Life is changing

Well, things are getting spiced up once again. My darling, my heart, my sweet angel boy has hit another milestone. Climbing. I know that my dearest love is 14 months tomorrow, so I've been blessed to only just now be dealing with it. Here is where he decided to eat his snack after nap time today.




Can we just look at all the facets of this picture? First of all, sitting on the floor to eat a mix of cheerios and goldfish just doesn't cut it any more. He has to eat them on the fire place. In order to get up there he has to put the cup up there first, then use all 4 limbs to climb the foot off the floor that is our fireplace, then get all situated before picking the cup back up to eat. Then there is Daisy. She practically smothers him to get at all the pieces that don't quite make it to his mouth. Finally there is the direction of his eyes. If you knew me personally and have been to my house, then you know what he is looking at. The TV. Does life get any better for a baby? A good snack, a good show, no clothes, and a new outlook on life (you know, a more elevated one).

OH. He's also walking.

Dinner- success!

Before I talk about my successful dinner, I have to say I was disappointed in Wal Mart today. I was supposed to babysit at our church's preschool today, for all of the teacher's kids while the teacher's were in a meeting (school starts in two weeks). After I had already gotten all ready and fed Luke I got a call that none of the teachers had brought their kids so I wasn't needed. Fine by me!! I took the opportunity to run up to Wal Mart for diapers and conditioner (don't you hate it when you accidentally buy two shampoos?) and I was sorely dissapointed in the number of people there. You couldn't even tell it was the middle of the work day! Don't you people have work to do? Hmph. Good thing I avoid that place until necessary.

Whilst at Wal Mart I got a call from the oral surgeon's office about costs of the surgery. Holy moly it turned into a slight ordeal. I have coverage from my old dental insurance until August 31st, and new coverage from Cody's work starts Sept. 1st, but the new insurance wouldn't talk to the surgeon's office until my coverage started. I ended up calling FOUR TIMES to the insurance, and FOUR TIMES to the surgeon's office, but I think I've got it worked out.

So now on to the dinner. I made home made meat ball subs, and they were sooooo yummy! I had no idea it was so easy to make meatballs, I will definitely be doing that again. Plus I have an extra pound of hamburger meat in the freezer that I have no idea what to do with. And I have three meat balls left over for one more sandwich. I would have it for lunch tomorrow, but my new friend Taylor is coming over and I'm making chicken salad. My favorite!

And now to continue with the nostalgia theme:


Luke was about 3 months in this picture. I took it just for the bib. We are Texans through and through.

Us and some old people

This morning after breakfast I took Luke to the grocery store. Can I just tell you how amazing it is to go to the store when everyone else is working? There were maybe 10 other patrons in the store, and I am not even kidding, they were all 65+ years old. Awesome! I got the ingredients for meatball subs that Melanie posted, which I plan on making for dinner tomorrow night. Oooooo, my tummy is growling just thinking about it. I can't wait to go to Wal Mart during the middle of the day. The whole place will be MINE!!!

Today was the first day I kept two kids for a couple of hours. Wednesdays I will keep these two kids from 2:30 to 4:30 and Thursdays from 9:00 to 1:30 every couple of weeks. Not a bad gig! The little girl, T, is 4 and she was cracking me up. At one point she decided we were going to play pretend birthday party, and the theme to the party was old ladies. What?!? Who ever heard of a kid playing old lady birthday party? This should be good for a few stories every now and then.

Not a relevant picture. Just being nostalgic. Luke at 4 days old:

Peaceful Day

Today I finally got a day to slow down and enjoy being at home for a little while. I was supposed to have my consultation with the oral surgeon today at 2:00, but this morning they cancelled on me due to the dr. being sick. Woo hoo! That meant the only thing I had to do today was dinner with some friends tonight!

Melanie and David are a couple that we have known from college, and they had their little girl, Madison, three days after Luke arrived. They have been in town for the last month and we just finally got to hang out tonight. It was so fun! Plus Madison and Luke flirted with each other off and on, so that was fun too. ;)

Last week I thought I was possibly pregnant and while I was waiting for the results I had a chance to get past the freak-out and get excited. It turns out I wasn't, and while I am complete sold on the fact that this is not a good time for us, it didn't take away from the fact that I was disappointed about not getting to be pregnant again. So I've been trying to think of all the good things about not being knocked up.

