They’re really not related to us but while I was living in Dallas, they treated me like family and I even lived with them for a year before I moved back home. It is always so much fun to go back and visit with them. I always look forward to our visits.

Our main goal for going to Dallas last weekend was to do some Christmas shopping but we ended up only buying for ourselves…which is usually the case. We went to Denton on Saturday to meet up with my best friend from college, Bonny, and her new hubby, Kirk. It was so nice to visit with them and catch up. Then we went to a UNT football…they aren’t very good this year…so we stayed until halftime then left to do more shopping. We ate like pigs all weekend! I loved it. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends!

Happy Haunting!

Here's a look at my little spooks...Enjoy!!

Gavin (Bugs Bunny)

Kristian & I made his costume.

Makenna


Gage
(I'm not sure what he was...but he was scaring Gavin half-to-death!)

Skyler & Taylor (my cousins)

Hope you have a great & safe Halloween!!!!

I tried…..

I tried to do something cute for my kidos' Halloween party…I’m not sure how successful I was. I saw the idea in my Southern Living magazine. (FYI: I LOVE Southern Living!!!) I tried to copy the idea and this is how it turned out….

I wasn’t too disappointed considering this is how they were supposed to look.
I guess, when it all comes down to it….it was the thought that counted. My kids were excited when I handed them out…so I was happy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Royal Walk 2009

This past weekend, Gage and Makenna both participated in the annual Royal Walk held at our school. The Royal Walk is like a little pageant; each elementary class picks a boy and a girl to represent them. Gage was picked by his 4th grade class and Makenna was picked by her 3rd grade class.

They were both cute as a button and Makenna and her partner, Hunter, actually won the whole thing. She was so beautiful. They made a very cute couple. Gage and his partner, Harley, were very cute as well. All the couples, for that matter, were adorable…I’m glad I wasn’t a judge! It would have been a hard decision.

Makenna was very excited to be crowned queen, she even wore her crown to church the next morning to show it off.

Makenna and Hunter

The Queen & King
Gage & Harley

The proud mama (Kayla) Gavin

save the ta-tas

I will begin this blog with a brief history of why I ran the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure. For at least 8 years now I have wanted to run a marathon or something to the effects of a marathon. After several “attempts” and “failures” to get in marathon shape I gave up on the goal to run any kind of race……

Back in January of this year I decided it was time to get in shape. I wasn’t trying to loose weight, I just wanted to tone up and be healthier. Kayla and I started working out in my living room to work out shows I recorded.

When spring finally arrived we started going out to the park to walk and run a few laps. That’s when I decided now was the time to run that race I’ve never had the discipline to train for and run.

I have trained all year long to run the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure 5K that’s held in Texarkana every year. During the summer I made myself get out of bed and go to the park to train, and I have continued to train even with the weather being as bad as it’s been lately. I’ve trained at the park and on my in-laws’ tread mill. The closest I’ve gotten to running 3.1 miles was 2 weeks ago and I only ran 2.5 miles and it took me 40 minutes to do that, so I’ve been very worried that I wasn’t going to be able to complete the race.

Morning of the Race
Yesterday, my sister, Kristian, and my 2 cousins, Kara & Erin met at my house at 6:45am to make the trip to downtown Texarkana to “run” the race. Erin & I were going to run; Kara & Kristian were going to walk it.

We got there really early, I thought the race started at 8am but it really didn’t start until 8:30 so we did a lot of walking around trying to stay warm (it was about 40-50 degrees yesterday morning).

Finally, it was time for us to get in line to start the race….the anticipation begin to build….I was so excited and nervous all at the same time. When the gun went off….it just about scared us all half-to-death…but then, we were off. We all started out running so we could break away from the pack, but about ½ mile into the race Kara & Kristian started walking. Erin & I were off…we had a good pace going and I was feeling good. Erin is only 14 years old and she has really long legs so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to sustain her pace for the whole race but I was going to try.

It seemed like we had been running forever and I hadn’t seen a marker telling us how far we’d ran. I asked Erin if she knew how far we’d ran and she said, “we past the 1 mile marker a long time ago…we’re getting close to two miles.” I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear that because I thought I was going to die if we hadn’t already gotten to at least one mile…I was hurting! Finally, we saw the 2 mile marker….I knew we were getting much closer…but I was really hurting by then! The whole time I kept thinking how bad I wanted to stop and walk, but I didn’t, we just kept running.

Finally we saw the 3 mile marker and knew it was almost over….then the finish line came into sight I think we got a spurt of energy because we sped up to pass some people at the last minute. When we crossed the finish line I asked a woman what time it was and she said 8:57…. I thought, dang, that took us 57 minutes to run….but then, I remembered…the race didn’t start at 8:00…it started at 8:30! We ran 3.1 miles in 27 minutes!!!!!!! I was so happy I almost started crying!!! We both couldn’t believe it!!!

If it weren’t for Erin….I don’t know if I would have reached my goal and ran the whole race…I defiantly know I wouldn’t have ran it in 27 minutes! She was the BEST partner ever!

This is us before the race.

This is Erin & I after the race….much warmer and red faced.

This is Kara & Kristian after the race.

They walked/jogged the course in 40 minutes!

These are the amazing women I know that have had, fought and beat breast cancer. It was such an honor to wear their names on my back.

Girls, we have to take care of ourselves….watch your breast and check them every month! Go to the doctor if you notice any changes….it might save your life!!!!

And one more bit of advice….don’t ever give up on your hopes and dreams! It might take you 8 years to finally bite the bullet and do it, but I promise you…when you achieve something you’ve wanted to do…it’s the greatest feeling in the world!

Family Royalty

This past Thursday I went to the junior high football game to watch my cousin Erin represent her 8th grade class as homecoming princess.

She was beautiful!!! Congratuations Erin!

Gavin's 3rd birthday

This past Sunday was Gavin’s 3rd birthday. It’s so hard to believe he’s that old. We met at my mom’s house for cake and ice cream and of course presents!

He loved opening his gifts....Christmas should be fun this year!!

Super Man cake

This is what his aunt Chelle gave him for his 3rd b-day.