Balance

I am working on the constant balancing act that we all have in life. Working on finding time in my schedule for my at home job, working on two or three mega blogs/writing posts, spending time with my kids, cleaning (I think I'm getting better although anyone would laugh if they saw my house right now), giving each kid the help they need to grow, spending QT with Mattie, and finding recharge time for myself. I do know that there is always time in my schedule for pizzadillas and a movie with my family, QT with the hubby, and when a friend shoots me a text asking for wine and dessert that I can be there, followed by four hours of chit chat. I haven't found the solution to global hunger, warming, or wars, but my heart is content. It's a good place to be, despite the mess, we are blessed!

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken with some of Matt's family this spring. It was a really nice day and we are so grateful to have captured some happy faces! We have had them for awhile, but haven't had the chance to put them up. The pictures were taken by Butch Ireland, the same photographer that did Matt's sister's engagement photos. He has a lot of talent and I love a lot of his photos and not just the ones of our family. I am also thankful for this little snapshot to include Matt's sister and the kid's cousin, Titus. We don't get too see them as often as we would like, but we are very glad for the times we do!

Celebrate!

Mattie is done with his second to last semester of his MBA as of 7:20 tonight!!! He has two weeks off from school and after that, 15 weeks of school until he is done! And some of those weeks he won't have class because they are counted for him when he goes on his international trip to Dubai and India. This semester was draining for him, lots of math in his head, and I'm so glad that the end is definitely in sight. He has worked hard and I am proud of him. Plus, he got Coldstone ice cream for us to celebrate on his way home, so I love him all the more for that! Now to start planning a graduation celebration! Still mad that he refuses to walk...

The Cure All

Very, very sick with this crazy and silly stomach bug that has been going around. There is no predicting when and where it will strike. It made for a very interesting road trip from Stephenville to College Station yesterday and today. Thank goodness it seems that I am the only one to have caught it this go around. Prayers that nobody else gets it!

However, it did provide the excellent opportunity to prove, once again, the end all, be all in cures for stomach bugs. Once the puking stops and you can hold in liquids without using the restroom as soon as you take a sip then you are ready for....wait for it...a...bean and cheese burrito from Taco Cabana. Matt's dad recommended the fiber trick to me back when I was subbing in 2007 and it has worked every single time in giving your stomach and digestive system something to hold onto as it "heals" from the bug. It definitely worked it's magic today!

A Good Day?

Today WAS a good day. I promise. But it was one of those days that's hard to classify as a good day. One of those days that you are feeling led to do, that's the right thing, that's good for everyone involved, but you keep running into roadblocks on your way to accomplish it. We had been trying, off and on, to see Matt's grandparents for the past six months. Finally the stars aligned for us to spend the weekend in College Station and use that as a staging point for a quick trip to Stephenville to see them for a few hours. We had it planned out and got the call yesterday that grandpa was in the hospital. After checking with Matt's dad, the doctor, it was determined that we could still visit and that grandpa was in his own room too. Yahoo! So we load up the expedition, grab snacks, plug in some movies for the girls, and listen to Johnny squeal and babble the whole way there. He has decided he is too big for a morning nap and is trying, relentlessly, to fight it. No biggie. He will be tired when we are there, but we will make it work. The trip took a bit longer than expected, but we wiggled our schedules around and stopped to get lunch to take to grandma. We picked a nice little deli and figured some cold sandwiches wouldn't take long to get. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. We placed our order and thirty minutes, an emergency bottle feeding, and 100 MacKenzie questions later we had our food to go. Ok. Almost there. Except Matt gets a call that grandma and grandpa are not at the hospital one block away, they are back at their apartment. Sigh. Ok. Plug in their address to Apple maps and get directions to an abandoned parking lot where Siri tells us we will have to walk to our destination. I told Matt that Siri has AI and is out to kill us but he doesn't believe me. We switch to Google maps and get led on a wild goose chase around Stephenville to go back to where we were at the hospital and then only slightly misled near their house. Once we finally got there it was a good visit. A worth it visit. But I really had to ask God for some help. Why was something so purely good, such a challenge towards the end?!?

Showin' Love

Gonna make this short and sweet... Today the girls and I showed love by making an Italian cream cake for my mother in law. Cake making equaling love is a life lesson I learned from my mother and is a lesson I am honored and blissfully excited to be showing my girls. To show them the care that goes into making someone's favorite cake from scratch, it's good for them to see. It's good for me to do. As a friend and I decided this week, if someone has something going on, your response should be, "I'm praying for you and bringing you a lasagna." It a casserole. Or gumbo. Or cake. Lots and lots of delicious cake. How do you show love?

Mac's confusion

When my grandmother, MawMaw passed away, we explained to MacKenzie the best we could. Her little 3.5 year old mind hasn't dealt with death in a large degree. We explained that we wouldn't be able to see her anymore because she died and went to heaven. The inevitable question of if we would be able to go to heaven came up and I explained to her that, hopefully, she wouldn't go to heaven for a long time.

We have been trying to see my other grandmother, Nana this week. When I talked to Mac about going to see her, she looked at me with a puzzled look on her face and ask where she lived. I said that she lives at her home and we haven't visited her at this place yet. She then said she thought Nana lived in heaven. I had to explain to her that she was thinking of MawMaw and that Nana was still with us here and we could still see her.

Funny how those little minds work. And very glad that we can still visit 3 of Mac's great grandparents!