-I don't have to tell my friends who are having trouble conceiving that I'm accidentally pregnant again. (I have two friends who want babies and are in my prayers, my heart is so heavy for them.)
-Cody and I are not stable enough to withstand another major change.
-I don't have to feel guilty, like it's all my fault.
-I wouldn't be able to pay for it.
-My insurance runs out next week.
-I'm not going to get fat.
-I don't have to drink water.
-I can continue to rely solely on coffee and Dr. Pepper to quench my thirst.
-I won't have to try and nurse due to the inability to afford formula.
-I don't have to go through the guest room and figure out where to put everything so the baby could have that room.
-I can have sushi whenever I want.
-I don't have to stress about whether I will be lucky enough to miss the stretch-mark boat again.
-In 8 months I'll still be able shave my legs.
-In 9 months I won't have to give birth.

Nope. A part of me is still disappointed. Just don't tell Cody.

Of course she would...

How is it possible that life seems busier as a stay at home mom than as a working mom? We have had something to do every day for the past week and a half, and it's not stopping anytime soon! Today was the first day of school, and for the first time in my life I was not a part of the hoopla. And you know what? It felt really good. Really natural. I would have LOVED to have spent the day on the couch, just because I can, but unfortunately I had an appointment for Luke. I took him to the developmental pediatrician because our regular pediatrician is concerned that he is delayed in a few areas of development, namely in the areas of language and social skills. The specialist today was very encouraging though- she thinks he is just a late bloomer rather than actually delayed! Praise Jesus for that!

Also today I had to take D Dog to the vet. *sigh* There was $125 I would have rather spent on something else. I even took her to the vet completely dirty. The girl hasn't had a bath in weeks, not to mention her condition the last few days. The vet wasn't exactly sure of what was wrong with her, but she got fluids for being slightly dehydrated and pills to help her colon. Also I was told that she should really stay indoors in a bathroom or somewhere with tile as opposed to outside because of the heat and how small she is. She HATES being pinned up in the kitchen and will cry and whine about it, but that's her new home right now. She even cowers when she sees me get out the baby gate.

I was watching TV just now before going to bed and I realized I hadn't heard her pathetically whimpering in a while. I crept over the baby gate and this is where I found her.


Those are actually clean clothes she is sleeping on. More specifically LUKE'S clean clothes that I hadn't put away yet. I guess that's what I get not putting her bed in with her and for leaving the laundry room door open. Anyone want to come an extra load of laundry for me?

For the love of humanity

This afternoon when Luke and I got home from church, we were greeted by an unpleasant smell. This was very foreboding seeing as Daisy Dog has had some kind of poop-issue the last couple of days. She is very well potty trained, but the last couple of days it's been like she just can't make it to the back door. So just to make sure nothing happened on the carpet while I was out, I made sure all the bed room doors were shut.

Back to the present- so when I walked in to the living room all I could see where a couple of pieces of poo and I thought "Bummer. No big deal, but I'm glad it's not terrible." THEN I walked around the side of the couch. It was awful. This poor dog couldn't even make it off the couch and made a horrendous mess everywhere. Plus she had smeared it all over the floor. Cody was taking a shower, so I ran into the bathroom and almost threw up on him as I begged for him to get out and clean it up. There was NO WAY I was able to....the smell was over whelming. Even now when I shut my eyes I can still see it and have a strong desire to gag. Awesome Sunday huh?

Not wanting to end on a nasty note, I put some stuff in a good friend's garage sale. Said good friend is moving to Abilene (noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!) and needed to purge before boxing up. I made $35 off of junk I was sick of looking at! I am not sure what I'm going to spend my hard earned money on. And when I mean hard earned, I mean I sat from 7:30-11 visiting with friends and eating donuts. Donuts were my contribution. They thought I was being nice, but really I would have just felt really guilty if I had shown up with donuts just for me and chowed down while they stared longingly at my fried pastry goodness.

New routine and a few tears

I am a person who thrives on order. I need a set schedule, a time and a place for everything. Otherwise, nothing gets done. The one glaring shortfall of my lack of schedule is carving out a daily quiet time with the Lord. With no predetermined time for this to happen, the day gets away from me and by then end I'm too tired for any soul searching to happen. So today I've changed that. From 3-4 every afternoon is the Lord's time. Luke is almost always asleep, there is nothing good on t.v., and it's too early to start in with dinner and evening activities. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I did today and I started immediately. Already I've gotten amazing results.

The first thing I did (besides spend some time face-down in the carpet) was get out my Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. If you don't have one, GET ONE! It's amazing how the same scripture read over and over will change once you find out what one little word means. Not knowing where to start in my bible, I just happened to flip to Philemon. I started reading and came to verse 6: "and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge...." Now I had always just assumed it meant sharing as in evangelizing. But something told me to look that word up. It actually means to have "fellowship, the close association between persons, emphasizing what is common between them". How cool is that! As if I really needed another reason to fellowship with my brothers and sister in Christ.

But this is where the Lord really spoke to me. This is why I was meant to read the bible today. Here is verses 14-16:

"but I preferred to do nothing without our consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother-especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord."

How desperately I needed to hear that. Those words were a healing salve on my broken heart. As soon as I read them I was just overcome with emotion, I'm even crying again just rereading them. Cody and I will be okay. He will come back to me. I KNOW it. God is working some things out in us, and he will be mine forever. But not only mine forever, he will be stronger in the Lord. Thank you Jesus for speaking to deep wounds and having grace that is sufficient enough and strength that is renewed each morning.

Bed head and more spaghetti

So, occasionally Luke wakes up with the worst bed head ever. This kid gets sweaty while he sleeps, and couple that with tossing and turning (I'm assuming) and WHOA NELLY you get quite a look. Here is an example of a couple of months ago:

And here is today:
But this smile tells me he doesn't care too much:

He had a good nap that I had to wake him up from- I'm trying not to let him sleep past 4 any more so that he is ready for bed at night. So mean! He had really worn himself out throwing fits at the mall playground today. Luke has this one really harsh mom that won't let him crawl out the front gate alone or play with other people's strollers. Oh the crying that was involved. Then tonight I made him eat the dreaded spaghetti again. This is how he told me how he felt, and this time there were actual tears involved:

It was awesome, and it took two washings in the bath to get all the food out of his hair and off of his face. I am determined that this kid will like spaghetti one day! The only way I could get any down him was to mix it with a diced plum, so that the noodle bits stuck to the fruit. Yum yum. Man, these make me realize how badly he needs a hair cut. All things considered, I think we've had better days. And for anyone keeping tally: Spaghetti-3 Luke-0

Blah

So apparently I'm a bad weekend blogger. Not that I didn't have a great weekend, I actually had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday night some good girlfriends came over and we had wine, girl talk, and toe-nail polish fun. I love having those kinds of nights, but it made me miss sleepovers. A couple of weeks ago when I went to Abilene for Kendra's wedding shower I got to bunk in her bed with her, and it was so fun to whisper after lights out until we fell asleep. Don't you miss those days? Sunday was typical church day fun- bible class, church, lunch, got straight in bed when I got home and we woke up 30 minutes before life group started that night. Talk about a lazy day!

Cody has been gone all weekend, but he comes home tonight. Whew! I missed that kid, and I'm totally drained from a weekend of single parenting. Not to mention he wasn't here to see Luke take some of his first steps. I got three out of him today before he realized what was going on and sat down! Cody was supposed to be home last night, but finally at 12 AM I called his BFF (because Cody's phone had died of course) to find out where they were and they were still at the Gulf! I refrained from making any snide "thanks for the heads-up" comments and just told him I would see him today as cheerfully as I could.

Also on Saturday I whipped up this:


It only took me about 1 1/2 hours to make it! That's including drawing and cutting out the letters. I'm trying to get faster and better. Here's a close up of the letters:


Luke has used it after bath time the last couple of days, so I'm interested to see how it holds up in the wash. Speaking of bath...we have a new favorite game:


I like to call it "let me throw everything out of the tub filled with water and create a flood on the floor". Beware- I hear it's catching on like crazy in the mid-west. Where is the mid-west anyway? Could Oregon be considered the mid west? It's the middle stated on the west coast. Hmm. That really is a toughie. Have I mentioned I'm drained? Hence the reason for "blah". Thank goodness I didn't have to go back to work today. Today was the first day back for teachers, and it was odd that almost everyone I know was at work, yet I was at the mall trying on glasses. More about that next week. Ashley and I took Mom out for ice cream when she was done today. That was a tradition that we had growing up; on our first day back to school Mom would always take us to Braum's for ice cream, so we surprised her today. Yummmm...who doesn't like ice cream 2 hours before dinner?

Fun day

Today was a really fun day, as I knew it would be due to my completion of housework yesterday. First of all, after I scooped out my coffee for the coffee pot, this was what happened to be at the bottom of the canister.

I didn't create this, I am not kidding. How can it not be a good day after a coffee smiley face? At 11 we went to the pool with my dad, whom Luke just adores. It's so funny to see him get all giddy about his Papa! Mom got there late because her school had orientation today. We stayed at the pool until 12:45, so I'm hoping this momma has more of a tan tomorrow than I did yesterday. When we got home from the pool I fed Luke lunch, where I had a brilliant moment to let him feed applesauce to himself while I unloaded the dishwasher. Here's what I got when I turned back around.

Do you see where the spoon is? What was I thinking? Although, I don't think he minded the mess too much.
I am pretty sure it will be years before I let him feed applesauce to himself again. He had to get a bath to get it all off. He finally went down for his nap at 1:15 and he didn't get up until 5:30. Child wore himself out! What did I do during this luxurious nap time? Nothing, just like I predicted. Then we played and I cut out the letters of his name to make a hooded towel for him. It's a double win- I get to practice stitching around letters some more and he gets a cute new towel. And now I'm wondering if I should go take the toys out of his crib, because instead of going to sleep I am currently listening to him loudly tell them something very important.

Aye yi yiiiii

So, my quick clean up wasn't so quick today. My house was in much worse condition than what I had originally evaluated. It took me allllllll day to get my house back into presentable condition, and it didn't help that Luke's nap was 2 hours shorter than normal. Apparently even 13 month olds can feel and react to time crunches. So it was good that we had friends over tonight, other wise my house would have just gotten worse and worse and I wouldn't have even realized it. That and now I can wake up tomorrow and guilelessly sit around because I know my house work is all done.

We had a great time with our friends tonight! I don't know why we don't have people over more often. It was so nice to sit and visit forever, and not have the rush of someone waiting to turn over your table (plus I didn't have to wear shoes). We sat and talked until 10. On a school night! Well, I guess more of a work night. For them. Not me. Anyway, thanks for coming over Katy and Brandon!

Now on a totally different note, my sister gave me her Proactive face stuff last week to use, she is switching to something else. While the Proactive has taken care of my dire blackhead situation, a battle I have fought winlessly for years on my nose and chin, it's not doing anything for the actual pimple I have. Is it too soon to tell if it's not going to work? Don't tell me this is one of those things that has to get worse before it gets better. I already had to quit using my wrinkle cream because it made me break out. How wrong is that. I either have a wrinkle and no zits, or a slightly less noticeable wrinkle and several zits. Not a choice I should have to make. Anyway, I think I'm just going to wear a bee keepers hat and not worry about what I'm using on my face. Then no one will see the wrinkle, the zits, OR the blackheads. Problem solved.

This picture has nothing to do with my post, I just love it. It's his 6 month picture.

Finished!

After three days of obsessive compulsive crafting, I finished my bag. There was much back ache, many seams ripped, mucho do-overs, but it's done. I am very pleased with it, except for the binding around the top. I couldn't get it to be smooth and not crease! Without further ado:

And the inside: (it has another pocket on the other side too) (okay, I don't know why it is sideways. I've tried twice to fix it. Weird. If I was with you I would rub your neck from the craning injury you are about it inquire)

I absolutely love the paisley print, it's what got this whole thing started. I have some left over, and I can't decide what to do with it! I would fabric my whole house with this print, but I'm thinking that would be a little excessive. Maybe a pillow for the couch? By now your are probably wondering what I made this impressive bag on. My mother let me borrow this:

But that's just a cabinet, you say. Ahh, how looks can be deceiving. It actually unfolds to this!

Now just to prove that this is the oldest usable sewing machine known to man, I took a picture of the owner's manual. Seeing that she got this before I was born, I'm pretty sure the 25 year warranty is expired.

After I finished the bag I tried to get caught up on some housework because we are having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night. I cleaned both bathrooms and have done 3 loads of laundry, along with making dinner and going to church tonight. What did you say? Oh yes, I am super mom.

Who needs chores?

So, the last two days I have forsaken everything else to make my bag. It's been......interesting. When I get a craft idea, I can't do anything else until it's done. Did I feed my child? Yes. Did I let my dog outside? Once. Did I stick to my chore chart? Absolutely not. I have set for myself a chore chart to have some accountability on when things get done. It's nothing fancy or extreme: Monday- clean bathrooms Tuesday- do laundry Wednesday- ironing Thursday- clean floors. All the other little things like dusting, wiping down the whole kitchen, etc. get done on an as needed basis. Or more accurately, on a as guests come basis. How many people really dust their house EVERY single week? Maybe that's why my allergies are so bad.....

Another thing I have started is Beth Moore's Breaking Free book. I tried to read it once before, but only got a couple of chapters into it before life caught up with me and stole my interest. This time is different though. I have wholeheartedly committed myself to memorizing the scripture that goes with it, ashamed at what little scripture I know by heart seeing I've gone to church my entire life. The study is exactly what I need. Cody and I still struggle in our marriage and I can tell that being more open in God's word has a profound positive impact on us. This thing that we are in, it's almost like an addiction- when we are good we are really, really good...but when we are bad, oh, it's so bad. To help hide the Word in my heart I've put my ring of index cards where I've written different verses on my wallet cord. When we are at the store I try and read Luke a couple of different verses as we walk around and I practice the ones I am trying to commit to memory. My biggest fear is raising a son that is wishy washy in the Lord (well, my biggest fear after my fear of losing my husband). I hope that setting these examples now will impact him in the future and he will be a better man for it.

Recap baby!

Here's a what's happened to Momma and Lukie over the last couple of days:

-Friday: Luke slept in until 10 (yes, be jealous, but it was a one time thing) and right when we got up I got a text from the girls that they were meeting at the mall for play time at 10:30. I hustled Luke through breakfast and managed to get out of the house by 10:45. Yes! But that meant Momma didn't get a shower, so I declared it hat day for the Carver family. If my teenage self had known I would show up to the mall basically having just rolled out of bed, I might have died of embarrassment. This is what a true momma looks like:

Notice the hand in mid air- it's my attempt to keep that finger out of his mouth whilst the shutter is clicking. The next picture is his absolute favorite thing to do while we're there. This, and try and take strange ladies cell phones. We have no stranger danger.

-Saturday: I took myself out to Ft. Worth to the Cabbage Rose fabric shop. Ohhhh, I was in heaven. I could have sat in that place and dreamed of all the things to make forever. I went in for two yards of vintage western fabric to decorate a denim bag for toys, but of course I saw some amazing things and came home with this instead:

The packet is a pattern for a bag. Eek! I've never used a pattern before, I generally just sit down and make stuff. But I spent about 5x what I meant to so this bag better turn out perfect. Good thing Cody doesn't read this, he might be a little upset. Mom is letting me borrow her sewing machine so hopefully in a week or so Luke will have a new bag to take toys to church or where ever in!

-Sunday: This morning I actually let Luke wear shorts to church. But he had a cute new brown oxford on, khaki shorts, and brown leather loafers, so I thought he looked super handsome. I wanted to get a picture, but I will next time. 10 minutes into the service I had a bad mommy moment where Luke took a tumble into the isle, made a loud THUNK on the floor with the back of his head, and immediately started screaming. I scooped him up and ran out the back door, horrified at what just happened. *sigh* Tonight was the going away party for a couple at church, who have sold everything to move to China and be missionaries for a year. They have a son that is a month younger than Luke, so he's sad his friend is going away. :( I did get a picture of us before we left though. Kelly always has such cute pictures of herself and her daughter, so I thought I better up the anti.

Perfume

Naptime is hosting a Friday Favorites about perfume, and since I love mine I thought I would jump on board. When I wear perfume, which unfortunately isn't as often as I would like because I forget, I wear Chanel Chance. As with all Chanel in general it is very distinctive. My goal is for someone to smell the scent somewhere and automatically think of me. Is that vain? Tough. Plus I absolutely love it and feel divine wearing it. I wish you could scratch the picture of the bottle and sniff it!


I've been wearing it for a few years now, but I've gone through lots to find my love. For instance, CK1 will always be the scent of middle school. I thought I was so cool wearing it, and I needed those cool points because I was the dorkiest kid ever. It pains me to see the pictures. High school was all about body spray- you could get 50 for the price of perfume and smell different every day. The idea of "signature" hadn't quite dawned on me yet.

All hail the Garmen

Have I told you lately how much I love the my Garmen? It allows me to go a myriad of places I would never dare to venture before. I am so spatially challenged it's pathetic. I've lived in this here town since I was 7 and I STILL get lost in it. Don't feel sorry for me (anymore), I have a little screen on my windshield to save the day now. It even takes me home. Tonight I went to see my friends Brandy and John at Medical City. Before I had my miracle screen I would have NEVER ventured into unknown lands alone. But, now that I am confident on all city streets, I was able to go. If you don't know the story of the Sloan's crazy week, you can read it here. Anyway, Luke and I went over and visited for a while, which was really nice. I did go during rush hour traffic, which was not the best planning on my part, but I figured it was okay since I really didn't have anywhere to be and to be a true member of the metroplex you must drive in rush hour at least a couple of times a year. Even though I was feeling no road rage what so ever, I was tempted to tail gate and honk and shake my fist at someone just for the heck of it. Then I remembered that I love Jesus and continued to sing to the radio.

After our hospital visit Luke and I did a little shopping. I'm in the market to get some new glasses, but I really don't want to take the time to pick anything out. Which is silly because I really have nothing but time. Just the thought of having to figure out what frames to get makes me tired. Then we went to the fabric store to look for something for me to make Luke a bag with. I have the picture in my head of what I want- vintage cowboy- but the selection was very disappointing . Anyone know of any good fabric shops in the area? If I'm going to start making things I need a good selection!

More trouble than it's worth

So today I got an IKEA catalogue in the mail. How we got on their mailing list I'll never know, but it's the closest thing to adult reading material I've had in a long time. As I was hungrily pouring over each lovely page, it made me realize how bad I want a new couch. Isn't that silly, to want a new couch when I have a little boy and a big little boy who can't let a day go by without spilling something? I know it will be YEARS before I will get a new couch, not only because of $$ but HELLO! who gets new furniture when there is a boy approaching adolescents? I may not have had any brothers, but I've been in plenty of college boy houses to know not to get anything nice until there are no boys around. :) Anyway, I'm dreaming of something like this:

The style is not quiet as cushy and inviting, but do you know how long it took me to find a kelly green couch? This isn't as bright as I want, but it's the closest thing. My new obsession is blues and greens. I think having a green couch would be so fun! Can you believe I spent nearly 2 hours trying to find something perfect and still couldn't? I found pink couches, sky blue couches, yellow couches, and every other shade of green out there, but not bright kelly green. Oh well. Good thing I can't purchase anyway. Maybe this is the reason for my blue and green obsession:

A boy will do that to you. This is Luke at Halloween, he was 4 months old, and he's sitting on our red couch. I used to be obsessed with red, and it will come in handy because the color hides a multitude of sins. We've already tested that out. But I'm on my way to being done with warm reds and have moved on to the cooler palettes.

Luke vs. Spaghetti

Tonight I tried to give Luke spaghetti for dinner again. Didn't work out so well. I am pretty sure he will be up at 4:00 in the morning starved due to his lack of dinner intake. Usually this kid fills his belly up so full he looks like Santa with a bowl full of jelly, but he barely ate tonight. I would have given him something else to eat, but I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow. So the tally is now:

Spaghetti-2 Luke-0

Although, I'm pretty sure he was faking the tears and the tantrums, because I did get this picture too.

I think I'm in trouble.

Anniversary

Well, today was our 6 year anniversary. The day itself was pretty uneventful- church, nap, 3 episodes of Law and Order:SVU, and a fancy date night. We went to the Capitol Grill in Dallas and had a wonderful dinner. I wish I could say that the last 6 years have been the best years of my life. While some absolutely have been, others....not so much. There are lots and lots of things I would do different if I could go back in time, and although I can't, I can take these lessons that I've learned and not only apply them in the future, but I can hopefully help someone else along the way. Isn't that what life is all about? I think we have fallen into just about every single marital pitfall you can encounter. I mean ALL of them. I choose to view these as things that will make us stronger in the future and make our success story that much more exciting. What good is a story without twists and turns?

August 2, 2003:My daddy walking me down the isle. This show is on the road!

This picture didn't scan in so well, but it's my favorite one of all. I have this one blown up in the living room. Our pictures weren't digital, so I only have a few of them on the computer that we scanned in years ago.

Yes, my cake was blue. I designed it myself, drawing out each tier of swirlys for the decorator!